Survival suits

[j.sabourn]

How many have had experience with survival suits. I suppose this should come under a different classification than general, however don't think it matters too much. The few ships I have sailed on with survival suits the best equipped were those under the Norwegian flag. For those that were rarely seen in the offshore world for mariners, were all the same size to fit a 6 foot 6 inch giant. Whenever a request for smaller sizes were asked for this was always turned down on the excuse that the price of such suits was exorbidant. Whenever a muster with these suits on was organized it took 2 men to put on as had to zip up different parts that one could not physically reach. If trying to put one on by self would take a good 15 minutes. When finally got on was completely made redundant to any physical movement and used to twaddle around like a stranded duck. Feet were halfway down the legs and about 6 inches of both legs used to drag behind you. There is no doubt they would be invaluable in cold waters both for insulation and keeping you on the surface. The Norwegian vessels that carried were more convincing in their approach and used to put a choice of 3 sizes on board. These suits to be totally practicable should have been tailor made for the individual, however they are extremely expensive and coming back into the realms of practicability is outside the realms of safety issues as probably considered too luxurious. Like the FRCs they were practically unsinkable as doubt even if you wanted to put yourself out of your misery, would be unable to reach any zip to open up. I am going back 15 years now so hope the more modern suits if they are still in existence are a bit more practicable. Cheers JS

[John Arton]

John S
Survival suits are mandatory carriage requirements for all crew members on board ships these days which I always thought was a bit strange given the requirement for all lifeboats to be totally enclosed but I guess there could be situations where you could get into your survival suit yet still fail to get into the lifeboat. To provide a survival suit that fits each individual crew member would be almost impossible given the regular crew changes. On my last ships we had European Officers and Filipino ratings and in the main there would be around a foot difference in heights between them. Despite that we generally only had a one size fits all suit and these worked well, even being able to provide a water tight head and neck seal. I only ever came across one person who could not fit into a survival suit and that was a Latvian Master who I relieved who was so obese everyone, including the ships superintendent and crew manager could not understand how he had managed to get a medical certificate. He was so obese that he could not get around the ship so spent literally spent all day in his cabin getting his meals delivered to him and only leave it when his presence was required was required on the bridge which was fortunately for him only one deck up. Even then I was told that at some times he was that fat and lazy that he would not even leave his cabin for pilotage, delegating that too the mate, who on chemical tankers was the most hard worked soul on board in port and on arrival/departure times.
The follow on for the mandatory carriage of survival suits for all on board is that they are now required to be leak tested and certified as such, annually which usually means that they have to be landed to a shore station for testing each year as many ships these days do not have the facilities for on board testing and if if they did, many authorities no longer recognise ship issued certificates for numerous items of gear that we used to issue our own certificates for in years gone by.
rgds
JA

[j.sabourn]

Funnily enough if they were mandatory I never saw carried on stand by vessels in the North Sea. The closest thing to was boat suits which consisted of pilots suits ex Dyce airport which had been thrown out. We carried 4 for the boat crew, which would not be considered survival suits. Most Seismic vessels carried however, especially the Scandanavian ones. As regards the obese Master, I sailed with a similar chief engineer who the Indian steward had to carry to the bathroom and bathe. I think it a disgrace that people in that state should be in charge of a vessel, obviously only there to fulfil the obligations of the owners to have a piece of paper on board. A medical certificate I believe has always been mandatory in my time at sea, so also the rules are being broken or were never adhered to in the first place. All the Foreign going certs. I have British Australia Panama Cayman Islands Liberian and a few more had to have medicals for them all. How do they get away with that. My blood pressure was high and has always been high but when past 60 had to get back down or could not go to sea, and that is in Australia. Any Obese person is more than likely to have such problems apart from other levels of fitness. Cheers JS

[j.sabourn]

Lifeboats... Am not too enamoured with the carriage of such nowadays. Most shipping in latter years that I was on did not carry, and was substituted I suppose by the self inflatable liferaft, some of these ships had up to 60 of a crew on board so don't know what legalities if any should apply to them. As regards covered in lifeboats it was always the rule that the canvas boat cover should be retained in boat to do a similar duty. A lifeboats use is only good if one wants to go somewhere, nowadays on survival techniques one is taught to stay where you are and wait for someone to pick you up. Lifeboats are only good for well organized and suitable calamities, an exploding ship all one is going to see is panic from passengers and will be rare to find they will obey instructions that is if there is anyone there to give. The first instinct to a panicing passenger or crew member is to jump over the side. There again we come into the realms of the elderly who are probably unable to get a leg over the rail, however if they cant do that how can they get into a lifeboat which may appear easy to us but to an untrained person is somewhat different. My remedy was easy I don't like and avoided sailing with passengers. They are complicated pieces of cargo, highly inflammable, highly contagious, downright insubordinate and a pain in the ass. Best left in the case of liners to the good auspices of the purser and his team. Cheers JS