Liferaft Blues- a deflating experience.

[AntarcticPilot]

Of course I cannot speak for other states ... but in all the time I had my boat here with UK SSR ... and sailing the river as well as Riga Bay etc. - the only item they wanted to see was a Licence ... ICC.
All other was "Comity" ..... (One exception - they do not allow bog discharge to sea !)

Only when I was told I can no longer register SSR and had to registered with Latvian Shipping Register - did I have to then comply with their rules.

The point is that "Comity" is an internal agreement between consenting states. Basically, the Law of the Sea recognizes three regimes:

1. International waters (more than 12 miles from the baseline, which is usually a line joining prominent headlands and islands; its definition (especially in places like the Gulf of Finland!) can get very messy!).
2. Territorial waters - waters between the baseline and international waters
3. Internal waters - waters inside the baseline.

• In the first, the international Law of the Sea applies.
• In the second, national laws apply except where overridden by treaty or for vessels on innocent passage. Innocent passage means simply traversing territorial waters on a passage that does not terminate within the waters of the country in question (there are exceptions for taking shelter under stress of weather or other emergencies). The right of innocent passage is what the US Navy often attempts to enforce in regions such as the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea, where it doesn't recognize the Chinese claims to the South China sea being national waters.
• In the last, National laws apply unconditionally, except where overridden by other treaties (not LoS). In the EU, these are often over-ridden by "comity", and by specific treaties in cases like the Minch (all the waters inside the Outer Hebrides are national waters of the UK). Ships registered elsewhere are usually granted the rights of their originating country, but they don't have to be; this is custom not law, and it is not unconditional in any case. If a nation wished to pass a law that required all ships berthing there to be painted sky blue with pink dots, it could - though their international trade might drop remarkably! But we see its everyday application in things like port rules requiring the use of a pilot, and rarely in the case of ships being impounded for things like bad debts, being unsafe or even for breaking laws such as those imposing sanctions on another country (we saw that quite recently).

Baselines are the important thing in all of this, and mostly they are quite straightforward - the baseline is the line you'd get by stretching a rubber band between prominent headlands and offshore islands. It gets tricky when you consider national borders, where the rule is a bit vague - it says that the offshore boundary shall follow the trend of the border on land. Naturally, this leads to problems when nations try and settle it - it isn't just the three divisions above that are affected, it's also the economic zone (which is a different thing, irrelevant to yachts and shipping but of vital interest to fishermen and oil and mineral exploitation!).

 

[ColinR]

to return to the original topic, I spoke to the service agent. He said this: the valve that failed is a pressure relief valve. When XM were bought by Zodiac around 2006 those valves had to be replaced. This replacement is common to many types of raft and has no specified life so is not something that is replaced on a service interval. It is not glued in place, the two parts clamp to the fabric from either side, so the plastic it is made from must have failed. He will alert other owners of rafts with same valve that come in for service.

I think he's a reputable guy and everything else seemed in order.

 

[stranded]

One good reason to hire.

Hi Sandy - do you have a trusted hire place - I need a six man for a few weeks this summer but don’t want to be stuck with it when usually only 2-4 on board.

 

[rszemeti]

This replacement is common to many types of raft and has no specified life so is not something that is replaced on a service interval. It is not glued in place, the two parts clamp to the fabric from either side, so the plastic it is made from must have failed. He will alert other owners of rafts with same valve that come in for service.

In my other hobby, which is flying planes, a failure such as this would be reported back to the CAA, who would contact the manufacturer and instigate a review of all known incidents and decide what action was to be taken ... and if necessary a recall and replacement schedule. I doubt we will see an announcement on any manufacturers website in the near future regarding checks or replacements, it will be quietly swept under the carpet. The industry values reputation above safety. Maybe the MCGA might be interested?

 

[Graham376]

I doubt we will see an announcement on any manufacturers website in the near future regarding checks or replacements, it will be quietly swept under the carpet. The industry values reputation above safety. Maybe the MCGA might be interested?

It wasn't swept under the carpet, the faulty Thanner valves are old news, some rafts were recalled by Viking as long ago as 2006 - Viking liferaft recall - Motor Boat & Yachting

 

[[163233]]

A less obvious case is a vessel on passage that anchors for the night without landing. I'm not sure that counts or not. I guess a bay would likely be viewed as internal, but you can imagine a situation where it wasn't.

On the subject though, I've seen bicycle tyre inflators with a gas cylinder (probably the evil CO2 of course). Are those big enough for emergency, and rapid, tender inflation?

 

[duncan99210]

On the subject though, I've seen bicycle tyre inflators with a gas cylinder (probably the evil CO2 of course). Are those big enough for emergency, and rapid, tender inflation?

No they’re not. Typically the gas cartridges used are about 25gms and would be suitable for Inflating a child sized lifejacket. The gas cylinder of a life raft is typically somewhere in the region of two kilograms of CO2 plus .2 kilogram of nitrogen.

 

[[163233]]

No they’re not. Typically the gas cartridges used are about 25gms and would be suitable for Inflating a child sized lifejacket. The gas cylinder of a life raft is typically somewhere in the region of two kilograms of CO2 plus .2 kilogram of nitrogen.

Shame, I guess it's more in the sodastream range then....

 

[Kelpie]

Shame, I guess it's more in the sodastream range then....

More like a fire extinguisher

 

[Beneteau381]

Shame, I guess it's more in the sodastream range then....

Im doing research for an article on one, the bottles for a 4 man weigh 5 kilos plus!

 

[Graham376]

Im doing research for an article on one, the bottles for a 4 man weigh 5 kilos plus!

Pony cylinder should be plenty large enough - 3 Litre Pony Cylinder (232 bar)

 

[[163233]]

Pony cylinder should be plenty large enough - 3 Litre Pony Cylinder (232 bar)

Why would anyone want to inflate a small horse?

 

[jant]

Interesting thread, my liferaft too is out of service life, I would quite like to do a similar exercise and inflate it on dry land, question. Once flares and other “stuff” is removed , how does one safety dispose of the now deflated, inflated liferaft? Local tip?

 

[Stemar]

The tip would be my first stop. If they don't want boaty stuff, tell 'em it's a paddling pool

 

[Graham376]

Interesting thread, my liferaft too is out of service life, I would quite like to do a similar exercise and inflate it on dry land, question. Once flares and other “stuff” is removed , how does one safety dispose of the now deflated, inflated liferaft? Local tip?

If it holds air, you would get a few bob on ebay as a posh paddling pool.

 

[fisherman]

I inflated my old plastimo, ten years out of service, after having to open it to fire the bottle. It went down quite a bit over 24 hours, local serivce man told me 20% loss/24 hours is acceptable. I sent Plastimo a video to show how the service agent had failed, they blankly refused to accept it was one of theirs despite being shown the label and serial number. I wasn't accusing them and made that clear, just for info.

 

[rotrax]

I inflated my old plastimo, ten years out of service, after having to open it to fire the bottle. It went down quite a bit over 24 hours, local serivce man told me 20% loss/24 hours is acceptable. I sent Plastimo a video to show how the service agent had failed, they blankly refused to accept it was one of theirs despite being shown the label and serial number. I wasn't accusing them and made that clear, just for info.

That from Plastimo seems par for the course, which is very sad.

 

[LadyInBed]

Im doing research for an article on one, the bottles for a 4 man weigh 5 kilos plus!

I decided to open up my 2nd hand raft the other day (I bought it from Dee Caffari's boat Aviva)



All the 'accessories' were there, but I did find one small problem - The launching painter was attached to the cylinder ok but the end of that painter wasn't attached to the Raft painter stub, just tied off on a corner of the foil bag!

 

[rszemeti]

All the 'accessories' were there, but I did find one small problem - The launching painter was attached to the cylinder ok but the end of that painter wasn't attached to the Raft painter stub, just tied off on a corner of the foil bag!

So it would have inflated ... and then floated away? One more vote for "attend the service yourself" or "do it yourself" then!