Marine Office sets new life vest standards

The Phuket Marine Office has issued a rule about life vest standard’s certification for each boat to ensure all vessels only use the life vest approved by the Marine Office to guarantee quality.

Phuket Marine Office Chief, Surat Sirisaiyat, says that the new rule will order all boats to use life vesta approved by the Marine Office, which comprises qualifications and verification specified by the office in order to create better marine safety standards.

“The rule is effective since January 1 and all the boats that comes to Marine Office to extend their license will have to get the approval for their life vests as well. We expect that all boats will be using only approved life vests by the end of this year. For other kinds of boat, the rule will be effective on January 1, 2019 and we expect that by the end of 2019, all boats in Thailand will have life vests with standards set by the Marine Office.”

“We have developed the standards of life vest with the life vest companies to ensure that they reaches international standards. Each of them has buoyant force of at least 100 Newtons and must be made with approved materials. The life vest must be able to flip around the person wearing it so that are face up if they lose consciousness and needs to have a label of at least 10×10 cm specifying the safety standard approval of the vest,” he explained.

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