Abandon my liferaft?

[Tranona]

Let's face it; insurance is a real waste of money too.

Not a good comparison. Many, many people claim off their insurance. On the other hand, as you will have seen from many posts here the usage of liferafts in the OPs situation is almost non existent. On a risk/cost ratio it is very poor - chances of needing it just about zero, cost high in terms of purchase and maintenance. Many other ways of mitigating the general risks such that for most people a liferaft is unnecessary.

Of course if your pattern and location of sailing is different then the risks change and the need for certain types of equipment changes, simply because the risk is different. This change in risk also means the cost of "conventional" insurance rises, or is even unobtainable.

 

[Kelpie]

Insurance pretty much is a waste of money, in that you would be better off not having any and instead putting that money aside to spend on whatever it is you are insuring for.
If most people on average claimed back more money from their insurers than they paid in, the insurance companies would have all gone bust years ago

 

[Tranona]

Insurance pretty much is a waste of money, in that you would be better off not having any and instead putting that money aside to spend on whatever it is you are insuring for.
If most people on average claimed back more money from their insurers than they paid in, the insurance companies would have all gone bust years ago

Sure, for some it is. I have only made one claim on car insurance in nearly 50 years and 2 (one very small) in over 30 years of boating. However, in all three cases it was because of circumstances outside my control. So a careful person can "self insure" provided he can control the actions of others - as this is not possible, particularly in cars and to a lesser extent, boats and where the consequences can be very costly, it makes sense to share this risk.

 

[toad_oftoadhall]

Let's face it; insurance is a real waste of money too.

If there were as few insurance claims as there are lives saved by LRs in the waters the OP described, it would be!

False comparison fallacy.

 

[Rivers & creeks]

Point well made. It's the feeling of security that we buy with a liferaft and a damn fine feeling it is too.

 

[BlueSkyNick]

A late response

Sorry, I havent trawled through the whole thread so these points may have been covered...

I like the liferaft to be mounted where the weakest person on board, normally SWMBO, can launch it alone if necessary. We have both been on a Sea Survival and know to get into the raft only as the last resort. we have also agreed that if I go overboard, if SWMBO can get back to me, chuck the raft in and give me a chance of getting out of the water for respite, rather than struggling and failing to reboard via the bathing platform.

Separately, it is possible to rent a liferaft for longer offshore trips and cruises, rather than invest in one and lug it around unnecessarily.