200339 Liferaft Canister Handling

Liferaft Canister Handling
Report No. 200339

I was observing a large, nearly new, north European registered cruise ship from the cruise terminal. The deck crew were moving life rafts in canisters to land them for service on shore. The first canister was removed from a rack on the boat deck with a rope sling attached to the liferaft hoist. The plan appeared to be to lower the raft to the promenade deck below and pull the raft through the railing onto the deck. An AB with a lifeline (attached to the railing gate!) leant out over the dockside to pull the canister towards the ship. Other crew members and officers were assisting. When the canister was one third through the railing, the on-load release hook on the cable opened from contact with the rail overhead. The liferaft was now being balanced on the edge of the deck with four persons hanging on to prevent it falling. Longshoremen (working underneath this mess) directed the crew to abandon their plan of bringing canister aboard, and convinced the crew to reattach the hoist line and lower the raft all the way to quayside. This was finally done safely. The Longshoremen then demonstrated how it should be done by shackling the strap to a link above the on-load release hook. However, their advice was not heeded and the on-load release hook was used to lower subsequent rafts to shore.

A Safety Alert was issued last year by the United States Coast Guard concerning the hazards of liferafts in canisters being loaded or unloaded. This was because a service engineer was killed when the canister fell to the quayside. This safety alert was reproduced in MARS 116 in June last year.