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Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Life Raft Training - Freedom of the Seas

Good morning,

Safety training is ongoing on board Freedom of the Seas.
While we were ashore in Labadee, Haiti, we watched as the crew performed a practice drill with a life raft.
The large orange life rafts are packed inside white barrels you'll find on deck four.  The lifeboats are used for evacuation of guests in an emergency.  The orange life rafts are generally used for crew evacuation after the guests are all safely off the ship.
 When deployed, the covered orange life rafts resemble alien pods in a science fiction movie.

 The crew performs regular lifeboat and life raft drills.  It's always a precision operation.
 After we began to walk up one of the hillside paths around the front of the ship we noticed the life raft was being retrieved and returned to the ship after the drill.  You can see it in the image above on the left side of the bow.

It is fascinating to watch the various tests and drills that are continuously performed.

All the best,
Lois

7 comments:

Diana said...

I liked the last photo Lois. I wonder how often they practice this. Once a trip? Love Di ♥

Montanagirl said...

That ship is so immense! It's comforting to know they stay on top of all their life-saving drills!

Lois Evensen said...

Good morning,

Safety drills are performed every cruise for both the guests and the crew. For the guests, the drill is immediately before the ship leaves the port at the beginning of the cruise.

Thanks for your kind comments.

All the best,
Lois

Anonymous said...

Nice to know of the on-going drills. You just never know when something is going to happen! The little dingy makes the ship even bigger!!! lol ...debbie

Rose said...

That ship is just so huge...it is hard to imagine what it must feel/look like in real life.

Sherry said...

Fun to see. Just hope it is never needed! I can just imagine, though, I would be sooooo excited about going on a cruise that to confront me with safety training in the beginning would not be something I'd want to think about!

Michele said...

Safety drills are always a good thing!