Page 8: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (July 2000)

Investment in Design

Vessel Safety Takes Center Stage

By David Tinsley, technical editor shipping sector.

The consensus view was of a need for a circumspect and proactive approach to operational safety issues, to better ensure the status quo as regards the good safety record demonstrated by the industry. In U.S. waters, it is understood that not a single passenger life has been lost over the past 16 years due to a casualty involving a large passengership.

With the stakes being so high, not only in human terms, but also as regards the well being of shipping's most dynamic business segment, there can be no room for complacency, even if the safety statistics indicate that the industry must be doing a lot that is right and appropriate.

Images brought to mind of possible situations where thousands of passengers and crew might have to be rapidly evacuated from a large cruise vessel in hostile

At a recent industry gathering in London, a series of presenta- tions on passengership safety issues inevitably but rightly raised nightmare scenarios of mass evacuation. However, the tone set by the speakers and par- ticipants at the conference "Safety of large passenger ships — looking to the future" was pragmatic rather than alarmist. Organized by the Institute of Marine

Engineers and the (U.K.) Maritime and Coastguard

Agency, the event drew observations on safety matters and perceptions of upcoming needs from qualified pro- fessionals, in the light of major expansion in the cruise ^£>.6.1 Alstom's Mermaid podded propulsor. • =s. t ) I weather conditions, amid great confusion, at night, per- haps in an ocean area with no other ships in the imme- diate vicinity and distant from search and rescue (SAR) resources, will hopefully never become a picture in reality.

But trends in cruise liner size, scale, complexity and numbers, passenger-to-crew ratios, and crewing aspects have set the alarm bells ringing, as have a num- ber of what might be termed close calls around the world in recent years. The manner in which certain incidents involving shipboard fire and other situations

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