Dover Calais Ferry Ships Safety

Dover Calais Ferries Ships Safety

 If you travel on the large car ferries from Dover to Calais whether
with P&O or SeaFrance you may notice an absence of conventional
lifeboats and wonder how do you get off in an emergency. For instance
the Pride of Canterbury has no lifeboats and as far as anybody can
see, no liferafts visible. The Seafrance vessels are much the same,
but do have a couple of liferafts.

 The answer is tha they use a 'MarinArk' or similar Marine Escape
System. All you will see on the outside of the superstructure is
square shaped panels. When deployed you get either a vertical tunnel
or sloping chute where the people slide down into a large infaltable
holding area and from there are decanted to the inflateable rafts or
may go straight into rafts. Most, if not all the kit ( does vary from
make to make ) will not be visible when it is stowed. This is similar
to the chutes used on aircraft.

 There are occasional tests on the Dover Calais Ferry route when the
system is tried out with voluteers on a special sailing for crews to
practice putting the system though its paces. The evacuation of large
numbers in a short time by a smal crew is impressive.

 The Pride of Dover and the Pride of Calais were the first of the Dover
fleet to have MES fitted in conjuction with conventional lifeboats.
The Spirit of Free Enterprise, Herald of Free Enterprise, Pride of
Free Enterprise, all had a 16 Liferaft MES System on D Deck in
conjunction with Lifeboats which were lowered from E Deck.

Posted via email from Dover Calais Ferry