The Maritime Safety Committee
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Statutory Documents - IMO Publications and Documents - Circulars - Maritime Safety Committee - MSC/Circular.811 – Identification of Float-Free Arrangements For Liferafts – (Adopted on 8 July 1997) - The Maritime Safety Committee

The Maritime Safety Committee

  1 The Maritime Safety Committee, at its sixty-eighth session (28 May to 6 June 1997), noted that there were three systems used in float-free arrangements, i.e. the external weak link system, the internal weak link system and the non-weak link system (see examples at annex). Because of this, compliance of any of the three systems with SOLAS regulation III/38.6.1 (section 4.1.6 of the LSA Code) could not be easily verified and this might cause difficulties, particularly to port State control officers.

  2 The Committee, therefore, recommended that inflatable liferafts using internal or weak link systems should be marked on the outside of the container with appropriate wording or pictograms indicating the system used for the float-free arrangement.

  3 Member Governments are invited to bring the above recommendation and the annex thereto to the attention of shipowners, shipping companies, liferaft manufacturers, liferaft servicing stations and all others involved in the manufacture, installation and servicing of inflatable liferafts, as well as port State control officers.

Parent topic: MSC/Circular.811 – Identification of Float-Free Arrangements For Liferafts – (Adopted on 8 July 1997)
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