30/10/08
The Ocean Safety Servicing Team are just back from their temporary outlet in Alicante where they checked over and serviced the new Zodiac Liferafts for the Volvo Ocean Race teams prior to the start of Leg 1. Under the Notice of Race, each of the boats must carry certain specified items on board, supplied by the Race Organisers and Ocean Safety was appointed to supply the total safety package to the Volvo Ocean Race. Along with Liferafts, Ocean Safety has supplied their own Jonbuoy Recovery Module packed with a personal locator beacon, Hansson Flare Packs and ACR EPIRBs and SARTs and even handheld Watermakers as part of the liferaft contents.
The Service Team will meet the fleet half way round the world at the stopover in Singapore and once again service and check over the Liferafts and Jonbuoys for each of the Volvo boats.
The compulsory Sea Survival courses for the teams were provided by Ocean Safety at the Marine Safety Training Centre in South Shields. The courses followed the ISAF Sea Survival course syllabus and were specifically tailored to focus on training each crew member to use the safety equipment on board. The crews were put through their paces over a 2 day course using live flares, fighting real fires and being put into a ‘3 hour survival environment’ in a liferaft with a five foot swell and 20 knot winds, with sound effects and fire hoses in an unheated pool. The teams were taught how to protect themselves and their colleagues as well as sharing the teaching with other teams, to ensure that they are well equipped to provide assistance to another yacht in the fleet which could be in distress.
Alistair Hackett, General Manager at Ocean Safety, summarised, “It is vital that the crew can rely on each other in an emergency situation: they must also have a good knowledge of how to operate the safety equipment provided. If it were to all ‘go wrong’ on board reactions need to be instinctive, which is why the course has been tailored to specific Volvo Ocean Race requirements.”
“Our Service Team was in Alicante to carry out last minute checkovers on the liferafts
and to help individual crews with last minute preparations. We are very much looking forward to working alongside the Race Organisers and the teams over the duration of the race,” he added.
For further information contact:
Email: marketing@oceansafety.com
http://www.oceansafety.com