Lifeboat capacity is based on a 75 kg (165 lb) person, and the seating area is 17" wide (butt width) and 24" from knees to butt. The crew use davit launched 65 man life rafts or Marine Evacuation Systems (MES), which are 100-150 man rafts with an inflatable chute to get down to the raft. Again using the 8500 number, the required amount of total life saving equipment is 10,625. So, there is enough lifeboat capacity for all passengers. With 16 crew per boat, that comes out to a lifeboat capacity of 6663. Now, using your number of 8500 total souls onboard Oasis, 75% is 6375, so having a lifeboat capacity of 6600 is more than required. ![]() There must be life saving equipment (boats, rafts, MES systems) totaling 125% of all souls onboard. If you noticed the large canisters lined up along with the life boats thats where the other, hopefully crew, 1800 are put.ĭoes it have enough? Yes, per SOLAS, there only needs to be lifeboats for 75% of all souls onboard. That means that there are around 1,850 people without the lifeboats which Royal Caribbean raves about. Oasis has a total maximum population of around 8,500 when you count its capacity of around 6,300 passengers and 2,200 crew members. The revolutionary new rescue vessels were designed for all Oasis class ships, including Harmony of the Seas, now under construction in France for launch in 2016.Not only would it be a extremely tight fit but there is not enough room for everyone.ġ8 lifeboats with a capacity of 370 equals only 6,660 people. So in addition to the quality and the improvements in the boats themselves, the deployment and location of them on board the vessel leads to additional safety.” “There’s just less moving parts and less actions that have to be taken to get the boats ready to be launched. “The guests literally just walk on, sit down and the vessel is lowered,” Pruitt says. Now granted, 370 people sharing a toilet is not going to be much fun, but at least it’s there.”īesides meeting all SOLAS requirements, the rescue vessels are easier to board because of their central location on the embarkation deck and easier to deploy with a new davit design eliminating the outswing required by earlier models. Typically lifeboats don’t have toilet facilities. “It has built-in firefighting systems for the engines,” Pruitt explains. Twin diesel engines and twin propellers enable the vessel to move at a speed of six knots, and twin rudders allow excellent maneuverability. A catamaran hull provides increased stability in high seas. Vacuum-molded from Fiberglass reinforced polyester, it is completely enclosed and has a profile reminiscent of the traditional railroad caboose. “It” came to being as the CRV55, no simple lifeboat, but a new kind of “rescue vessel,” the term Royal Caribbean officials prefer.īuilt by Norway’s Schat-Harding (now called Harding), each vessel can hold 370 people, including 16 crew members, and weighs 44 tons when fully loaded. “So we thought we could build a lifeboat that’s at least as safe, if not safer, even though it might exceed 150 persons.” “In the International Maritime Organization’s SOLAS or Safety of Life At Sea regulations, there was a provision on equivalent safety,” says Rich Pruitt, RCL vice president of safety and environmental stewardship. For starters, it had to be much bigger, more than double the existing 150-person maximum capacity set by maritime regulations. ![]() Royal Caribbean International’s Oasis of the Seas, the world’s largest cruise ship, required a new kind of lifeboat. It wasn’t until late in the first decade of the 21 st century that a true step change in lifeboat design and construction came about by necessity. In time, other amenities were added – partial or full enclosures, communications systems, engines. Early in the 20 th century, with the development of “Fleming gear,” lifeboats began to be equipped with levers that were pushed and pulled by the occupants, driving a propeller shaft to move their boat forward – similar to the workings of a paddle boat. Synchronous rowing for efficient propulsion is an acquired skill, so these open lifeboats left much to be desired. This was so much more than that.įor centuries, it evoked images of passengers and crew who escaped a troubled ship by sitting in an open boat, exposed to weather and rough seas, pulling oars to move away from trouble.
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