Anticipated performance of free-fall lifeboats in a high wind environment

Because it represents an apparent improvement in safety over conventional lifeboat systems, the free-fall lifeboat has become a common lifesaving appliance on cargo ships and fixed offshore installations. Most maritime regulatory authorities have accepted the free-fall concept and have developed design and certification criteria for these lifeboats. Despite their general acceptance, little information is available about the performance of these lifeboats in wind. This paper provides a discussion of wind tunnel studies using a scale model of a free-fall lifeboat to measure wind force and moment coefficients and to simulate the free-fall under extreme wind conditions. This paper also presents analytical modeling of the free-fall using the wind force and moment coefficients obtained from the model study. The purpose of the study was to estimate performance of the lifeboat when launched in extreme wind conditions. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.