A new high capacity evacuation system has been developed for ship-shaped offshore installations by Danish-headquartered Viking Life-Saving Equipment.
Designed to automate a key aspect of the disembarkation procedure, Viking Life-Saving Equipment’s Venoc system has been developed to simplify installation and maintenance, and to speed up the transfer of evacuees to liferafts, even in heavy seas.
Current evacuation procedures that involve high capacity liferafts require a member of the crew to descend the escape chute before passengers can disembark, in order to trigger the inflation of the first life raft. They also involve an intermediary loading platform, used by evacuees to transfer from the chute to the liferaft. According to Viking, both procedures slow down evacuation.
The Venoc system is an active chute and liferaft designed to evacuate up to 100 people from installation heights of 15m, 30m or 45m. Where competing chute-based systems use bowsing wire connections to the ship’s side to maintain stability, Viking has identified this solution as problematic, particularly as vessel widths increase.
The approach adopted with Venoc is to dispense with bowsing lines and instead attach a stabiliser weight, suspended from the bottom of the chute. The result is that the chute itself is neutral, even when the vessel is in extreme trim and list conditions. The innovative solution has undergone full heavy sea weather trials in the North Sea.
Housed in a container of approximately 3300mm X 2500mm X 2500mm on the open deck or between decks, on launch the Venoc system uses an electric winch to lower the chute, a buoyancy device and a deflated self-righting liferaft in a speedcontrolled manner. On contact with the water, the liferaft inflates automatically, negating the need for any crew member to enter the equipment before it is fully functional.
The Venoc system was developed with ease of installation and operation in mind, says Benny Carlsen, vice president of Viking Life-Saving Equipment Norway. ‘Rather than involving an intermediary loading platform, the main liferaft is connected directly to the buoyancy device, simplifying the boarding process once the evacuee has descended the chute.
‘We have also avoided the hassles linked with operating and repairing bowsing wires and lines, and no welding is needed on the ship’s side, while the system’s in-built winch can be used to lower and raise the liferaft. This means that no crane is required for servicing, because the liferaft is simply lowered to the quay for transport to the service station. It also means that the Venoc system can be raised and lowered at sea for crew training purposes.’
The new system offers viable competition to davit-based installations, while taking up around half the space on board ship before launch, believes Carlsen. Furthermore, after the first liferaft has been deployed, other liferafts can be deployed alongside. ‘In this way, liferafts are gathered together, making it likely that they will drift in the same direction, and thus facilitating speedier rescue,’ he explains.
According to Carlsen, the Venoc chute was lowered at a rate of 65m/min, meaning it could be fully extended from a height of 45m inside 50 seconds. A 100-person capacity liferaft would take two minutes to inflate fully, he says. Using the Venoc approach, 140 people could be evacuated from a ship within 10 minutes, and 420 over a 30-minute period, in line with SOLAS requirements set by the IMO.
Tank testing has been completed at Oceanic Consulting in Newfoundland, Canada. Other tests, including the sea trials that will lead to certification by class, are progressing towards an imminent commercial launch, says Carlsen. OE
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