Life rafts

[longjohnsadler]

Have spent several years hiring these for longer trips (Ireland-Scotland eg) and have just been told by my yacht club that one was 'required' for a local outing.
The cost to hire plus time taken to pick up and drop off means I might as well buy. Interested to hear anyone's viewpoints on how useful they are, which makes are best, whether canister/valise etc.
Have you got one and if not why?

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[ParaHandy]

Expensive bird poo collector ...

bought one myself on the premise that if i have one, i might never need to use it .. (irish logic ...)

now, it needs a service for which somebody's trying to part me from £300!!! I questioned, as you do, why so much and was told about cost of replacing flares (£30 approx), bottle of water (£0.65 approx) and was none the wiser ...

it's a plastimo 4 man RORC can which sits on deck, quite happily collecting seagull, sparrow and other droppings and cost £700.

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[Talbot]

Which makes are best - that is a major query.

There are three main questions:
What is the maximim number of people that you carry in your boat
Where do you intend operating the boat
Do you seriously want a liferaft, or is it a nice to have in order to meet the regulations.

The liferaft people will all advise that your raft should be sized for the number of people on the trip (ludicrous IMHO) - this is for 2 reasons: to benefit from the warmth of people huddled together, and to ensure that they are evenly distributed in the raft, thus making it as stable as possible. A double floor and proper space blankets will provide better warmth, and some liferafts (e.g. the avon) are already subdivided to enable better distribution. As they are already designed to pack people close together, putting 6 men in a raft designed for 4 is asking a lot, therefore I decided to get one that would suit the number of people that I do carry occasionally and accept that on other occasions it would be too "big" (= better visibility)

The cruising area will demand different types of raft, and there are three real categories:

Coastal (lightweight and normally without a double floor, but cheap)
Offshore (much heavier, and the better ones have a double floor)
Ocean (the rolls royce -frequently the same raft as the Offshore, but with a full survivors equipment -water etc)


The decision is yours, personnally I have bought an 8 man avon with full survival pack for my longer distance cruising, but wish it was a lot lighter. This is my safety blanket, I hope I never have to use it, but know that if I have too, it stands a good chance of keeping me alive.

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[bedouin]

I have a liferaft - partly because some races/cruises require it and partly for the peace of mind it can give. Logically I know that the chance of being in a situation where the liferaft will save my life is vanishingly small; but knowing it is there does reduce stress and so make any offshore passage more pleasant and probably improves my decision making in adverse conditions (but that is purely a personal thing).

As to quality - there is no doubt that the top of the range models are vastly better than the cheapest - but it really depends on how mich you intend to use it. If you intend to take to the liferaft on a regular basis or spend 119 days drifting around the ocean in one then I am sure you will appreciate the advantages of the more rugged designs. For offshore sailing, especially if you have an EPIRB, rescue times now tend to be measured in hours rather than days so quality is not that much of an issue.

I went for one that matches RORC requirements, as I regard RORC/ORC as being at the forefront of safety. In my mind the most important design consideration is how you enter the liferaft from the water.

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[AlexL]

I just bought a new Plastimo Cruiser - about 700 quid. The dealer serivced it (for free) imediately prior to sale so the next service is 3 years away. and the warranty is 12 years (?? i think) from the date of purchase. The dealer gave me a choice of having the regular or the RORC pack inside the raft when he did the service.

It looks like a pretty good raft, with ballast pockets, insulated floor etc etc. and if you use it in anger, god forbid, then plastimo will give you a new raft!

As our boat is usually just crewed by SWMBO and myself then we opted for a Canister hung on a cradle on the stern rail, so you just unclip and push into the water - no need for a hernia inducing heave over the side.


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[StephenW]

I believe a liferaft is a cheap insurance policy for an occasion that will hopefully never occur - the need to rapidly evacuate the boat (because of fire/sinking/run-down etc).

The best value I've seen is Seago at about £525, looks like they have a good number of stability pockets, don't complicate repair with a double-chamber arrangement (they are single)and provide the bulk of what you need from a liferaft. Supplement the bits with a grab bag to improve.

I'd be interested o hear from anyone who's seen one deployed and used it to get into

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[longjohnsadler]

Blimey 119 days in the liferaft, better choose the deluxe model including a pack of cards and several straws (one shorter) to see which of the crew to eat first.
Most of my cruising is west coast of Ireland and Scotland, but you never know where you might get to in the lifespan of the raft, say in a few years time, which makes it more difficult.
Living nearly 100 miles from the nearest hire place I've got to buy, and quite fancy one out of way but handy on stern rail. Might be less susceptible to seagull poo too.
Thanks for all suggestions.

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[MainlySteam]

We carry both a liferaft and a 406MHz EPIRB of which I regard the EPIRB as the most important.

In the sparsely frequented waters around here up to the Pacific Islands I have not heard of any crew who has not been rescued within 24 to 36 hours and sometimes within hours if carrying a 406 EPIRB. Most seem to be rescued before they are forced into their raft. For that reason we went only for a middle of the range valise packed raft and keep it inside the boat. Unless one is going to venture into the extremes eg arctic, I personally do not see any need for a complex and more expensive raft if a 406 EPIRB is also carried.

There is a view that a higher quality raft is needed to stand up to loss in very heavy weather conditions (eg the Sydney Hobart losses) if one's yacht breaks up. However, in my view, if one has a well founded yacht and it breaks up in heavy seas, then I suspect that a bag of fabric pumped up with CO2 and its inhabitants are not going to do very well either, regardless of its quality.

An aside on EPIRB's - I have recently come across two 406 EPIRB's which were incorrectly programmed (not here in NZ) and may not have initiated a search if they had been used in anger (they had the country MID and MMSI both incorrect). I suggest that the 15 hex code which will be on the EPIRB or its test sheet be checked - COSPAS/SARSAT have a neat little program on their internet site that will decode the hex code for one and other information on the site tells what to expect - the MID and MMSI, or serial if serialised, are easily recognised and should be returned. I do so for every boat I am closely involved with.

John

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