How often do you change your liferaft ?

Tranona said:
There is no compulsion for a private British registered boat to carry a liferaft, and if it does for it to be serviced according manufacturer's recommendations. Other countries generally respect our "rules", although as Pete suggests the Portuguese do say that foreign registered boats that are based in Portugal for over 6 months should comply with their regulations that do require an in date raft. Other European countries do not impose the same conditions.

So, the annual servicing is only a recommendation, not a statutory requirement unless you are racing and the organising body requires it.
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It is my understanding that the French are difficult ( are they ever anything else) about out of date liferafts and flares, and do fine people from the UK
 
It would be interesting to hear from someone who has actually been inspected/fined by the French authorities. And also to know how often this happens.
drakes drum said:
It is my understanding that the French are difficult ( are they ever anything else) about out of date liferafts and flares, and do fine people from the UK
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Bringing this back into reality.....
My Seago Offshore was purchased in 2005 and serviced. However, Seago would not approve use or servicing after 12 years, and it is therefore throwaway. This came as a bit of a shock, and wasn't apparent or made clear when I purchased it.
I sold the thing on ebay and bought a Sea Safe 4 man which has no manufacturer defined end of life.
 
BaildonSports said:
When we bought our Moody 34 in Greece, there was an old 4 man liferaft from 1984 (32yo) on there - We had just bought a new 6 man liferaft so we decided to see if it still worked; there's a video from inflating it here
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Interesting video but:

1. lob it miles away from you into the water
2. "wait... don't we need to pull a painter or something?.... I don't know"

Please sort that out in case you ever need to launch your new one- from a boat and not a beach.....
 
bitbaltic said:
Interesting video but:

1. lob it miles away from you into the water
2. "wait... don't we need to pull a painter or something?.... I don't know"



Please sort that out in case you ever need to launch your new one- from a boat and not a beach.....
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We recently had a live throw overboard of a six man, and it was a job just to heave it over the guard rail in a slight chop.
Also, trying to bring it back alongside pulling up on the painter was a real pain because the underwater drogues were doing their job by holding it steady.
If you have tied the painter/lanyard onto the boat, no need for much of a tug to get it to inflate,
 
bitbaltic said:
not bad. I did see a few going for around the fifty quid mark when I looked, which decided me against simply ebaying it at first service and buying another smaller one (300 quid plus to service a six man when it's really to big, versus £599 for a new four man).
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Yes, we previously had a 6 man. My replacement is an ISO 9650 with over 24 hour pack, so well over a grand for a 4 man. Made sense, in a twisted logic sort of way.
 
prv said:
I've heard that, rightly or wrongly, the Portuguese can make an issue of it. But they're a long way from North Wales :)

Pete
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The French tend to be pretty tetchy about this sort of thing too. When I bought Spirit, my ex-sailing school boat, it still had a (Plastimo) liferaft which one of the instructors had loaned, from his own boat, as there had been an issue with Spirit's original one. As he was intending to sail his boat back to France I asked him if he wanted the raft back. He replied that it was 12 years old and thus "end of life" and he was buying a new one, as he did not want to be fined.
As I was preparing for a delivery trip I chanced bringing it to CH Marine in Skibbereen to see if it could be serviced, which they did, for €300, sending it to Belfast to be done, but it was then certified for another three years!
 
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As said a liferaft needs to be serviced according to the manufacturer's instructions, bear in mind if that is not done water, seasickness tablets, flares etc could be out of date depending on how long you leave it.
 
KellysEye said:
As said a liferaft needs to be serviced according to the manufacturer's instructions, bear in mind if that is not done water, seasickness tablets, flares etc could be out of date depending on how long you leave it.
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It's the leaking torch batteries that do damage, as we found out. If the safety bits were kept in in a separate grab bag and a cylinder pressure gauge visible through a window in the canister, there would be no need for inspection if the vac bag were still intact. Reports of failures indicate a repacked raft is more likely to fail than a factory packed one.
 
The Avon liferaft that came with our boat was thirty years old and had last been serviced in 2006. When we took it for a service the nice man told us that it would be about £350 to service as the gas bottle would need to be tested also. after that it would need annual serviceing at approximately £150.While we were there he opened it up and inflated it for us. The bottle was slightly loose so it may not have fully inflated in an emergency but the hand pump inside would have topped it up. Torch batteries were leaking and the waterpouches, seasick tablets and flares were obviously out of date.Although the liferaft looked ok and would have been ok after a service we decided that at 30 years old and very heavy we would have a new one.
 
Bluenote2 said:
The Avon liferaft that came with our boat was thirty years old and had last been serviced in 2006. When we took it for a service the nice man told us that it would be about £350 to service as the gas bottle would need to be tested also. after that it would need annual serviceing at approximately £150.While we were there he opened it up and inflated it for us. The bottle was slightly loose so it may not have fully inflated in an emergency but the hand pump inside would have topped it up. Torch batteries were leaking and the waterpouches, seasick tablets and flares were obviously out of date.Although the liferaft looked ok and would have been ok after a service we decided that at 30 years old and very heavy we would have a new one.
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We have a 1991 Avon 6 man which weighs a bloody ton. We had it serviced in 2010 and the guy said that this would out last me as it is made of rip stop neoprene and would outlast one of the new cheaper ones. But it has to be serviced every year and the Turks are quoting about €500.

I have not bothered to keep it date as we are only coastal sailing, but next year a longer voyage back to the UK will be made, so I will need to make a decision on service or buy new. Buying in Turkey is out of the question I think.
 
Interesting that people refer continuously to "servicing" of their liferaft.
My take on it is that, like all safety equipment it needs regular checking - in Greece that check (basically 24-hrs inflated) costs between €50-€100, is carried out by a certified inspector after which it's issued with a certificate.
The costs become considerably greater when the contents (1st aid, water etc) need renewal.
My Bfa raft is now 19 years old, has been certified, re-equipped and re-packed in the UK, France, Portugal, Malta and Greece.
How buying a new raft pushes one up the "ladder" is only comprehensible if the originals are severely below standard (http://www.safety-marine.co.uk/spages/iso specification liferafts - what you need to know.htm).
So the answer to the OP question is "when it fails it's inspection). In fact for most coastal sailors a liferaft is redundant - far more useful is an EPIRB.
All the reports, from Fastnet, through Hobart, come to the same conclusion - stay with the boat - and having spent 6 hours in a liferaft I can bear out it's something I'd avoid, probably preferring to drown.
The only time you get into a liferaft is when you have fire on board...
Even more useless than flares.
 
When I bought our boat 11 yrs ago and it had a very old BFA 6 man life raft - from memory about 30 yrs old and had not been serviced for years. Took it to our local service station who inflated it in front of us. It inflated well but several seams were lifting but not leaking obviously. It was chucked in the skip as being unservisable. Have not bothered with a new one. I suspect it was left over from when the boat was a sailing school boat.
 
charles_reed said:
The only time you get into a liferaft is when you have fire on board....
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.....or when your boat sinks below your feet - as did mine on a glorious May morning in 1994 about a mile SW of Acarseid Mor. A yacht came out of the anchorage and steamed on by both me and crew in the liferaft. Fortunately both Stornoway helo and Portree lifeboat arrived almost simultaneously a short while later.
I would like to have had a pierhead conversation with that yacht skipper.
 
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