Quality and proper maintenance vital for safety equipment onboard

In an exclusive interview with SAFETY4SEA at Nor-Shipping, Oslo, Mr. Baba Devani, Managing Director of Marine Operations at SURVITEC, discussed the need for owners and operators to emphasize on quality of safety equipment to ensure true compliance and safety performance. Safety, Mr. Devani argued, is way more than just obtaining a certificate.

Our key message from an industry perspective is safety, safety, safety.

When selecting safety equipment, it is important for the ship owner or operator to understand what the quality of the product they buy is, how it is manufactured, how it is tested, as well as what regulatory standards it meets, Mr. Devani said.

Hopefully a lot of this equipment does not get used so it may not be a huge risk of failure on the vessel. But when that risk of failure occurs on the vessel, then it is really important that the equipment works,

…he emphasized.

Therefore, to ensure safety performance onboard, operators have:

1. to satisfy themselves in the equipment work
2. to make sure they get that equipment serviced by a properly accredited and approved supplier.

For example, in life rafts, please make sure that you do get your maintenance certificate and your service certificate from either the OEM or from a service center approved by the OEM. That certificate is important because if you get it serviced by someone who is not approved, then, from a legal perspective, all of the liability of a failure of that equipment sets with view the vessel owner.

And that has a great impact, he noted:

1. Nobody wants to be responsible for loss of a life or a very bad injury.
2. From a commercial perspective, operators want to ensure legal compliance and make sure that any liabilities resulting from operating non-complying products will not exist in their contracts.
3. From an insurance perspective, if there is an accident-failure and some form of payment has to be made, the insurance company will be satisfied that the company has used the right supplier to maintain equipment. For life rafts, it has to be the OEM.

In summary, please buy good quality equipment, make sure it is properly maintained and please make sure you get it regularly serviced. And having a certificate which is a piece of paper is not enough,

…is Mr. Devani’s key message to the shipping community.