Why Don't Ships Have Enough Lifeboats?

you may or may not know that legally cruise ships do not actually need to carry enough lifeboats for everyone on board in fact the safety of life at sea convention the one that came in after the titanic disaster specifically states that the minimum number of lifeboats that a passenger ship needs must accommodate only 37 and a half percent of the ship's capacity on either side that's only 75 percent of the total number on board the other 25 may be accommodated in life rafts instead a life raft is just an inflatable survival craft that can accommodate passengers and crew in an emergency this particular life raft was made by safre another youtube channel that focuses on the engineering side of the maritime industry they've published the second part of this life raft video where they'll show you why a life raft is shaped the way it is what equipment it has on board and where the equipment is stowed you'll find a link to that video in the description down below anyway if you've been around smaller boats i'm talking about yachts or motorboats you may have seen life rafts before they're usually stored in a white fiberglass case and secured with a hydrostatic release basically if your boat sinks the water pressure will activate the hydrostatic release and fire a blade through the line securing the life raft allowing it to float free as it floats towards the surface your sinking boat pulls the painter tight inflating your raft the fully inflated raft provides enough buoyancy to apply sufficient force to break the weak link separating the life raft from your sinking vessel of course you would usually aim to launch your life raft before your ship sinks small life rafts only have a capacity for between one and six people making them light enough to deploy manually on a ship however things are a little different their rafts are much larger often with a capacity for 25 people making them much heavier and much harder to launch this one weighs around 180 kilos or for my american friends almost 400 pounds much of that weight is the drinking water that they need which is one and a half liters per person of course to see the full equipment in detail remember to check out savare's video after this one ship's life rafts still have a hydrostatic release so they will float free if needed but again the hope is that you can launch them before your ship sinks of course with the large freeboard of a commercial ship you can't easily throw it in and climb aboard so you would actually board before it's even lowered into the water though it is possible to board at water level because ships do have rope ladders that you can climb down if needed it's just much easier to get in at deck level instead which you can do because larger rafts are launched by a davit with davitt launch rafts you first attach the canister securing lines to your vessel these stop the fiberglass canisters from falling into the water and creating a hazard during launch then you attach the port and starboard bouncing lines to the appropriate cleats often you'll find them colour-coded with the green starboard bouncing line attaching to the green clayton the red line to the red cleat next you open the cover on the canister to get to the main securing shackle which you attach to the offload release hook of the davit an offload release is a clever bit of kit that securely attaches when the life raft is at deck level as you get close to the water you arm the release by pulling on the arming line unlocking the hook the shape of the hook is such that when the weight of the raft is present the hook stays in place as soon as the weight lifts the shape and mass of the hook itself swings it out of the way essentially as soon as the raft touches the water it automatically releases hence the term offload release it releases when the load comes off anyway back on deck you've attached the main shackle of the raft to the davit the canister securing lines to the ship and the bouncing lines to the deck you then lift the raft with the davit to swing it over the side once there you pull the inflation cord the raft inflates and the canisters swing clear and dangle from the canister's securing lines you then pull the raft to the ship using the bouncing lines so that it's ready to load remember make sure you load the raft evenly and to capacity as people get in direct them to spread the load out as best you can when everyone's in you release the bouncing line slowly letting the raft swing clear of the ship's side once clear and safely hanging from the defect the crew in the raft pull the brake release which lowers them down to the water near water level you would stop arm the release hook and then continue your descent as soon as the raft touches the water and the weight comes off the hook the raft is free the crew on the ship can winch the hook back up to prepare the next raft for launching in the water powered survival craft will help maneuver the life raft clear of the ship when i worked on cruise ships the evacuation plan used the ship's fast rescue craft to tow the life rafts away from the ship's side and towards the bigger lifeboats they had substantial engines so are quite capable of towing fully laden life rafts of course you don't need to tow them a long way as long as you have the rafts and boats together close to where the ship sinks you stand the best chance of survival remember the bridge will have sent out distress signals locally using vhf maybe slightly longer range using mfhf radios or even globally using imasat-c or an e-perp all those communications will have contained the ship's position so if no further communication can be sent you know that is the first place that rescuers are gonna start looking and that brings us to the end of today's video remember go and check out part two of this video using the link in the description severe will take you through the tools and equipment found inside a life raft and explain why it is shaped the way it is until next time thank you for watching and goodbye

Channel: Casual Navigation

Views: 944,894

Keywords: casual navigator, marine, shipping, casual navigation, maritime explaination, merchant navy, sailing, marine animation, liferaft, davit launched liferaft, ship liferaft

Id: FwuS7BQDgE4

Length: 5min 47sec (347 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 17 2021