Lloyd’s Register has provided Viking Life-Saving Equipment with a type approval for a record new 81 m evacuation chute.
Viking’s existing 64 m system was found inadequate for its CJ70 jack-up rig design’s unprecedented height. Hence, the chute was designed in the year 2013. Two of the new 81 m systems have already been installed on newbuild jack-up rig Noble Lloyd Noble, under construction at Jurong shipyard in Singapore and due to be completed this year.
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Viking’s offshore technical manager Kristian Ellertsen, said, “The system’s certified evacuation capacity is 146 people in just 10 minutes, comfortably beating the threshold required by maritime authorities, even from such an extreme height.”
“Developing something of this height was not easy. In fact, just finding an offshore structure of the right height for testing was difficult. But even though we were facing a demanding schedule, developing, testing and manufacturing a never-before-seen system in record time, we were confident the effort would succeed.”
Despite an arms race of new drop records in the maritime safety industry, the height of the newest rigs exceeds that which is possible with enclosed davits and lifeboats.
Source: Viking Life
