Up to scratch?

摘要

It's the stuff of nightmares... the ship is sinking, you and some of your fellow crew mates successfully evacuate into a raft, only to find that when you fire the pyrotechnic the flare fails. Or you don your lifejacket before making a hasty evacuation and on contact with the water, your lifejacket light does not work. There is never any guarantee that equipment will work in the event of an emergency, but SOLAS has put in place a set of standards that that must be met before a product can be claimed as 'SOLAS-approved'. This is the accolade that most manufacturers aim for so as to allow their products to be used on SOLAS-class vessels.