The action plan for long-term work on passenger ship safety, agreed at the last session was also updated, to include additional items on the review of SOLAS regulation III/27, to add the nationality of all persons on board (current regulations already require a count of all passengers and information on their names and gender, distinguishing between adults, children and infants; and information on any passengers requiring special assistance, for search and rescue purposes). Also included in the action plan is a review of resolution A.893(21) Guidelines for voyage planning. The MSC also adopted amendments to
SOLAS regulation III/17-1 to require ships to have plans and procedures to recover persons from the water, as well as related Guidelines for development of plans and procedures for recovery of persons from the water. Also, a related MSC resolution on Implementation of SOLAS regulation III/17-1 to ships other than those engaged in international voyages was adopted. The amendments had been drafted previously and approved at the last session. The Committee also agreed to include “Passenger Ship Training” on the provisional agenda of the Sub-Committee on Standards of Training and Watchkeeping (STW 45).
INTELLIGENCE
• limiting access to the bridge to those with operational or operationally-related functions, during any period of restricted manoeuvring, or while manoeuvring in conditions that the master or company bridge procedures/policy deems to require increased vigilance (e.g. arrival/ departure from port, heavy traffic, poor visibility); and • ensuring that the ship’s voyage plan has taken into account IMO’s Guidelines for voyage planning, and, if appropriate, Guidelines on voyage planning for passenger ships operating in remote areas.
SOLAS amendments on lifeboat safety enter into force Amendments to SOLAS aimed at preventing accidents during lifeboat launching entered into force on 1 January 2013. The amendments, adopted in May 2011, add a new paragraph 5 to SOLAS regulation III/1, to require lifeboat on-load release mechanisms not complying with new International Life-Saving Appliances (LSA) Code requirements to be replaced, no later than the first scheduled dry-docking of the ship after 1 July 2014 but, in any case, not later than 1 July 2019. The SOLAS amendment is intended to establish new, stricter, safety standards for lifeboat release and retrieval systems, and will require the assessment and possible replacement of a large number of lifeboat release hooks. Information submitted by flag States on their assessments of existing lifeboat hooks is available on the Global Integrated Shipping Information System (GISIS), on the IMO website.
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