Rationale

Amusement rides and devices are increasingly being installed on ships, vessels, and other floating bases, including cruise ships. These installations may include ride types and devices that are otherwise similar to land-based amusement rides and devices, such as roller coasters, drop towers, spinning rides, carousels, water slides, and other passenger-carrying or participatory attractions. While the amusement ride or device may use familiar ride technology, the installation environment introduces additional design considerations that are not fully addressed by requirements written primarily for fixed, land-based installations. The intent of this ballot is to add supplemental requirements to F2291 for amusement rides and devices installed on ships, vessels, or other floating bases. These requirements are not intended to establish a standard for the design or construction of the ship, vessel, floating base, or its primary supporting structure. Rather, they are intended to identify additional considerations for the amusement ride or device itself, and for the interfaces between the amusement ride or device and the floating installation environment. A floating installation can introduce design conditions that differ from a land-based installation, including vessel deflection, roll and pitch, shipboard accelerations, wind resulting from vessel motion, marine corrosion, shipboard electrical interfaces, emergency or alternative power considerations, evacuation constraints, operational limitations, and monitoring of vessel-related parameters that may affect safe operation. These conditions may affect structural analysis, fatigue evaluation, component retention, electrical suitability, corrosion protection, evacuation planning, and safe operating limits. The proposed language is intended to close an identified gap in F2291 by making clear that amusement rides and devices installed in these environments must be evaluated for the additional conditions reasonably associated with shipboard, vessel, or floating-base installations. The proposed section preserves the existing F2291 framework by requiring compliance with all other applicable requirements of the standard while adding targeted supplemental requirements for this specific installation context. The proposed requirements are intended to improve consistency among designers, manufacturers, owners, and reviewers when evaluating amusement rides and devices installed on ships, vessels, or other floating bases. They are also intended to support safer and more complete design documentation by identifying the environmental, structural, electrical, operational, and evacuation considerations that should be addressed when an amusement ride or device is installed in a marine or floating environment.