Life-cycle flooding risk management of passenger ships

The paper describes the background and provides the rationale and the framework to embrace the whole spectrum of measures (design, operational and emergency response) for improving the damage survivability of existing and newbuilding passenger vessels. Damage control, evacuation, Life- Saving Appliances, rescue and crisis management are all topics attracting a great deal of attention but how all this fits in and is accounted for? How are these being addressed during the design stage and how effective are they post-accident in a way that this can be quantified and accounted for in calculating life-cycle risk? Developments to address these questions are still embryonic. This represents a step change both in the mind-set of naval architects and in safety legislators but the impact of having in place such a framework will be immense and mostly positive. Zero-risk tolerance is a goal but rendering modern passenger ships into lifeboats is certainly within reach. An attempt to delve in this direction is presented in this paper by presenting a life-cycle framework of de-risking flooding risk.