LIFEBUOY LIGHT L160 DANIAMANT, SOLAS/MED APPROVED 330329

Plan replacement by date, not by battery. The L160 has a five-year life with no maintenance and no replacement batteries, so the whole unit is renewed. Ask for the manufacturing or expiry date of each unit on the delivery note, so the ship does not receive stock with part of its five years gone.^[1][4]

Check the bracket. The L160 comes with a black polypropylene bracket. When it replaces an older Daniamant L41B or L120, the maker reminds buyers to order the mounting plate as well. Its mounting adapter plate lets the L160 bracket be fixed through the holes of an existing L40, L41B, L120 or L90 bracket. Give the model you are replacing.^[1][3]

The L160 is not intrinsically safe. For tankers, gas carriers or any hazardous area, order the L161 (IMPA 330330), which the maker lists as intrinsically safe, Ex ia IIC T4/T3 Ga, for Zones 0, 1 and 2. The L160 is a light only: the bridge-wing buoys that also need a smoke signal take a combined man-overboard marker from the same group.^[1][2]

The LSA Code requires a lifebuoy self-igniting light to be impossible to put out with water, white, and either burn steadily at not less than 2 cd in all directions of the upper hemisphere or flash 50 to 70 times a minute at the same effective intensity, for at least 2 h. It must survive the lifebuoy drop test from its stowage height or 30 m.^[4]

Life-saving appliances that deteriorate with age must be marked with a means of telling their age or the date by which they must be replaced, and a permanent expiry date is the preferred method. Lifebuoy position-indicating lights are item MED/1.2b under the Marine Equipment Directive.^[4][5]

Under US rules at least half the lifebuoys carry self-igniting lights, equally divided between the sides, and buoys fitted with lifelines may not carry them.^[6]