FAQs marine evacuation systems

A marine evacuation system (MES) is a lifesaving device found on many modern passenger ships. The system consist of large inflatable liferafts and an inflatable slide or escape chute for safe rapid passage to the liferafts. MES enables large numbers or untrained people to quickly abandon ship to safety in emergency situations.

Marine evacuation systems exist for a wide range of vessels, including cruise and ferries, high-speed craft, and offshore vessels, where mass evacuation of trained and untrained people is critical.

The capacity of a marine evacuation system varies from system to system. Survitec’s range can accommodate between 50 and 950 persons. The largest being the Marin Ark 2 system, with a capacity of 948 persons.

Marine evacuation systems are typically bespoke to the vessels requirements. Survitec’s range can accommodate evacuation heights of 1.5 metres up to 33 metres utilising slide and chute-based technology. Learn more about the benefits of chutes vs slides in our Spotlight on safety video.

Marine evacuation systems (MES) provide a compact, yet rapid-deploying method of evacuation. They are a reliable, quick and safe means of evacuation but take up little space, particularly when compared to traditional lifeboats. Our Marine evacuation systems are intrinsically safe and easy to deploy with very few crew actions required, and varying levels of automation available depending on your preferred solution. Other benefits include their proven performance in heavy weather sea conditions.

Our marine evacuation systems are well designed, robustly tested, exceptionally rugged and compliant with the latest international approval standards, including Safety Of Life At Sea (SOLAS) regulations, and compliance with multiple flags. Before being sold to the market, all of our MES are tested in a heavy weather sea trial to comply with MSC 81 (70) heavy sea conditions.

The documentation detailing MES approvals is available by speaking to your local Survitec representative or your Account Manager.

Survitec provide comprehensive MES crew training solutions either onshore or on-board customer vessels. These courses cover operational procedures required to safely deploy the marine evacuation system.  

MES servicing is very specialised and can only be conducted at specific OEM controlled service stations. Find your nearest service station here.

We have approximately 410 marine approved service stations of which 103 are approved to service  one or more of our MES brands and types, however we also provide MES servicing at locations were there is no approved station by sending our approved technicians and spares etc these would be call flying squads. To date we have never been unable or refused to service an MES ship regardless of location.

The documentation detailing the service due date for an MES is available by speaking to your local Survitec representative or your Account Manager. The MES is serviced every 12 months in line with SOLAS legalisation . After each service the customer receives a re-inspection certificate, the issue date on this certificate will then dictate the next service due date in 12 months time.

Service times vary depending on the scope of supply ranging from a few days to a number weeks.