Fire hoses have a maximum length as well as a minimum, nozzles must do two jobs, and every ship above 500 tons carries a brass flange that may never be used in its working life but has to be produced the moment an inspector asks for it. By MarineCraft Journal · 16 September … Read more
A lifebuoy is a ring that floats. The complication is that SOLAS does not treat them as interchangeable: it specifies which buoys carry lights, which carry smoke, which carry lifelines, and, crucially, which combinations are not allowed on the same buoy. By MarineCraft Journal · 15 September 2026 · 9 mins read Halfof … Read more
A ship carries more portable extinguishers than any other item of safety equipment, and each one runs on three separate clocks at once. The annual service is well known. The five and ten year requirements, and the spare charge arithmetic, are where operators come unstuck. By MarineCraft Journal · 14 September 2026 · … Read more
A dropped spanner from thirty metres carries roughly the energy of a small car at walking pace. Offshore lifting has more paperwork around it than almost any other routine task, and the reason is that the failure mode is measured in fatalities rather than delays. By MarineCraft Journal · 7 September 2026 … Read more
Distress signals are the only safety equipment aboard that expires on a fixed date whatever their condition, cannot lawfully be thrown away, and are checked on every inspection because the date is printed on the side. By MarineCraft Journal · 3 September 2026 · 8 mins read 12rocket parachute flares required to be … Read more
The emergency fire pump exists for the day the engine room is on fire and the main pumps are unreachable. It is tested rarely, sits in a compartment nobody visits, and fails on inspection more reliably than almost any other item aboard. By MarineCraft Journal · 2 September 2026 · 9 mins read … Read more
