Requirements & Regulations for Survival Craft Communications

When it comes to communications requirements for survival craft, it is important that the capabilities of search and rescue resources be kept in mind. Often, these resources do not have the ability to detect or home to a MHz frequency.

When a ship intends to operate in a low air temperature environment, its lifeboats and rescue boats, or other means of survival craft, must have the ability to send out distress alerts, maintain on-scene communications, and have the capability for being located. In order to meet these requirements, at minimum, each rescue boat, lifeboat, or survival craft must carry the following:

• A device for transmitting ship-to-shore distress alerts
• A device for transmitting signals for locating
• A device for both transmitting and receiving on-scene communications

All equipment mandatory for communication in survival crafts must be capable of operating for the duration of the maximum expected rescue time. In order to do so, procedures for recognizing the limitation of battery life in the expected environmental conditions need to be assessed.

When survival craft are in close proximity to one another, no more than two alerting or locating devices should be activated at one time. This ensures that battery life is extended and also avoids potential interference for the direction-finding equipment of the SAR operations.

To learn more about Polar Code visit our Polar Code Online Training web page.