Viking Steps Up Pace of Innovation

Riding high on market successes, maritime safety equipment manufacturer VIKING Life-Saving Equipment’s product developers have been adding innovation after innovation to the company’s already impressive range of products and service offerings.

The LifeCraft™ – a revolutionary hybrid

VIKING’s new super-sized, flexible evacuation system is a revolutionary hybrid that brings together the best of lifeboats and liferafts in one. The VIKING LifeCraft™ system combines all of the advantages of modern lifeboats - such as self-propelled maneuverability - with the flexibility, comfort and smaller footprint of today’s liferafts.

“This is a product that completely changes the lifeboat vs. liferaft discussion - at least when it comes to high-capacity evacuation systems,“ says VIKING CEO Henrik Uhd Christensen: “The VIKING LifeCraft™ system enables rapid, mass evacuation with maximum safety for passengers and crew.”

The LifeCraft™ system consists of two main elements: The LifeCraft™ survival craft – a self- propelled inflatable vessel with four engines for a high degree of maneuverability and safety; and a stowage and launching unit, either placed on deck or built in, containing up to four LifeCraft™ crafts with a capacity of 200 persons each - for a total capacity of 800 persons. There is a gangway for stretchers, if needed. A miniature model of the LifeCraft™ as well as a 3D video of the system will be showcased at Cruise Shipping Miami.

At the company’s booth (2147) will be a number of maritime specialists with extensive experience, including Niels Fraende and Flemming Nielsen from VIKING’s passenger division, both 20-year veterans of the maritime industry. Together with their colleagues, they will be sharing lessons learned and best practices with the maritime industry.

The world leader in capacity

Every second is critical when a situation requires abandoning ship and safely evacuating the maximum number of persons in the shortest amount of time is the priority. High capacity life-saving equipment must be easy to handle and require limited involvement by crew. VIKING's evacuation systems provide fast and easy evacuation, exceptional stability and are trusted by crew worldwide.

Visit VIKING at Cruise Shipping Miami, Booth # 2147

When it comes to safety in numbers, VIKING’s impressive track record can prove difficult for its competitors to beat. For example, the company’s product offering boasts the industry’s widest range of passenger evacuation systems – having introduced the first such system in 1978. Thirty- seven years later systems ranging from mini-slide to double-chute systems capable of evacuating 908 passengers in 30 minutes are in operation all over the world. It is numbers like these that make VIKING the current leader in evacuation chute capacity.

Additionally, VIKING has some 270 certified service stations around the world, making it the most comprehensive and experienced network of any comparable supplier.

High performing suits and lifejackets

Raising the standards for personal safety, the company’s PS4170 combined work- and immersion suit and range of solid lifejackets, have been tested and approved according to the most stringent performance standards. All will be showcased at Cruise Shipping Miami, so feel free to stop by and get a live demo.

More maritime products than ever

With the release of a new, greatly expanded marine products catalogue with almost twice the number of products previously on offer, VIKING has moved closer to becoming the complete, one- stop source for marine safety equipment from leading brands. (Pick up your free copy at Cruise Shipping Miami).

To achieve this, the company is flexing its significant distribution muscles, using capabilities that none of its competitors currently have the size or supply chain access to match.

Henrik Uhd Christensen also sees his company’s marine safety equipment know-how as vital: “We have the broadest range with the strongest network – more than anyone else in the market. So we’re in a unique position to help ship owners and operators make the best choices for their specific needs.”

50-year innovation wave

VIKING CEO Henrik Uhd Christensen puts the heightened pace of product releases down to a simple mechanism: “When you’re close to your customers, you can develop exactly what they want – or what they will want in the near future,” he says. “And they help you to continue improving the product as their needs evolve every step of the way.”

“Nothing succeeds like success, as they say – so, of course, when we see the industry choosing our products as much as they have been doing, it injects a tremendous amount of energy into product development efforts throughout the company. It creates a kind of snowball effect.”