Lifting, deck and access gearLesson 7 of 10
Gangways and accommodation ladders – inspection, testing and rigging
You will be able to inspect and rig a gangway or accommodation ladder to the revised IMO guidelines and plan its annual and five-yearly survey items.
14 minutes · For signed-up learners, free · Rules checked 20 October 2026
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Everyone who boards or leaves a ship in port walks over the gangway or the accommodation ladder: crew, pilots, surveyors, agents, stevedores, families. When one collapses, or a hoisting wire parts, people fall between the ship and the quay or into the water. The weak points are usually ordinary ones: a corroded fitting where aluminium meets steel, a wire never renewed, a bent stanchion, a ladder rigged steeper than it was designed for.
SOLAS regulation II-1/3-9 makes inspection and maintenance of these means of access a duty on every ship, and IMO’s guidelines were revised in 2025. The revision, MSC.1/Circ.1331/Rev.1, updates the construction standards for equipment installed from 1 July 2026 and adds rules on safety nets and the protection of the crew who rig them. Click the parts of the ladder below.
Continue this lesson free
The rest of this lesson, the interactive Parts of an accommodation ladder to check and the quiz are open to signed-up learners. It's free, takes a minute, and opens every lesson in all 14 courses.
In this lesson
- Try it: Parts of an accommodation ladder to check
- In plain words
- In detail
- What the rules say
- Flag and class notes
- Key numbers
- What inspectors find
- Questions people ask
- Quiz: 6 questions
Sources
- 1 IMO MSC.1/Circ.1331/Rev.1, Revised guidelines for construction, installation, maintenance and inspection/survey of means of embarkation and disembarkation (28 August 2025), Annex, sections 1 to 5 (copy hosted by the Marshall Islands Registry). https://wpsso.register-iri.com/wp-content/uploads/MSC.1-Circ.1331-Rev.1.pdf
- 2 ABS Regulatory News No. 08/2026, Revised IMO guidelines for means of embarkation and disembarkation (July 2026). https://ww2.eagle.org/content/dam/eagle/regulatory-news/2026/regulatory-news-revised-imo-guidelines-for-embarkation-and-disembarkation.pdf
- 3 German Flag (BG Verkehr), ISM Circular 02/2010, Construction, installation, maintenance and inspection/survey of means of embarkation and disembarkation (25 February 2010), quoting SOLAS regulation II-1/3-9 as adopted by MSC.256(84). https://www.deutsche-flagge.de/de/redaktion/dokumente/ism-rundschreiben/Circ2010_2_engl.pdf
- 4 SOLAS regulation III/20.4, maintenance of falls, as quoted in Steamship Mutual Risk Alert RA13, Gangway and accommodation ladder inspection and maintenance (March 2010). https://www.steamshipmutual.com/sites/default/files/medialibrary/files/RA13GangwayAccomodationLadder.pdf
- 5 Steamship Mutual, Risk Alert RA13, Gangway and accommodation ladder inspection and maintenance (March 2010), record keeping and fall wires. https://www.steamshipmutual.com/sites/default/files/medialibrary/files/RA13GangwayAccomodationLadder.pdf
Free awareness training. Al Safwan Marine is not an approved training provider, so no certificate is given, and these courses are not a qualification. They don't replace STCW training, manufacturer training or the certification technicians need for this work. The manufacturer's manual and your flag's rules always come first.
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