Refurbished ships-higher capacity-life boats?

I was wondering with all these ships scheduled for refurbishments with more staterooms being added, how does this effect the amount of lifeboats? Are some passengers going to be in life rafts if something unfortunate happens? It does not seem like they have added or had any more room for the lifeboats on the VY or FR class. Or were the lifeboats replaces /changed to accommodate more passengers?

I was wondering with all these ships scheduled for refurbishments with more staterooms being added, how does this effect the amount of lifeboats? Are some passengers going to be in life rafts if something unfortunate happens? It does not seem like they have added or had any more room for the lifeboats on the VY or FR class. Or were the lifeboats replaces /changed to accommodate more passengers?

Nope, they have enough space in the existing lifeboats for the additional passengers.

They have swimming lessons now - watch your cruise planner!

They don't need to have enough life boats for every person on board, however enough life saving devices such as these life rafts etc

what's probably happening is simply a reapportioning of the 'berths' on the ship

for example, there are recent threads of folks asking why when the room they booked says it has a third berth and they tried to add a third person they were told NO.

Ships are approved to accommodate X persons and a controlling factor in this number is the number of 'lifeboat' spaces (note that life raft spaces count in this number)

Ships may be built with more berths than this number (berth = 'bed') …. having every room ABLE to accommodate 3 or 4 affords a total berth number of Y and affords flexibility in selling rooms while the "agreement" has been made that the ship will not book more than X persons …. X equaling the 'approved load' which may be LESS than Y

So if for example QM2 adds some single person staterooms they can simply book fewer third persons and stay within their limits.

It gets more complicated when you look at distribution of staterooms to assigned lifeboats but you get the idea.

I'm not aware of any ship than changed out life boats to higher capacity ones during its life, especially due to an authorized increase in total passenger load. (not AWARE of)

What I have seen is ships of older construction still carrying older style life boats (open top) which are no longer permitted but are allowed under grandfather clause in the newer SOLAS recommendations.

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I had a funny experience along this very line in the early days of Disney Cruise Line. We sailed several times in the first years of ships one and two. On one cruise when we got our cabin assignment I checked 'the book' and the notations on the deck plans said the cabin did not have the fourth 'pulman' bunk, yet we WERE two adults and two kids. I called DCL and asked …

"No worries sir, all the rooms have that extra bunk, but if we put that in the book we don't have enuf lifeboats."

WHAAAAAAT???? I'm pretty sure the reservations person I was talking to had no idea she was talking to a senior officer of the Coast Guard … a person who could potentially shut down sailing on this point!!!!

Short version of the story …. I eventually had a discussion with a senior VP of the cruise line - the one responsible for training the kind of person I talked to!!!!! I knew what she meant …. BUT!

OH YES THEY DO … but in the definition of lifeboat space life raft space counts

SOLAS actually requires MORE than one seat per person - crew and pass'. It isn't 200% but it is more than 100%

as in many thing the devil is in the details

SOLAS develops 'recommendations' for Safety Of Life At Sea ….

it is up to COUNTRIES to apply and/or enforce these recommendations

In the US, most of SOLAS has been incorporated in to the US Code and is enforced as regulations by the US Coast Guard. A Cruise ship will not load pass' in a US port until the ship passes a USCG Safety Inspection - which is SOLAS and sometimes a bit more -

If your ship never touches a US port it is inspected by????? It complies with?????

I know ships that stay out of the US just because of this point …. and if you are on a ship making its FIRST visit to the US …. don't be in a hurry to load and go!

As has been stated life rafts count.

In January of 2017 we were on the Grandeur of the Seas when she lost a life raft in Charleston. (broke off while testing, landed upside down in the water) We were delayed a couple hours while extra rafts were loaded and the Coast Guard recertified the ship. In the case of adding more cabins to the ships, they can add life rafts to cover the added capacity.

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=256002&d=1356982216

Thanks for posting this attachment. Very interesting and made me wonder about the “overflow in liferafts”.

So I have some questions for our maritime experts out here.

I would imagine the cruise line wouldn’t want a passenger to know they were an overflow. Is the overflow designation applied to individual passengers or, my guess, to the muster station? Or to the ship as a whole?

Would the overflow be assigned to a muster station(s) that has a liferaft right next to a lifeboat, thereby negating the need to let passengers know there was an overflow at that station unless and until it became necessary to man the lifeboats? Would it then be first come first served as to the overflow placed in lifeboats versus liferafts? Or would overflow passengers actually be assigned to a liferaft from the get go?

Just curious and pray neither you nor I ever have to experience abandoning ship for real.

~ Judy

A few comments.

Liferafts cannot be considered for use by passengers unless the launching arrangement is such that the system can evacuate 500 persons in 30 minutes. The crew have davit launched liferafts so that they can do "dry" evacuations, and get around the SOLAS requirement for having immersion suits for every crew member. However, these systems are not fast enough to qualify for passenger use. Some ships use Marine Evacuation Systems (MES) which are clusters of large rafts and an inflatable chute to get down to the rafts, and these systems do meet the time requirements. Since SOLAS does not place a time constraint on crew evacuation, the slower davit launched rafts are acceptable for them. Remember, when the passengers get into the boats and leave the ship, the only crew that have abandoned the ship are the 2-3 assigned to each lifeboat. All the rest are still at their emergency stations until signaled to abandon ship when they will go to their life raft stations. These liferaft stations are typically placed in between the lifeboat stations, and cannot be efficiently used until the passengers and their boats are away.

Passenger vessels are required to have 125% of all souls onboard in lifesaving appliances; boats, MES, rafts.

USCG safety inspections are limited to ensuring that SOLAS and other international conventions; MLC 2006, MARPOL (even the US ECA emissions regulations are part of MARPOL), ISM, ISPS. The USCG cannot enforce any more stringent regulations on foreign flag ships than those agreed to by international convention. The USCG has more stringent regulations for US flag ships, but can only apply those to US flag ships. SOLAS, and all the international conventions have had "enabling legislation" passed in all signatory nations, as required by the conventions, making these international conventions the law of the land in those nations signatory to them.

If a ship never touches a US port, it is governed by the international conventions, and it is the responsibility of the port states (the country the ship is docked in) to inspect the ship, or not. This is what the USCG does for foreign flag ships, they are merely acting as "Port State Control". Additionally, the ship is inspected by the classification society, as the insurance underwriter, and frequently on behalf of the flag state as well, which provides a "Certificate of Class", without which the ship cannot enter or leave port.

I do agree that what is done when adding cabins is that either there was excess capacity in the boats (they come in fixed sizes) compared to the designed maximum capacity of the ship, or they are planning on restricting the excess (3rd/4th) guests allowed to book. The ship makes more money on guests #1 & 2, than they do on #3 & 4.

Thanks for posting this attachment. Very interesting and made me wonder about the “overflow in liferafts”.

 

So I have some questions for our maritime experts out here.

 

I would imagine the cruise line wouldn’t want a passenger to know they were an overflow. Is the overflow designation applied to individual passengers or, my guess, to the muster station? Or to the ship as a whole?

 

Would the overflow be assigned to a muster station(s) that has a liferaft right next to a lifeboat, thereby negating the need to let passengers know there was an overflow at that station unless and until it became necessary to man the lifeboats? Would it then be first come first served as to the overflow placed in lifeboats versus liferafts? Or would overflow passengers actually be assigned to a liferaft from the get go?

 

 

Just curious and pray neither you nor I ever have to experience abandoning ship for real.

 

 

~ Judy

I'm not sure of the ship that is pictured, and whether the "overflow" are to MES systems or davit launched liferafts. I would be very surprised if it were to davit rafts. I've never seen the station bill for a ship with MES rafts, though I know some of the NCL ships have them, so I'm not sure how the assignment is handled, but I would suspect it is written on the muster station list that 3rd/4th guests in cabins are assigned to an MES, if there are not enough boat space.

From https://www.rina.org.uk/lifeboats.html

Modern passenger ships engaged on international voyages, which are not short must carry partially or totally enclosed lifeboats on each side to accommodate not less than 50% of the total number of persons on board (in other words, the two sides together must equal at least 100%. Some lifeboats can be substituted by liferafts. In addition, inflatable or rigid liferafts to accommodate at least 25% of the total number of persons on board. Sufficient lifeboats and life rafts of such capacity as to accommodate 125% of the total number of people on board.

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Thanks for your informative replies Chief. As always, much appreciated.

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I do agree that what is done when adding cabins is that either there was excess capacity in the boats (they come in fixed sizes) compared to the designed maximum capacity of the ship, or they are planning on restricting the excess (3rd/4th) guests allowed to book. The ship makes more money on guests #1 & 2, than they do on #3 & 4.

I agree. Also, by removing or relocating sofa beds in cabins that were previously marked as triples/quads, Royal is probably trying to minimize the possible overflow at any given muster station affected by the addition of cabins.

I'm not sure of the ship that is pictured, and whether the "overflow" are to MES systems or davit launched liferafts. I would be very surprised if it were to davit rafts. I've never seen the station bill for a ship with MES rafts, though I know some of the NCL ships have them, so I'm not sure how the assignment is handled, but I would suspect it is written on the muster station list that 3rd/4th guests in cabins are assigned to an MES, if there are not enough boat space.

Perhaps setsail, who posted the link, can shed some light on what ship is pictured.

I don’t know about your guess as to how MES assignment is handled for the overflow though. I would venture to say that the majority of 3rd/4th guests are children. While older children might find the chutes adventurous, it wouldn’t be practical for younger children or advisable to split up families unless there were no alternative.

So I still wonder how the cruise line determines and handles the passengers designated as overflow.

~ Judy

The Oasis class ships have far less capacity in their boats vs passengers plus crew. The crew gets the joy of using these:

Plus, all of this is academic anyway. In reality, you get things like Concordia that happen. Not everyone got off in the boats. If they hadn't run aground, it likely would have been a lot worse. You can have the best equipment in the world, but when you have people in the equation things can and do go wrong. With Concordia, the crew waited so long to launch the boats that the ship was listing too much to launch some on the portside.

The Oasis class ships have far less capacity in their boats vs passengers plus crew. The crew gets the joy of using these:

 

 

Plus, all of this is academic anyway. In reality, you get things like Concordia that happen. Not everyone got off in the boats. If they hadn't run aground, it likely would have been a lot worse. You can have the best equipment in the world, but when you have people in the equation things can and do go wrong. With Concordia, the crew waited so long to launch the boats that the ship was listing too much to launch some on the portside.

Well, apparently “overflow” passengers also get the joy of using the chutes or whatever will get them into the liferafts when the lifeboat capacity is exceeded. 😱

While I agree that people are the unknown equation, one of the most important things would be to avoid a panic. How would passengers react to being told there is no room on a lifeboat for them? Should this be disclosed at the muster drill, or even upon booking, and would that be better or worse than waiting until an actual emergency?

While there are scenarios where it might not be possible to launch all the lifeboats, on whatever ship is depicted in setsail’s picture, at least 39 passengers were already overflow relegated to liferafts at the time of sailing.

When and how is it determined which passengers are chosen? When are they told? Would it affect your decision to sail if you knew pre-cruise that you or a family member was one of the chosen?

~ Judy

I also wonder what about those passengers who are on the larger side. Do they count as 2/3 people in the lifeboat?

The Oasis class ships have far less capacity in their boats vs passengers plus crew. The crew gets the joy of using these:

 

 

 

Plus, all of this is academic anyway. In reality, you get things like Concordia that happen. Not everyone got off in the boats. If they hadn't run aground, it likely would have been a lot worse. You can have the best equipment in the world, but when you have people in the equation things can and do go wrong. With Concordia, the crew waited so long to launch the boats that the ship was listing too much to launch some on the portside.

Unfortunately, everyone uses the Concordia as the only recent example of a cruise ship needing to be evacuated, though the Prinsendam in 1980 did so without loss of life. The debacle of the Concordia starts and ends with the failure of Schettino to call the passenger muster in a timely fashion. Had he done so, all of the boats could have been loaded and launched without loss of life or panic, and then the crew could have evacuated in their rafts. In fact, the second grounding of the ship is what caused it to heel over and cause the problems with launching lifeboats and rafts. In the open water, the ship would have gone down upright, but down by the stern, which doesn't cause difficulties in launching craft. As it was, 23 of 26 lifeboats were successfully launched, and the Italian Coast Guard estimates that 2/3rds of the people rescued reached shore in the ship's equipment.

In fact, the Oasis class have more crew in lifeboats than other ships. Most ships have the traditional 150 man lifeboats, and there are only 2-3 crew assigned to each boat. The 370 man lifeboats on the Oasis class ships have 16 crew assigned to each boat. On every cruise ship, 99% of the crew use life rafts, either davit launched or using evacuation chutes.

 

In fact, the Oasis class have more crew in lifeboats than other ships. Most ships have the traditional 150 man lifeboats, and there are only 2-3 crew assigned to each boat. The 370 man lifeboats on the Oasis class ships have 16 crew assigned to each boat. On every cruise ship, 99% of the crew use life rafts, either davit launched or using evacuation chutes.

Chief, is the number of crew aboard the lifeboat mandated or is that something that Royal could reduce in order to accommodate more passengers on the ship? If they reduced the number of crew per lifeboat to 6 that could potentially free up 180 additional spaces for passengers.

Chief, is the number of crew aboard the lifeboat mandated or is that something that Royal could reduce in order to accommodate more passengers on the ship? If they reduced the number of crew per lifeboat to 6 that could potentially free up 180 additional spaces for passengers.

I'm not completely familiar with the statutory requirements for these "mega" lifeboats. As far as I know, SOLAS only requires two certified lifeboatmen per lifeboat (even though those certified lifeboatmen would most likely not be anywhere near the boats at the time of evacuation, nor normally assigned as crew of the lifeboats). The class societies may well have some requirement to have additional crew in these boats to assist in crowd control, but I think 16 may be more than is required, but may be considered necessary to efficiently load the boat in the time mandated.

When and how is it determined which passengers are chosen? When are they told? Would it affect your decision to sail if you knew pre-cruise that you or a family member was one of the chosen?

 

~ Judy

Judy - This would not affect my decision to sail, as the odds of needing to abandon ship would seem to be very, VERY low. So long as my family will survive in such a rare situation, I'm good. Is your question based on the concern that options other than the lifeboats are more risky? That families will be separated? Chief...any data that shows that the boats are safer than rafts or other options?

usually the walking track is located on the lifeboat deck, I have always made a habit of counting lifeboat and capacity while walking. There is usually quite a bit more capacity of lifeboats than the rated capacity of the boat. Plus the inflatable life rafts have a lot of capacity.

Unfortunately, everyone uses the Concordia as the only recent example of a cruise ship needing to be evacuated, though the Prinsendam in 1980 did so without loss of life. The debacle of the Concordia starts and ends with the failure of Schettino to call the passenger muster in a timely fashion. Had he done so, all of the boats could have been loaded and launched without loss of life or panic, and then the crew could have evacuated in their rafts. In fact, the second grounding of the ship is what caused it to heel over and cause the problems with launching lifeboats and rafts. In the open water, the ship would have gone down upright, but down by the stern, which doesn't cause difficulties in launching craft. As it was, 23 of 26 lifeboats were successfully launched, and the Italian Coast Guard estimates that 2/3rds of the people rescued reached shore in the ship's equipment.

 

In fact, the Oasis class have more crew in lifeboats than other ships. Most ships have the traditional 150 man lifeboats, and there are only 2-3 crew assigned to each boat. The 370 man lifeboats on the Oasis class ships have 16 crew assigned to each boat. On every cruise ship, 99% of the crew use life rafts, either davit launched or using evacuation chutes.

Thank you as always, "Chief". Was hoping you would come back and comment/correct misconceptions of Concordia. Even with some knowledge what you were explaining, there is no way I could as you do...

From the numbers shown, I believe the example shown is from a Vision Class ship.

The 39 overflow is from the total onboard. Since the passengers load first, the overflow would be crew.

As has been mentioned, it is extremely rare that it is necessary to use the lifeboats.

From the numbers shown, I believe the example shown is from a Vision Class ship.

 

The 39 overflow is from the total onboard. Since the passengers load first, the overflow would be crew. V

 

As has been mentioned, it is extremely rare that it is necessary to use the lifeboats.

No, the 39 overflow is passengers not crew. With 845 crew and 2613 pax, it shows total onboard as 3458 and maximum pax in lifeboats is fixed at 2574.

~ Judy

Judy - This would not affect my decision to sail, as the odds of needing to abandon ship would seem to be very, VERY low. So long as my family will survive in such a rare situation, I'm good. Is your question based on the concern that options other than the lifeboats are more risky? That families will be separated? Chief...any data that shows that the boats are safer than rafts or other options?

For me personally, I have no concerns but am merely curious as I was surprised to learn that cruise ships sail with a known overflow of more passengers than the lifeboats can hold.

While I don’t know if or under what circumstances the rafts may be riskier (any data Chief?), I can envision the heightened anxiety of passengers who may think so and was just wondering what procedures are in effect to determine/handle who is overflow and avoid possibly panicking them.

But as pointed out, the odds of ever having to use the lifeboats and liferafts to abandon ship is thankfully extremely low.

~ Judy