Dangerous lifeboats

Letter from Capt Kim Mockett MNI commenting on Dennis Barber's article "Dangerous lifeboats - a race to oblivion?" in Seaways August 2006

Seaways October 2006

Captain Barber’s article on lifeboats was absolutely excellent. It completely summarised the problems and fears that serving masters and ships’ staff have, about lifeboats and it should be compulsory reading for all those ashore who ‘police’ ships compliance with the Solas regulations – be they surveyor, auditor or company DPA.

The new Solas requirements were neatly summed up to me by one of the personnel onboard: we know that lifeboats are dangerous and crew are at risk every time they have to go near them, so let’s expose the crew to that risk even more often. It may not have been IMO’s intention but that is how IMO’s latest requirements have been viewed onboard, and, I suspect, in some offices.

On the only occasion where I was faced with the loss of the ship as a very real possibility, the weather was so bad it would have proved impossible to have launched the boats with any realistic expectation of survival of the crew – so all those years of exposure to risk would have been completely wasted.

If car seatbelts had killed as many people as lifeboats have killed seafarers, you can be sure we would not be bucklingup every time we get into a car.

Captain Kim Mockett MNI, at sea