DESSO aims for a ship which is its own lifeboat

A workshop concerning ship safety will be held on 15-16 June in Gothenburg, to discuss the DESSO project (Design for Survival Onboard) which was started in December 2003. This was established as a result of the VINNOVA (the Swedish Agency for Innovation Systems) call ‘MARITIME SAFETY 2003-2005 – a new step towards a zero vision ‘in which the term ‘a ship which is its own lifeboat’ was used.

The objective is to develop a conceptual ship design that will allow the ship to stay afloat long enough, in the case of an accident, to allow all passengers to be rescued with traditional external means. An accident can be a collision, grounding, fire, terrorist attack, etc, and the project will focus on a ropax design.

SSPA Sweden AB is acting as project leader, and the other participants are Chalmers Lindholmen, Chalmers University of Technology, Globtech , Kockums Sonics, Lloyd’s Register of Shipping , Silja Line, Stena AB, SP Swedish National Testing and Research Institute (Fire Technology) and The Swedish Club.

15 European experts are invited to the workshop which will focus on 8 special topics:

* Chain-breakers (how to break a chain of events in order to avoid a catastrophe).

* Prevention, detection and suppression of fire.

* Decision support.

* Security.

* Arrangements for avoiding capsizing and sinking.

* Functional requirements of a Safe Haven in order to protect against fire.

* Emergency information and perception (how to get people to go to the assembly stations).

* Float-off (aiming at making it possible to release a part of the superstructure from the ship itself and then use it as a lifeboat on its own).

The Workshop will provide an opportunity for international experts in maritime safety to discuss and influence the direction of the work within DESSO.