| |
| |
 |
GMDSS Handbook
|
 |
|
| |
|
Annex - 7-3
EQUIVALENT ARRANGEMENTS FOR SURVIVAL CRAFT EMERGENCY POSITION-INDICATING RADIO BEACONS
|
| |
1. At its fifty-second session the Maritime Safety Committee (MSC 52/28, paragraph 10.4) approved the draft recommendation on equivalent arrangements for survival craft emergency position-indicating radio beacons.
2. At the request of the Committee the above recommendation, set out in the attached annex, is brought to the attention of Member Governments. |
| |
|
Annex
RECOMMENDATION ON EQUIVALENT ARRANGEMENTS FOR SURVIVAL CRAFT EMERGENCY POSITION-INDICATING RADIO BEACONS
|
| |
1 INTRODUCTION
The Maritime Safety Committee:
1. has approved the requirements of the future global maritime distress and safety system (FGMDSS) and, on the basis of these requirements, is developing proposals for a revised chapter IV of the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), 1974;
2. has noted that regulation III/6.2.3 of the 1983 SOLAS amendments, which are to enter into force on 1 July 1986, will introduce a requirement for the carriage of survival craft emergency position- indicating radio beacons (EPIRBs);
3. has decided that the survival craft EPIRB specified in the 1983 SOLAS amendments will not be a mandatory requirement after the FGMDSS is implemented around 1990;
4. has decided that float-free satellite EPIRBs operating on 406 MHz through the low polar-orbiting satellite system will be used for distress alerting and initial position locating and updating in the FGMDSS;
5. realizes that a radar transponder does not fulfil the alerting function, which is not mandatorily required by regulation IV /14-1 of the 1983 SOLAS amendments but this function can be met with the EPIRB, and confirms its support for resolution A.568(14), which encourages the use of 406 MHz EPIRBs;
6. has decided that radar transponders will provide the main means for locating on survival craft in the FGMDSS; and
7. wishes to avoid the added expense of fitting survival craft on new ships with the EPIRBs specified in regulation III/6.2.3 of the 1974 SOLAS Convention, as amended in 1986, and then again with radar transponders after the FGMDSS is implemented. |
2. RECOMMENDATION
Based on the foregoing, the Committee recommends that Administrations accept survival craft radar transponders conforming to performance standards to be developed by the Maritime Safety Committee as equivalent to survival craft EPIRBs to perform the locating function, for the purposes of regulation III/6.2.3 of the 1983 amendments to the 1974 SOLAS Convention. The Committee also recommends that the ship itself be fitted with a float-free satellite EPIRB in order to provide the alerting function. |
| |
| |
| |
|
| |
| |
|
|
