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What Is Solas ? International Convention SOLAS The "International Convention for Safety of Life at Sea" exists already since 1914. This first version was passed in response to the Titanic disaster in 1912. Since then there had been several versions and since 1948 the International Maritime Organization (IMO) develops and maintains SOLAS.The relevant version for the Delta Queen was adopted in 1960 and entered into force in 1965. An amendment from 1966, which is referred to in the Safety at Sea Act P.L. 89-777, deals with special fire safety measures. The actual version or SOLAS, dating back to 1974, came into effect in May 1980 (full text:www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/dfat/treaties/1983/22.html). What seams to be important for the Delta Queen – because she’s not effected by that – is that only since the 1974 SOLAS the convention is being extended and altered by amendments, but there are not completely new versions. A more detailed history of SOLAS can be found on the Metal Safe Sign Int. website. SOLAS 1974 is special because its regulations can become national law without ever passing the US Congress or the desk of the President. It’s based on a so called "tacit acceptance" which means if a country doesn’t contradict within a given time frame it comes into effect automatically. This is a very interesting procedure, being more and more used for international treaties to speed up the process as it forces countries to act instead of waiting decades until the last of the member countries’ parliament has taken care of a treaty to come into effect. Florida based maritime attorney Rod Sullivan is discussing this issue more in detail in his blog entry The IMO and the "Tacit Acceptance Procedure" . SOLAS 2010, effecting many of the older cruise ships, consists of some amendments made in 2006, going into effect on July 1, 2010. They contain new and stricter safety regulations especially for passenger vessels. (Revised passenger ship safety standards and others). |