Viking Gets Approval For Evac Chute

In May 2001 Viking received tangible evidence of efforts made in terms of research and development. The U.S. Coast Guard granted Viking its Certificate of Approval for the VIKING Evacuation Chute with associated 100 person automatically self-righting liferafts. The Evacuation Chute passed the most demanding tests prescribed by international approval requirements. During a heavy sea trial taking place in the North Atlantic Ocean close to the Faroe islands with wind forces of about 15-25 m/sec and average wave heights of between 3-8 m this evacuation system was loaded with 15.6 tons in both lee and windward sides, and it brilliantly withstood the most gruelling tests at sea. The evacuation chute is tailored to newbuildings as well as the many existing RoRo passenger vessels in order to comply with the latest international requirements on their life-saving equipment by July 1, 2001. The evacuation system is based upon our knowledge and experience in our capacity of the world's biggest supplier of Marine Evacuation System (MES). VIKING is now the only supplier in the world in the position to offer our customers the option of chute- or slide-based evacuation systems. The new system is a further development of our well-tried slide-based evacuation system and primarily differs from it in that the passengers are evacuated through an evacuation chute directly into 50 or 100 person self-righting liferafts. In addition, due to new facilities of design and operation the new system takes up less space and is simple to operate. The specially designed evacuation chute also ensures uncomplicated evacuation of passengers in even the most extreme weather conditions, providing for controlled descent and automatically controlled lowering of the liferafts.