Lifting appliances, deck machinery and access equipment

This course covers the equipment on deck that lifts, holds and carries people and loads: cranes, derricks and their loose gear, wire ropes, mooring winches and lines, gangways and accommodation ladders, pilot ladders, anchors, windlasses and cargo lashings. For each one you will learn what the rules require, who tests and examines it, how often, and what the records must show.

The rules have just changed. Since 1 January 2026, SOLAS regulation II-1/3-13 makes the testing and examination of shipboard lifting appliances a statutory survey item for the first time, on top of the ILO Dock Work Convention (No. 152) that many ports still apply. Pilot transfer arrangements follow on 1 January 2028, when amended SOLAS regulation V/23 makes a new performance standard mandatory, including the withdrawal of every pilot ladder within 36 months of manufacture or 30 months in service. The need is real: in the International Maritime Pilots’ Association 2026 safety campaign, 13% of 4,051 pilot transfers reported by pilots were non-compliant, and Tokyo MOU port State control officers recorded 523 pilot transfer deficiencies and 12 detentions in 2024. Paris and Tokyo MoU inspectors are running a concentrated inspection campaign on cargo securing from 1 September to 30 November 2026.

By the end you will be able to read a register of lifting appliances, work out a proof load, judge when a wire rope or mooring line must come out of service, check a gangway or pilot ladder against the current rules, and know what a surveyor or port State control officer will ask to see.