The Marine Safety Center has expanded the range of lighting standards that will be accepted on small passenger vessels.
Title 46 of the Code of Federal Regulations requires lighting fixtures on small passenger vessels to comply with outdated standards that are no longer maintained by their issuing organization. To address this issue, the Coast Guard Marine Safety Center (MSC) has public-facing guidance listing which equivalent standards may be accepted and under what circumstances. After careful consideration, MSC has expanded the range of accepted standards and updated its public-facing guidance accordingly. Changes include:
- UL 924 fixtures may be used in interior emergency lighting
- Any fixtures that are generally appropriate for their intended use may be used in interior non-emergency lighting
- EN 14744 and ABYC C-5 navigation lights may be used (see CG-ENG Policy Letter 01-25)
The new guidance is included in the “Lighting” section of Plan Review Guide E2-23. (The revised Guide also includes minor wording changes to other sections to improve readability.) MSC’s Plan Review Guides are available here.
This action gives the U.S. small passenger vessel fleet more design flexibility and reduces the overall cost of compliance. Questions concerning this blog post should be directed to msc@uscg.mil.
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