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Notice to all Owners and Operators of Fishing Vessels, Small Commercial Vessels and Domestic Passenger ships with non-SOLAS MES; Manufacturers, Suppliers, and Service Station Personnel for all Products within the Scope of this Note.

This notice updates and replaces MGN 553(M+F) previously published in October 2016.

This provides ammendments in accordance with the updated standard BS ISO 9650 1:2022 provisions (was previously BS ISO 9650-1:2005, BS ISO 9650-2:2005)

The key amendments within this Note for non-SOLAS inflatable LSA are that:

• Non-SOLAS liferafts marketed as compliant with ISO 9650 may now be marked for a capacity of 4 to 16 persons.
• Non-SOLAS liferafts built to comply with the Offshore Racing Congress (ORC) standard previously accepted on UK commercial vessels are now phased out of service in accordance with the arrangements detailed in the previous MGN 553.