Leading marine and offshore safety equipment manufacturer Viking Life-Saving Equipment has launched a new dual-approved thermal lifejacket with broad appeal for the offshore and commercial shipping industries operating in harsh, cold environments.

Raising the standards for personal safety, the company’s new thermal lifejacket, PV9720, has been tested and approved according to new stringent lifejacket performance standards as well as existing thermal requirements. And it is the first on the market to comply with both.

Viking Vice President Benny Carlsen says the new lifejacket is just part of the company’s drive to provide superior solutions to a changing market. “Our new thermal lifejacket has just been launched,” says Mr Carlsen, “and it’s already been warmly welcomed onboard offshore supply vessels, accommodation platforms, pipe laying barges, passenger ferries and others…for example companies engaged in oil and gas activities in the Barents Sea.”

Protection against hypothermia is essential when operating in cold waters. The PV9720 lifejacket is specially designed to protect against loss of body temperature with a built-in neoprene torso covering the core body, head and crotch area. It also sets new standards for performance levels with extraordinary turning capabilities, high face freeboard and superior field of vision and reach, for example, when entering a liferaft.

Finally, a new slim profile design ensures easy donning – while reducing storage space with approximately 20 percent at the same time.

The new SOLAS-approved thermal protective lifejacket is the only one on the market designed, tested, verified and approved to both the latest lifejacket performance requirements described in MSC 200 and the thermal protection performance standards of MSC/Circ. 922.

Why is compliance with multiple regulations important? Because a changing market means that, for instance, vessels built in Korea, sailing under Panama flag, might now be operating in the Norwegian sector – and thus must live up to both SOLAS and flag state requirements as well as local standards.