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What is Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS)? o October 2007 o September 2007 o August 2007 . RSS & Admin o Login o Entries RSS What is_Safet~_of Life_at Sea_~S__OLAS)? Aug 4, 2007 Page 2 of 4 There is much discussion about SOLAS, so I did some research to find out what exactly it is. SOLAS describes. two different regulations -one is the "International Convention for Safety of Life at Sea", the other is the Public Law 89-777 from 1966, popular name: "Safety at Sea Act" or "Safety of Life at Sea Act". The international convention called SOLAS applies only to ships engaged on international voyages. That means, the Delta Queen is not directly effected by this. What effects the Delta Queen though is the Safety at Sea Act (P.L. 89-777). P.L. 89-777 includes that passenger vessels "having berth or stateroom accomodations for 50 or more passengers" have to be compliant with the SOLAS regulations of 1960 and some ammendments. (Thanks very much to the National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium and Dubuque County Historical Society for sending us a copy of P.L. 89-777). The DQ was granted atwo-years delay in enactment in an amendment directly to this law, and again a two-years delay was issued in 1968. 1970 was the year of the first big "Save the Delta Queen" campaign. Despite all efforts (see steamboats,com_ for details) the campaign almost failed. Eventually the Delta Queen got a new 3-years exemption. After that an exemption was re-issued several times, including the exemption that is now expiring in November 2008. 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/198_3/22,html). What seams to be important for the Delta Queen is that only since the 1974 SOLAS the convention is being extended and altered by amendments, not 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 AcceRtance Procedure" . http://www.save-the-delta-queen.org/what-is-safety-of-life-at-sea-Bolas/ 10/26/2007