Life Raft sizes

[Fascadale]

How critical is the size of a life raft?

I have been offered an almost new Avon 6 person life raft at a very good price.

The Avon brochure seems to indicate that their 4, 6 and 8 person rafts all have the same water ballast

I sometimes sail with three on the boat, often with two and am considering an extended offshore voyage solo.

Is there going to be much difference for one person in a 4 or 6 person raft?

The alternative to buying the Avon may be buying a new "cheaper" raft.

 

[charles_reed]

Weight and costs of service are the two main disadvantages, with a liferaft larger than the one you need.
A large raft, with less than the designed number of occupants is also far more unstable in a broken seastate.
Except in the case of fire a liferaft is very much a secondary backup and a good case (especially for a singlehander) can be made for not having one.

 

[Roberto]

How critical is the size of a life raft?

I have been offered an almost new Avon 6 person life raft at a very good price.

The Avon brochure seems to indicate that their 4, 6 and 8 person rafts all have the same water ballast

I sometimes sail with three on the boat, often with two and am considering an extended offshore voyage solo.

Is there going to be much difference for one person in a 4 or 6 person raft?

The alternative to buying the Avon may be buying a new "cheaper" raft.

I am in your situation about number of people, family of four (2 very young kids), now usually singlehanded or twohanded.
I talked to people organising two different safety courses and chose an 8 person liferaft, which I have onboard. Capsize seems to be expected anyway if the sea is strong enough, even at full load.

Apart from their advice, I fired our old 8 person liferaft and might I be damned if life expectancy is not reduced by putting eight people inside those dimensions.
Plus we now have double/treble chocolate bars

 

[DavidMcMullan]

From memory (attending offshore survival courses many years ago) large rafts with one or two aboard are more unstable, as the weight inside (bodies) are not uniformly distributed around the raft.

 

[PuffTheMagicDragon]

I would gladly exchange my 8-man liferaft for a 4-man version.

My recently acquired boat was previously registered on the Italian Register. According to their regulations, since the boat can carry 8 persons she had to be equipped with eight lifejackets and an eight person liferaft. Since I usually sail alone or, at most, with three others I have no use for such a big beast. In fact, I can barely lift the valise off the ground, let alone deploy it in an emergency. I cannot imagine that my 75 kilos inside would hold it stable in any kind of sea. What a waste of space and money!

 

[ctva]

Generally you select the liferaft for the normal crew compliment. As mentioned above, too little weight in a liferaft is not good but you can squeeze and extra one or to in a smaller one.

It's a (hopefully) once every 12 year investment and give good reassurance so get the right size.

I have a Seago 4 person cannister which though untested for real, has passed two services with no problems reported.

 

[ean_p]

Generally you select the liferaft for the normal crew compliment. As mentioned above, too little weight in a liferaft is not good but you can squeeze and extra one or to in a smaller one.

It's a (hopefully) once every 12 year investment and give good reassurance so get the right size.

I have a Seago 4 person cannister which though untested for real, has passed two services with no problems reported.

of the life rafts that i've been in (during several survival course's) the idea of accommodating a couple more is a non starter! indeed when having the full complement life is not good at all! I would contact Avon and ask their advice about numbers etc. I did for our RFD and was told to accommodate the max likely to need it which was 6 rather than the normal expected crew of 2-4 peeps!

 

[monkfish24]

A liferaft must be able to accomodate at least 50% extra for it's designed usage, so, a 4 man will hold 6, a 6 will hold 9 and an 8 will hold 12.

If you are really in a situation where you are trying to survive, sod comfort! keep together, keep close and keep warm!

 

[ean_p]

A liferaft must be able to accomodate at least 50% extra for it's designed usage, so, a 4 man will hold 6, a 6 will hold 9 and an 8 will hold 12.

If you are really in a situation where you are trying to survive, sod comfort! keep together, keep close and keep warm!

Do you know this for a fact, is there legislation on it as in all seriousness I have been in several commercial rafts that even though we had less than the capacity, albeit fully kitted men, they were not a good place to be for only 20-30 minutes in a pool. Packed in largely unable to move at all, cramps setting in, sitting in pools of water, not able to see what's going on outside! The idea of being in them in anger so to speak is not something to look forward to. They wouldn't have accommodated 50% extra at all, and at full capacity would have been very ugly places to have been. I think it might be easy to say sod comfort but after several hours leading on to several days maybe things might appear different! Hope it all stays theoretical for everyone!

 

[duncan99210]

When we were shopping for our liferaft, we asked several manufacturers at their stands at a boat show as to what size we should carry. We are normally 2 persons on board with sometimes a couple visiting or even more occassionally, 2 adults plus 3 small kids.

All of them advised a 4 man raft, as having a bigger one would make for an unstable raft with only 2 in it. A 4 man raft, whilst not exactly large, will accommodate 4 adults plus 3 smallish kids without too much trouble and be the better for it. As they said, the raft isn't designed for comfort but survival for a short period of time. With an EPIRB in mainly coastal waters, then the 4 man raft was their firm advice.

Now, remember, that this is from the folks who would sell us the raft in due course, so their natural inclination should be to sell us the bigger (more expensive) raft rather than the smaller one. We wound up buying the Seago 4 man Offshore cannister raft. Never used it and really don't want to do so but it is a very useful security blanket secured on the coach house roof....

 

[Robin]

A raft for four on a boat with berths for 8 yet normally crewed by just two, so what to buy? That was our dilemma last time around and we chose to buy a 6 person raft, on the basis that we would never have 8 on board at sea and if challenged by an over zealous official when away cruising that would probably be OK.

As for the stability considerations with two people in a raft for 6 (or 4, they don't make them for just two), the idea of spending any time two up even in a 4 person raft I felt was not good, especially if you tried to take any extra survival stuff with you. The stability question came up years ago after the 1979 Fastnet Race disaster and liferaft design changed I believe as a result, with more ballast pockets/capacity which may temper some of the stability side of the equation?

In our case we decided that the likelihood of needing to deploy our raft for the perfect storm scenario was much less than for collision with something, like a submerged container say, or because of a fire on board and so we accepted the risk of reduced stability in extremis in our personal compromise.

 

[monkfish24]

Do you know this for a fact, is there legislation on it as in all seriousness I have been in several commercial rafts that even though we had less than the capacity, albeit fully kitted men, they were not a good place to be for only 20-30 minutes in a pool. Packed in largely unable to move at all, cramps setting in, sitting in pools of water, not able to see what's going on outside! The idea of being in them in anger so to speak is not something to look forward to. They wouldn't have accommodated 50% extra at all, and at full capacity would have been very ugly places to have been. I think it might be easy to say sod comfort but after several hours leading on to several days maybe things might appear different! Hope it all stays theoretical for everyone!

Yes, it is fact, I'm in the RN and have done countless sea survival courses over STCW 95 level. I'm also an aircraft engineer and deal with liferaft servicing and repair on a daily basis.

A level of comfort is not a requirement in safety tests and if you are sitting in pools of water after 30 minutes, you would want a refund from your sea survival course. It is one of the prinicipal aims of self preservation in a life raft and they are obviously not reinforcing that point well enough.

It's all well and good thinking you are always within 24 hours rescue and that you have survived, completley wrong, you have just started to survive. If you were in a 4 man life raft and a 5th person wanted to get in and you turned them away, for your comfort, you resign that person to certain death. simple. Who is to say you will never have too many people on your boat, it might just be that one off when you get hit.

 

[Reptile Smile]

In our case we decided that the likelihood of needing to deploy our raft for the perfect storm scenario was much less than for collision with something, like a submerged container say, or because of a fire on board and so we accepted the risk of reduced stability in extremis in our personal compromise.

When I come to buy my liferaft, that's exactly the logic I'll employ - spot-on, in my book.