Korea clarifies child life jacket rule for fishing boats

The government legislation ministry said that child life jackets required on fishing boats must equal at least 20 percent of maximum passenger capacity, settling a question over whether the quota should instead be measured against the total number of jackets carried on board.

The interpretation, issued in response to a query from Buan County in North Jeolla Province, concerns Annex 4 of the enforcement decree of the Fishing Management and Promotion Act. The annex requires jackets for at least 120 percent of maximum passenger capacity, of which at least 20 percent must be child-size.

The ministry said the child-size figure should be calculated on maximum passenger capacity, not on the 120 percent total. It cited comparable water-safety rules, which also use capacity as the base.

Applying the rule to the jacket total would leave boats that carry only the minimum 120 percent of capacity short of full-size jackets for every adult on board, the ministry said.

The ministry also answered a second question from the county, ruling that a requirement for at least two emergency exits in passenger cabins does not apply to fishing boats built on or after Jan. 1, 2020 that have no passenger cabin. Because the exit duty is written for cabins used by passengers, it arises only for boats that have such a cabin.

The exit provision was added to the annex in a February 2019 revision of the enforcement decree. The ministry rejected the reading that all boats built from Jan. 1, 2020 must have both a passenger cabin and exits, saying the construction-date cutoff reflected the need to build exits in at the manufacturing stage.

The ministry recommended that the regulations be tidied up so that maximum passenger capacity is clearly shown as the basis for counting child life jackets.