News

The shipping industry has seen too many lifeboat incidents over the years, and a number of them have involved fatalities.

Lifeboat-safety---new-solution-2Statistics show that lifeboats have cost morelives during training drills than they have saved during actual rescue situations. In 2008 Bent Nielsen, then an employee of Maersk Drilling, started thinking about the problem and he came up with an idea for a new design, which he developed in conjunction with the then Maersk innovation department.All innovation starts with a good idea

Used to lower lifeboats from vessel to water, the old hooks often proved undependable and have over the years been seen release in mid-air without warning.

When the pull of gravity increases on the traditional lifeboat hook the chances that the hook will give way also increases, whereas the new solution has a locking mechanism which is designed to become tighter and more secure as gravity increases.

Combined with a remote control system for lowering and hoisting, this design innovation is the most significant advancement in lifeboat technology in 30 years – bringing lifeboat design into the 21st century.

By 2009 a prototype was completed and the company Nadiro founded with financial backing from Maersk. The solution is being installed on all Maersk Tankers conventional as well as FreeFall lifeboats.

Today, Bent Nielsen is Head of Marine Standards at the Maersk owned salvage and towage company Svitzer.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.