The risk of fire at sea is serious. In fact, in many cases, a fire at sea is harder to control than a fire onshore with evacuation and access extremely problematic. As a result, fire detection systems form a vital part of a vessel’s safety infrastructure and seek to protect it in a similar way to an on-land building.
Lavastica first started selling fire detection systems for ships in 1998, this led to a need for test equipment to maintain the systems and so the relationship between Lavastica and Detectortesters began.
Authority comments
“When we first started talking to Detectortesters, the market was a lot smaller.” Commented Daan Korenhoff, Director of Lavastica.
Rules and regulations develop
The SOLAS regulations managed by the International Maritime Organization, look at the safety of life at sea Over time, rules and regulations have continued to evolve to improve fire safety at sea. The SOLAS regulations, which are managed by the International Maritime Organization, look at the safety of life at sea.
Flag State covers rules and regulations relevant to the ship’s country of registration – which must be followed and finally, there are class approvals of which there are over 20, including Lloyds Registry and DNVGL. All of these have a focus on fire safety and are supported by the products and solutions offered by Lavastica.
As safety standards have evolved so have the test solutions used to carry out functional testing. As Daan commented: “Whilst a professional solution, the hazardous nature of pressurized Solo aerosols means they are expensive to transport and store, this is a significant issue when sending goods to vessels which could be anywhere around the world.”
Promoting Testifire
As a result of this, Lavastica has had significant success promoting Testifire and has taken a proactive approach to market it. “Testifire is going really well” added Daan, “In cases where customers don’t believe in the investment we offer a loan unit to try, more often than not, they love the solution and want to keep it! We are seeing more and more fleet orders and this year have taken a couple of these for 50 units at a time.”