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Phuket tour boat operators, crew offered free life-raft training

Phuket tour boat operators, crew offered free life-raft training

PHUKET: Local boat company Cholamark will hold a free training exercise at Chalong Pier this Saturday (Sept 1) to educate local captains and crews on how to safely launch and have passengers enter a life raft in case of emergency.

tourismmarineSafety
By The Phuket News

Thursday 30 August 2018 04:18 PM


The training session will focus on how to launch and have passengers safely enter a life raft. Image: Courtesy of VIKING Life-Saving Equipment A/S

The training session will focus on how to launch and have passengers safely enter a life raft. Image: Courtesy of VIKING Life-Saving Equipment A/S

The exercise will start at 1:30pm and will take about two hours, explained Hans Martin, owner and founder of Cholamark.

“The aim of the event is to improve safety at sea by increasing knowledge about life rafts in general,” Mr Martin told The Phuket News.

“We want to show the possibilities of bringing a life raft into the sea as in an emergency,” he added.

“We will show a five-meter deep fall of a life raft, the opening of the life raft, the participation of our employees who will jump into the sea and get into the life raft.

The exercise is a training for captains, crews and tour operators,” Mr Martin explained. “We want boat operators to know that a life raft can be launched before a ship sinks to enable people on board to escape safely.

A key organiser of the event is Viking Life-Saving Equipment, which is also providing the life rafts for the exercise.

Viking Life-Saving Equipment, based in Denmark, is renowned as a world leader for its life-rafts and complete marine safety systems designed for all sorts of marine craft and sea-going vessels, from small boats to cruise liners and cargo container ships, operating in all sorts of environments around the globe.

“Life rafts on a standard bracket have a hydrostatic release unit that releases or activates the life raft when the raft is underwater, but by the time the raft is released by the hydrostatic release unit, passengers may already have sunk with the ship,” Mr Martin explained.

“Our goal is to explain how a life raft in general works, we want to show what equipment must be used to bring a life raft into the water before a ship sinks.”

To take part in the exercise, participants are asked to present themselves in front of the building on Chalong Pier that is home to the Phuket Yacht Control Centre and the Phuket Marine Office.