Leading global marine distress company Chemring Marine is attending the Annual General Meeting of ILAMA – the International Life-saving Appliances Manufacturers’ Association – to discuss the latest marine safety legislation issues.
Sales Director Justine Heeley is among delegates at the important annual meeting in Athens, Greece, which coincides with June’s Posidonia International Shipping Exhibition.
Chemring Marine regularly attends ILAMA meetings helping to influence safety legislation through lobbying national approval authorities and the International Maritime Organisation (IMO).
Among the main topics being discussed through ILAMA paper MSC 87/24/2 is ensuring that dated/fixed life products are replaced if they are due to be out-of-date before their next service is due.
The official IMO Regulations for dated items sealed within annually serviced liferafts are contained in Resolution A.761(18), which ILAMA has submitted to the IMO Maritime Safety Committee (MSC 87) for proposed amendment.
Currently, it allows product with over six months’ life remaining to be re-sealed within the liferaft. This means that at the next service they may be six months out of date. Resolution A.761(18) also allows a further five month extension of service (with approval from the administration), therefore a ‘dated item’ could be 11 months out of date, with the increased risk that signals do not perform to specification, as chemicals deteriorate with time.
Ms Heeley says, “It is important that standard practice is introduced globally and that fixed-life products are replaced before they expire, so they fully comply with required SOLAS standards.”
Posidonia, from 7-11 June, is attended by around 10,000 shipping professionals from around the world and features 1,800 exhibitors from 86 countries. This year, the event at the Hellenikon Exhibition Centre is expected to attract a record attendance from Asia. Delegates have been encouraged by a recent report stating confidence in the global freight market is at a 15-month high.
Pains Wessex is owned by Chemring Marine Ltd., based in Fareham, UK, which is part of the Chemring Group PLC. The company is the world’s leading supplier of SOLAS, MED & USCG-approved Marine Distress Signals to the commercial and leisure marine markets.
Pains Wessex’s comprehensive range of distress signals is available through a global network of more than 200 distributors in 70-plus countries and is specified by the world’s navies, merchant fleets, fishing vessels, rescue services, airlines and leisure craft.
Its products are trusted by the world’s commercial and leisure marine markets for their reliability and they have been saving lives for more than a century.