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SOLAS-74 Navigational Hardware Requirements


Navigational Aids, Light and Sound Signals (SOLAS-74)

The navigational hardware together with operational requirements, all with the objective of providing for safe navigation of ships and the avoidance of collisions and grounding (as per the regulatory strategy at Section 3(8)), are regulated in Chapter V of SOLAS 74 and Amendments thereto, "Safety of navigation". As previously mentioned, unless otherwise expressly provided, this chapter applies to all ships on all voyages, except ships of war. A further exception is for ships solely navigating the Great Lakes of North America and their connecting and tributary waters as far east as the lower exit of the St Lambeth Lock at Montreal in the Province of Quebec, Canada.

Hardware requirements include regulations for compass, radar, automatic radar plotting aids, rudder angle indicators, rate-of-turn indicators and radio direction-finding apparatus. The regulations also provide for pilot transfer arrangements.

Further regulations with a view to collision avoidance are contained in the Convention on the International

Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, 1972 (COLREGS 72). This contains hardware regulations for lights and shapes, also sound and light signals.