Assessment of life saving appliances regulatory requirements — Human factors knowledge gaps
Life saving appliances are used throughout Canada and around the world every day by a large number of individuals who work or travel over open water. Personnel rely on these life saving appliances to help provide protection from harsh environments, and reduce the risk of injury or death in the event of a marine accident. Due to their importance in helping to save lives at sea, life saving appliances are built and tested according to specific standards and regulations to ensure that they provide the level of performance required. Unfortunately, life saving appliances do not always perform as expected which can lead to unexpected injuries or loss of life. Given that life saving appliances must meet specific performance goals as prescribed by standards and regulations, it is often these goals that fall short of what is actually needed during a marine accident. A knowledge gap is created when the testing conditions, as outlined in a standard or regulation, do not accurately reflect those conditions found during a marine accident. As a result, a life saving appliance will often meet performance goals that are below those required to prevent an injury or loss of life during an actual marine accident. The Canadian regulation: “Life Saving Equipment Regulations” C.R.C., c. 1436 was reviewed and possible knowledge gaps with respect to human factors were identified. The goals and requirements for life saving appliances in the regulation were compared against existing work done in the area of marine safety to determine if what was prescribed adequately reflected what could be found during a marine accident. There were many gaps identified in the regulation, commonly caused by prescriptive wording specifying conditions not commonly found during a marine accident. These knowledge gaps will widen as conditions become more severe than what is prescribed in the regulations possibly leading to even further decrease in life saving appliance performance than what is already measured.
The effects of towing on human performance in a life raft
Introduction: Evacuation from a ship or offshore installation is a hazardous undertaking, even in controlled situational and environmental circumstances. Life rafts are used in abandonment situations and are preferred to individual cold water entry. Life rafts can be self-launching and self-inflating and protect the occupants from extreme heat or cold. In high seas or winds, life raft motion could affect the performance of survival tasks, even while being towed. Despite the regulated and required use of life rafts, there is an absence of quantitative knowledge about life rafts and human performance in motion conditions. -- Methods: Twenty-four healthy male participants (23.8 ± 3.1 yrs, 177.7 ± 6.9 cm, 78.5 ± 11.4 kg) were given two hours of basic training by survival training experts prior to the data collection sessions. Canopy closure, movement within the life raft, sea anchor deployment and retrieval, paddling, and bailing were all demonstrated during the training session. Participants were asked to repeat these tasks during the data collection sessions whilst in a 16-person life raft that was being towed in either calm sea or controlled sea state 2 conditions in a self-contained tow tank facility. -- Results: In movements within the life raft, sea anchor retrieval, paddling, and bailing tasks there was a significant difference between the no wave condition and the wave condition. In canopy closure the quality and speed of completion showed improvement with practice. -- Conclusion: Quantitative data and qualitative observations for five tasks showed that motion, experience with the task, life raft design and equipment can all affect performance. Several recommendations to the current sea survival training standards are presented.
The Maritime Safety System, its Main Components and Elements
The basic concepts safety at sea and the maritime safety system have remained almost unchanged for a comparatively long time. However, the components and elements of these concepts are now subject to many changes created by the ‘information age’. This paper presents thoughts on today's concept of the maritime safety system, its main components and their elements. Although the thoughts and ideas presented are those of the authors, they take account of the legal instruments in force and recent developments in technology, especially developments in radio-communications. The paper provides an overall review of the institutions, regulations and procedures concerned with safety at sea.