Evacuation system for passenger vessels

[John Arton]

Any thoughts about this newly developed passenger evacuation system developed by Viking marine. Watch the 3d animation.
https://gcaptain.com/viking-heavy-we...eid=3b737aa316
Rgds
J.A.

[Shaun Gander]

I can't see a lot of people wanting to climb into that.

SDG

[j.sabourn]

John, after the Piper Alpha disaster you would be surprised at the number of people who I was approached by re. as your post shows. That means of leaving a vessel in distress was put to me but more in the way of a chute from an aircraft. I made it obviously in no uncertain terms that I was an operator of ships and not a developer of commercial systems. Even before the Cullen report was concluded they were speculating how to improve the LSA systems that is now over 30 years ago. My reply to anyone who asked and I bothered to answer was more manpower was the answer and I still go by that, this of course was not passenger life safety which I suppose requires more thinking. The product shown in your post is made for commercial gain basically. And it’ will be up to their commerce dept to sell to the shipowner. After the Piper Alpha I resigned from the company I was with, which was on the cards regardless of the disaster as already had another job to go to with Harrison’s of Clyde. They lasted within a year before selling out in that line of business , so went with another well known name in the North Sea who about 3 ships later wanted me to sail with one seaman, I refused point blank , my recollections of the Piper Alpha were too vivid to be caught napping again by lack of people. So went with another company just starting up with US supply vessels from the Gulf of Mexico and converting them for the job in hand. He was an ex director of BUE which had just gone defunct and an ex shipmaster who had more idea of what was required. I stood by the conversion in Sunderland and took her out. She had gas alarms all over the ship, fresh water spray also all over the deck to wash off survivors of all the oil which one can expect , tv cameras you could watch from bridge of various areas of vessel, and many more bits and pieces, a beautiful hospital was also put on board which any surgeon would be. pleased to use, this was a big selling point and unnecessary to my thinking , but as I say was a selling point for any would be charterer. But the biggest point of the ship was he adhered to the 13 man crew which the Cullen report advocated at the. time and which others didnt. That company was Vector offshore I was master of their very first ship and they deserved to go from strength to strength and hope they did. your article about Viking is put on the market for commercial gain same as most things , and would imagine it will receive a mixed response from different people. myself I consider myself a ship operstor and will take most ships on, but to do that efficiently you need a crew around you with similar attitudes to the job. one bloke who came up to me and suggested having a modified grab to pick people out of the water , I told to bugger off and show some sense, a grab requires at least 1 person to drive and thats one more person you dont have today. Lord Cullen was perfectly correct when he advised more crew and I couldnt of made it any more plainer than I did at the enquiry.
All these super ideas coming out are there for commercial gain, wherher they would be practical or not only a disaster will decide. Cheers JS...

[j.sabourn]

#2... Shaun it’s not what they like it’s a matter of what they are capable of doing. Whether they want to live or die will also. Play a big part in their physical capabilities. To me I would consider having to disembark 3000 old people with all their infirmities a nightmare in itself, to be on fire or in storm conditions would not enhance the operation. One can only put LSA equipment on a vessel for basic safety of life. Every disaster will be different and impossibly to cover all eventualities, unless of course you have something like helicopter capacity for 3000, and even then will be at the mercy of weather conditions. Only safe place to be is safe at home curled round a bottle of rum. Passenger ships have never appealed to me, too many different stowage factors. Cheers. JS

[Shaun Gander]

#2... Shaun it’s not what they like it’s a matter of what they are capable of doing. Only safe place to be is safe at home curled round a bottle of rum. Passenger ships have never appealed to me, too many different stowage factors. Cheers. JS

I've been in passenger Ops for last 5 1/2 years now. Self loading freight... There is some strange force that wipes most people's common sense as soon as they use transit systems. I saw the same when I worked as a paramedic at Gatwick, they use the ability to make informed choices. Is not appropriate to be specific as I want to keep my job but the times I have wondered how some of them actually manage to get dressed on their own, let alone be capable of functioning as a normal human.

Looking at the average cruise passengers here when I worked for a tender company I also doubt a large number would fit!

Also how would you train with it? Lifeboat drills are 'easy' and most crew will have seen a life raft deployment in the STCW survival training, but this looks like a single use system.

SDG

[j.sabourn]

Shaun that’s the beauty of being retired. You have no one to answer to. If had spoken like this 50 years ago the demise of the MN would have been even sooner. People are always frightened of losing their jobs even more so today. We all think we can speak our minds , but we can’t when you are employed by someone else. That’s the rule of democracy it’s my way or the highway. Cheers JS

[happy daze john in oz]

The system would work well on a ferry service where the numbers are low.

However on a cruise ship with up to 6,000 bloods somehow I doubt it.
Depending on the season sees variations in the type of person travelling.

Very often there will be numerous numbers of older persons with walking aids, very often large numbers of children.
Not easy to get them into the chutes and do not agree with life jackets being on prior to using the chute, increases the risk of getting caught up on something and for the elderly could pose a problem.

Overall worth about an 8 out of 10, but it goes to show the industries are serious about providing better means of evacuation.

Some of the cruise ships now do have chutes for evacuation but open similar to the ones on aircraft.

[Shaun Gander]

Shaun that’s the beauty of being retired. You have no one to answer to. If had spoken like this 50 years ago the demise of the MN would have been even sooner. People are always frightened of losing their jobs even more so today. We all think we can speak our minds , but we can’t when you are employed by someone else. That’s the rule of democracy it’s my way or the highway. Cheers JS

It especially bad here as most companies are zero hour contracts and at will employment. You can be terminated almost instantly.

SDG

[robpage]

If you look at a lot of shipboard evacuations dating back over 100 years the biggest problem comes when you get a list on the ship knocking out 50% of the deployment of escape Gear how on earth you would escape 1000 passengers on a ferry used to worry me because 500 would go off by car and then 500 would try and kill each other to get the first down again way when you throw another note on the end of make it 5000 all I can say is the worst blood that comes to mind

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi John.
There was recently an episode where on one big luxury cruise liner one of the stabilizers failed, the passengers said that the rolling was so bad most of them were sea sick, can you imagine overweight, elderly and wheelchair bound sea sick people using that escape slide? They would be lucky to get most of them out of their bunks, and that would have to be without a panicking crew.
Cheers Des