Safety assessment of passenger boat and houseboat at Temenggor Lake, Malaysia

Abstract

Temenggor Lake is located at 45 kilometers from Ulu Perak district capital, Gerik and it is a man-made lake that was created between 1960s and 1970s. Temenggor Lake consists the Temenggor dam and it is used to generate electricity for the local citizen on that area. Due to the large area, Temenggor Lake has been developed as a recreational lake. The purpose of this research is to identify the safety level of boat at Temenggor Lake. The first phase of this research is identified the total number of passenger boat and houseboat that has been registered with Persatuan Pengusaha Pelancongan Tasik Temenggor and types of life-saving appliances used on passenger boat and houseboat by observation and interview session with an expert. Interview session and questionnaires have been distributing in order to collect all the related data and this data has been analyzed by using risk matrix method to identify the rank of the risk that occurred at Temenggor Lake. The final phase involved a few data from Malaysia Marine Department, Persatuan Pengusaha Pelancongan Tasik Temenggor and United Stated Coast Guard and comparison has been made between those data to make some suggestions on increasing the safety of boat at Temenggor Lake by using bench marking method. Based on the result of this research, drown of children is the highest risk for passenger boat and man over board is the highest risk for houseboat. As the conclusion, most accidents involving navigation on inland water are the cause from the lack of safety equipment onboard at Temenggor Lake.