Performance Assessment of Davit-Launched Lifeboat

In response to the recent changes to SOLAS, which further encourage the alternative design of life-saving appliances, the European Union has funded a Framework Programme 6 (FP6) project called SAFECRAFTS that was initiated by the Netherlands Research Organisation TNO. The aims of the project are two fold: to develop a methodology for assessing the performance of life saving systems (made up of life saving appliances or LSA); and to develop novel concepts. This paper focuses on the first objective and presents the results for conventional davit-launched lifeboats. The proposed performance indicator is the Success Rate of the evacuation process, which compares the final Human Health Status (the number of persons in good health, injured or deceased at the end of the process) with the initial Human Health Status (number of persons in good health onboard the mother ship). The Human Health Status calculation follows a step-by-step approach for both the human and the hardware as they progress along an obstacle course, which represents the evacuation sequence specific to the design. Associated to each obstacle is a transformation function that characterises the degradation of the Human Health Status. The determination of the transformation functions is based on first principle methods, risk analysis methods, and human factor methods some of which are inspired by the automotive industry. A scenario-based approach is applied to account for increasingly severe environmental and damaged ship conditions. In addition, the systems performance is represented along the evacuation and rescue route, so that it is possible to identify and quantify the contribution of individual obstacles to the overall degradation. This is essential to select the critical areas for improvement and support the development of innovative designs. Finally, the paper advocates that the set of scenarios and their associated Success Rates represent performance criteria for LSA which can be used for approving alternative designs and arrangements.