Gary Fox
N/A
You must be fun at parties.
How many coastal cruisers have a life raft?
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JumbleDuck
Well-known member
Boats are designed to float. Light aircraft aren't. If your engine stops and you ditch at sea, you are likely to see the tailplane slipping below the surface quite soon. As I understand it, most aircraft liferafts are hired for particular trips.
Strikeliner
Member
Touche. I haven't been to a party for ages. So I really couldn't tell you. Social Distancing you know.
Cheerio
Gibeltarik
Active member
My error - should be - MGN 599 Pleasure Vessels - Regulations and Exemptions - Guidance and Best Practice Advice. It gives a very useful guide to the Regulations (inc appropriate Merchant Shipping Acts) and covers safety equipment required and much more.
MGN 553 only applies to commercial craft liferafts.
DownWest
Well-known member
We used to cross the channel in light aircraft. Back then, there were two corredors, one each way and ine way was at 3,500ft, the other at 1,500ft. If the engine quit, then very little time before ditching, so we wore our LJs for the over water bit and moved the LR into the cabin from the luggage compartment. If we got away with the ditching, likely we would not have much time to deploy the raft.
Daydream believer
Well-known member
Bit like chances of winning the lottery. But people still buy lottery tickets --------& the crew of Morning cloud won once--- So if that big thumb decides to point at you !!!
Back in the 70s I carried a half inflated Avon on the cabin of my wooden Stella. I had a fire on board from my Stuart Turner when a petrol spill caught fire under the bilges en route from Ostend to Burnham. I was bleeding the carb after an engine stoppage & spilled a pint of petrol. .The flames ran on top of the bilge water right through the boat & the panicked crew did get the Avon over the side. I had just been given 2 new Chubb extinguishers free because I used a lot in my factory so I had them on board. The last squirt of the last one put it out. So I I might well have needed that dinghy.
I renewed my liferaft last year as my last one was 15 years old. I make sure they are serviced correctly
3 years ago I was nearly rammed when a vessel ( Polarstream)changed course without looking in the Dover Strait. My raft is on the floor of the cockpit & my crew did flip the straps on it so it was loose as the boat approached. Fortunately it answered my VHF call & altered course again at last minute, but passed within a half dozen boat lengths.
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prv
Well-known member
I don't see a liferaft as a "rough seas" device particularly. The accidents that could put you in one - collision with another vessel, collision with debris or anything else, fire on board, some sort of major through-hull leak you couldn't reach for whatever reason - are more or less equally possible regardless of sea conditions. Reasonably well-found GRP yachts don't just sink because of rough weather - and if conditions were so extreme that a heavy reinforced polyester hull could not survive them, a paddling-pool with a tent on top wouldn't either.
I too would love to have "rapid easy launching arrangements" for my tender, but on a relatively slim and light 34 footer that's just not possible if you want the tender to be a practical means of transport. I've evolved through several dinghies to the best possible compromise, a Bombard AX4 which will just carry three people ashore in a harbour and can be stowed on deck for short hops in good conditions. The bow nudges against the legs of the pulpit, and the transom is hard up against the mast, with the sponsons extending aft past it. It completely obstructs the entire foredeck, and the fore-hatch, and it just isn't practical to keep it there most of the time. So the tender goes to the bottom of the cockpit locker, where it would be no real use in an emergency, and the liferaft (which is vacuum packed to about 1/3 the size) is there in case we hit a container mid-Channel or my crew burns the boat down while trying to emulate MasterChef in the middle of Langstone Harbour.
Pete
JumbleDuck
Well-known member
Beautifully expressed.
Stemar
Well-known member
Indeed.
My recollection of THAT Fastnet Race is that more people died because they abandoned to a liferaft than because they stayed on a disabled yacht.
capnsensible
Well-known member
Step up into your liferaft.
Daydream believer
Well-known member
Seaworthiness of Liferafts has come on a bit since then. Many might debate whether that applies to yachts though!!
Greenheart
Well-known member
I hear all you say, Pete. I had been referring to rough weather, remembering a video I saw long ago, of three or four vomitting Veronicas in a life-raft, being tossed about for days in vile conditions. It might have been real, or simulated somewhere, but it made me doubt it would be better than going down with the ship.
I agree, exit from the yacht could be equally necessary in calm conditions, but voices here were keen to reject use of a tender on account of the potential difficulty of launching one in the rough stuff.
I'm not sure the possibility of a gale launch is a reason to disregard the right tender as being a good lifeboat (especially if its cost is far more easily justified by being useable everyday, unlike a life-raft) but it isn't worth pressing the idea very hard here because it will conflict with most yachtsmen's preference for yachts designed with light ends and aerodynamic efficiency as priorities.
Personally I've always thought davits are eminently sensible and practical - not slender tubular things that may quit calamitously in boisterous weather, but rugged ones that will reliably support a RIB with a decent engine...and I picture such a tender being more predictable and less problematic to launch, from davits, than a half-pumped weight-saving inflatable might be from the deck.
It would also make every occasion to use the tender, vastly more appealing, which would make anchoring and escaping from marinas similarly tempting. So again, few here will be interested. ?
I agree, exit from the yacht could be equally necessary in calm conditions, but voices here were keen to reject use of a tender on account of the potential difficulty of launching one in the rough stuff.
I'm not sure the possibility of a gale launch is a reason to disregard the right tender as being a good lifeboat (especially if its cost is far more easily justified by being useable everyday, unlike a life-raft) but it isn't worth pressing the idea very hard here because it will conflict with most yachtsmen's preference for yachts designed with light ends and aerodynamic efficiency as priorities.
Personally I've always thought davits are eminently sensible and practical - not slender tubular things that may quit calamitously in boisterous weather, but rugged ones that will reliably support a RIB with a decent engine...and I picture such a tender being more predictable and less problematic to launch, from davits, than a half-pumped weight-saving inflatable might be from the deck.
It would also make every occasion to use the tender, vastly more appealing, which would make anchoring and escaping from marinas similarly tempting. So again, few here will be interested. ?
oldmanofthehills
Well-known member
The question should really be "who has a liferaft amongst those of us who head beyond the 12 mile inshore limit?
Halfway to Brittany with 15 hours sailing to next harbour, or worse halfway to Ireland with 10 hours sailing but very changeable weather it all looks rather different.
Hull fittings or piping can fail, (got that teeshirt, and thankful it was daylight so could see the ingress point), waves can break over you filling cockpit and flooding cabin (got that teeshirt too and it was cold and scary), big boats may fail to keep a lookout - we could see them as a clear night but judging by their course jink and subsequent searchlight sweep they had not seen us (teeshirt for nervous collapse after the event as we realised how close). And then there is fire!
Seen a few burnt out boats and those mostly petrol, but hey, diesel could set an engine compartment ablaze.
Mayday 60 miles off shore and if you are in the water you will be long dead of exposure by the time the lifeboat gets to you. PLBs can help the police locate your corpse but I prefer upping the odds so they find us seasick and despondent in a liferaft
Halfway to Brittany with 15 hours sailing to next harbour, or worse halfway to Ireland with 10 hours sailing but very changeable weather it all looks rather different.
Hull fittings or piping can fail, (got that teeshirt, and thankful it was daylight so could see the ingress point), waves can break over you filling cockpit and flooding cabin (got that teeshirt too and it was cold and scary), big boats may fail to keep a lookout - we could see them as a clear night but judging by their course jink and subsequent searchlight sweep they had not seen us (teeshirt for nervous collapse after the event as we realised how close). And then there is fire!
Seen a few burnt out boats and those mostly petrol, but hey, diesel could set an engine compartment ablaze.
Mayday 60 miles off shore and if you are in the water you will be long dead of exposure by the time the lifeboat gets to you. PLBs can help the police locate your corpse but I prefer upping the odds so they find us seasick and despondent in a liferaft
prv
Well-known member
I don't necessarily disagree - though you'd want to carefully consider stability given the absence of ballast bags - but the point is that very few of us sail yachts large enough to carry a substantial RIB in ready-to-launch configuration through all weather conditions. Those who do may very well consider it their lifeboat - I think Robin did, though he also carried a basic liferaft to meet regulations - but for the rest of us a vacuum-packed raft is the only practical option.
A few years ago I did a "sketch design" (ie, I didn't do any of the naval arch stuff since I don't have the skills - it was more an exercise in arranging gear, systems, and accommodation on an existing lines plan) whose deck layout was based around carrying a 12' rigid dinghy amidships in the manner of a pilot cutter's punt. Obviously it was a substantially larger vessel than mine or any I expect to ever own.
That yacht would have used the dinghy as primary lifeboat, with a buoyancy tube and cover attached, and survival pack stowed inside, during offshore passages. It still had a dedicated locker aft (with a hydrostatic release lid) for a conventional raft though, to give options in different circumstances.
Pete
capnsensible
Well-known member
Life rafts are designed to have stability in rough seas. I reckon if you abandon to a tender best take a liferaft with you.
oldmanofthehills
Well-known member
I use dinghies to get out to moorings. A 2 foot (60cm) wind over chop makes me nervous, a 3 foot (90cm) chop makes me consider refusing to move from shoreside or back into dinghy to go ashore. Tiny waves compared with the open sea in poor weather F5 wind over tide, and why on earth would an incident only occur in good weather?
A dinghy will turn turtle readilly if caught by a wave, a liferaft is designed to cope with it however uncomfortably or poorly. Obviously one is safer on board that yacht than the liferaft but if sh*t happens and you have to abandon you would be pleased to have a liferaft option.
A dinghy will turn turtle readilly if caught by a wave, a liferaft is designed to cope with it however uncomfortably or poorly. Obviously one is safer on board that yacht than the liferaft but if sh*t happens and you have to abandon you would be pleased to have a liferaft option.
rogerthebodger
Well-known member
A long time ago there was an article in PBO by someone who had fitted what I call lift bags in his boat (under the seating/berths) that could be inflated by a set of dive cylinders that could inflate the lift bags so as to keep the boat afloat if holed and full of water.
Any comments and if this was an alternative to a life raft.
Any comments and if this was an alternative to a life raft.
Daydream believer
Well-known member
As a 13 year old teenager I used to mess about with an Avon Redstart. It is surprisingly hard to turn over when it is 20% full of water, but easy to flip the right way up from upside down
Another situation people tend to forget would be motoring into a french river heading for somewhere like lezardrieux in a cross tide & F 4. The engine cuts & before you know it you get pushed onto a rock. A couple of waves & the boat will be sinking in seconds. A pleasant trip turns into tragedy.
It is Ok saying " use the sails", but I was once caught exiting Nieuport in F5. The Stuart Turner cut & the boat was severely damaged against the pier & I was thrown overboard. I already had the Genny up but it happened in seconds. That was the trip where we caught fire trying to motor home, because the boat was too badly damaged to sail.
oldmanofthehills
Well-known member
Having been in water next to upturned dinghy by my mooring (failed "lifeboat launch" from bank) I recall its not that easy and as a result we swam/scrambled ashore the 5 metres needed to the bank. Little chance of doing an invert in rolling seas once cold - I guess you might have less than a few minute before hypothermia starts taking its toll. I have waded and swam in iced water from a position of warmth and full energy and certainty of regaining warmth promptly and that was ok, but after an abandon ship in foul weather one would already be depleted and I wouldnt fancy my chances at all. I work on the principle that if I am in water from boat on passage, it will be as well my children know where my will is.
However you correctly illustrate the scope for accidents in seemingly innocent circumstances
prv
Well-known member
One of the Pardey books advocates these bags as the future of yacht safety, and goes into some detail on how to install them including considerations of chafe and so on.
What supposedly killed them was the need for custom design and installation to fit each boat, meaning they couldn’t simply be distributed and sold through chandleries (no direct ordering via the internet, of course). A liferaft is a standard package you can just buy off the shelf.
Pete
