Hong Kong Regulations

MERCHANT SHIPPING (INSTRUCTIONS TO SURVEYORS) (PASSENGER SHIPS) REGULATIONS - REGULATION 88

Stowage of signals

Before granting declarations for passenger steamships, surveyors should in all
cases see that a separate, detached, and completely enclosed receptacle is
provided for each of the following kinds of explosives-

(1) gunpowder or cartridges made therewith;

(2) rockets, socket signals and any other pyrotechnic signals;

(3) deck flares and lifebuoy lights. These separate receptacles should not be
made merely by divisions or partitions in a cupboard or locker or chest, but
must be separate magazines, exclusively appropriated to the keeping of the
explosives. Charges of gunpowder, if carried, should be contained in flannel
bags, and the magazine in which they are kept should be made of copper, well
and strongly constructed. To prevent injury to the rockets and other signals,
it is desirable either that the receptacles should be internally divided in
such a way that the signals can be stowed vertically or that they should be of
about the same length as the signals, but of insufficient width to enable the
signals to turn round. The lids should be secured by hinges or brass screws so
as to permit of an inspection being made without injury to the case. Socket
signals are usually supplied in wooden boxes with a tin box inside containing
the friction tubes. Where this is so, no other receptacle is required for the
friction tubes. Signals should, where possible, be kept in a house on deck,
and the receptacles containing different classes should be ranged as far apart
as circumstances will permit, so that in the event of spontaneous combustion
in any receptacle, or of risk of any sort arising, any of the receptacles
affected may be removed at once. Deck flares and lifebuoy lights should be
kept in a dry place away from any other signals or explosives. No article of
an explosive or highly inflammable character should be carried in any room or
place in which any receptacle containing distress signals is deposited.