Material Requirements For Pilot Ladder
Pilot ladders are provided to enable a maritime pilot to embark and disembark from a ship safely against a vertical portion of the ship’s hull.
Pilot ladders is applicable to merchant ships which embark and disembark maritime pilots with the ship underway.
ISO 799 specifies material requirements for pilot ladders.
Overview
Wooden parts
Each wooden part shall be made of hardwood (ash, oak, beech, teak, and other hardwood having equivalent properties) free from knots. Wood shall not be treated or coated with paint, varnish or other coatings, which either change the friction coefficient or hide the natural grain.
Side ropes
Each side rope shall be mildew-resistant manila rope meeting ISO 1181:2004, Quality 1, or a spun thermoset polyester rope with a polypropylene core of a colour that contrasts with the spun polyester.
Each side rope shall have a breaking strength of at least 24 kN, and the specification of the diameter of side ropes should be 20 mm (63 mm circumference).
Step fixtures
Step fixtures for securing each step of a ladder shall have rope seizing or purpose made arrangement such as solid nylon clamp blocks or hardwood clamp blocks to prevent the fasteners from loosening. Cable ties, u-clamps, worm driven clips are unacceptable.
Plastic materials
Each plastic material shall be of a type that retains at least 30 % of its original tensile strength and at least 80 % of its original impact strength when subjected to the one-year outdoor weathering test described in Method A of ISO 877-2:2009.
Quality of materials
Each part of a ladder shall be free of splinters, burrs, sharp edges, corners, projections, or other defects that could injure a person using the ladder.
Rope seizing
Seizing, shall consist of three-ply tarred marline of minimum breaking strength 800 N, and with a minimum diameter of 4 mm, or other suitable material of equivalent strength and diameter. All seizings shall be figure-of-eight racking seizings, minimum length of seizing 32 mm.
