ABSTRACT
The main aim of this paper is to bring to the attention to the need of a proper car deck drainage system in conjunction with an efficient firefighting system.
Nowadays IMO is giving updated guidelines in designing and maintaining the drainage system. However no additional stability criteria taking into account the confined water on the ro-ro deck from fire-fighting measures are provided yet. The effects of water ingress for the ro-ro ships, regarding the damage stability, have been already faced by several works (Santos and Guedes Soares 2006), (Vredeveldt and Journe 1991), (Vermeer et al., 1994), (Acanfora et al., 2011) and (Santos et al., 2002) and addressed and acknowledged by the rules in the Stockholm Agreement criteria; the problem of the added water from fire protection, instead, is mentioned by the rules, but without giving any specific guideline. In the following section an overview of the actual regulation regarding the water-spraying fire extinguishing and drainage systems in the garage of ro-ro passenger vessels has been reported.
