All standard life-saving equipment on board any vessel can be divided into two main groups: personal life-saving appliances and survival craft. Many vessels also carry rescue boats but the later have limited purposes and therefore can be considered as a separate group.
Personal life-saving appliances include life-jackets, immersion or survival suits, thermal protective aids and life-buoys.
Life-jacket. There must be at least one approved life-jacket for every person on board. It is kept ready for use in a box specially provided for this purpose either in a cabin or on the boat deck or near the muster station. Additional life-jackets must also be stored elsewhere, e.g. on the navigating bridge for the persons on watch there. Life-jackets can be either rigid or inflatable.
The neck and the chest pieces of rigid life-jackets are made these days from rigid-foam blocks covered with coated fabric. The materials of rigid life-jackets must be resistant to wetting, washing, cleaning agents, oil and oil products. They must also be rot-proof, salt-water and aging resistant, hard to ignite and resistant to microorganisms.
The outside surfaces of life-jackets are usually dyed orange or luminous red. Life-jackets are usually fitted with straps for fixing them to the human body, while their above-water parts have retro-reflective strips for easier detection of a person in the water in darkness. The life-jackets are also equipped with signal whistles and lights working from chemical batteries when water gets inside them.
The inflatable life-jackets must meet most basic requirements for rigid life-jackets regarding the stability and strength of the material, the buoyancy and distance of the mouth above the water, the ability to turn, the fitting with required accessories, etc. Such a life-jacket must inflate automatically upon immersion and must be fitted with a device which permits inflation by a single movement of the hand, and be capable of being inflated by mouth (mouth-inflation valve).
Survival suit. The survival suit protects the wearer in distress against hypothermia. It covers the entire body including head, hands and feet and leaves only the face uncovered. The gloves are firmly fastened to the suit and have at least three fingers.
The survival suit is made from closed-cell neoprene or from plastic-coated fabric with thermally-insulating material applied on the inside and a reserve of buoyancy. Depending on the type, it is worn either with or without a life-jacket. A watertight zip fastens the suit. The way the hood seals against the face, ensures that the angle of vision of at least 120 degrees remains.
The survival suit allows the wearer:
to climb up or down vertical ladders
to carry out the tasks involved in abandoning the ship
to jump into the water from a low height
to swim a short distance and board the survival craft
to remain in water at 0 degree centigrade for at least 6 hours without suffering from hypothermia.
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A survival suit with adequate inherent buoyancy and intended to be worn without a life-jacket is equipped with an approved light and a signal whistle.
If the survival suit has to be worn with an approved life-jacket, that life-jacket has to be worn over the suit. The life-jacket can be donned by a person wearing such a suit without outside help. With this type of a survival suit the life-jacket instead of it is equipped with an approved light.
The survival suit is provided with a connecting line to allow several persons floating in the water to link up or fasten onto a floating object. It is also fitted with approved retro-reflective material.
Thermal protective aids. Cargo and passenger vessels are equipped with approved thermal protective aids. For every life-boat or life-raft there are thermal protective aids for three people or ten per cent of the approved number of persons whichever is the greater.
Thermal protective aids protect wearers in open life-boats against getting soaked and against hypothermia.
The thermal protective aid consists of a waterproof, sack-shaped covering with closed sleeves, hood and zip-fastener. The material is a coated waterproof foil with a low specific thermal conductivity ( ), reinforced to increase resistance to tearing ( ).
Thermal protective aids
are worn on top of the clothing
cover the entire body except for the face
can without outside help be unpacked and put on in a survival craft
can be removed in not more than 2 minutes in the water if they impede the wearers swimming
are effective and easy to handle over a temperature range from -30 degrees to +20 degrees centigrade.
Life-buoy. All cargo and passenger vessels are equipped with life-buoys which help to keep a person in the water afloat. The life-buoys are made of solid cork or foamed plastic. An approved life-buoy shall be capable of floating in fresh water for at least 24 hours with the weight of about 15 kg suspended from it. Every life-buoy shall have an outer diameter of not less than 400mm and shall be painted a highly visible colour.
At least one of each side must be fitted with a life-line not less than 15 fathoms in length and a self-igniting light must be attached by 4 metres of good line to each of half the number of life-buoys carried.
Both passenger and cargo vessels must carry a life-buoy on each side of the navigating bridge in such a way that they can be promptly released to drop clear of the ships side. Such life-buoys must have attached to them self-igniting lights and self-activating smoke signals.
As to using a life-buoy, the easiest way to enter it in the water is to depress the nearest edge. The far side will then rise and drop over the head.
Notes to the text:
life-saving equipment --
survival craft
rescue boat
survival suit
thermal protective aid
inflatable
rigid foam
coated fabric
rot-proof , ,
dye ,
luminous
accessories , ,
hypothermia
neoprene
hood
inherent ;
impede , ; ;
cork ,
