Liferaft experience

I find the purchase and service costs prohibitive. In the Solent you will be beating rescuers off with a stick. For longer trips I rent. Guaranteed all up to date. Delivered to the boat.
 
Interesting oz-1
Quite a while back, a lady had sold her boat and was delivering it from Gib to a port down the Costa del Sol. Her inexperienced crew went below to cook up a meal..... and had chip pan fire. Very shortly after, they were in the dinghy (no LRs then) Since she had removed the VHF to fit to her new boat, they could not send a distress call. But quite quickly, a RN frigate turned up and fished them out. She asked them "How did they know" "Well, there was a big column of smoke, so worth a look."

I might have said this before here, but life rafts were developed from the WW11 bomber rafts that might help the crews if the had to ditch in the N. Sea. To survive a ditching, it needs to be in a relatively calm sea state.If rough, unlikely you get to use them. So, unless you hit a container, or a whale gets very upset. They are of limited use.
 
I bought our liferaft in 2001 and chose it on the basis of my Channel and North Sea range. My assumption was that I would be OK if it kept us alive for up to 24 hrs. We bought an XM on offer with 5 yrs to first service and 3 yrs intervals after that. It cost about £800, compared to about £2000 for the premier brands. All I can say is that we are still alive.
 
stuartwineberg said:
I find the purchase and service costs prohibitive. In the Solent you will be beating rescuers off with a stick. For longer trips I rent. Guaranteed all up to date. Delivered to the boat.
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Guarantees on liferafts are great, if the bloody thing doesn’t work you won’t be around to claim a replacement.
 
jamie N said:
I seem to recall that there was a minimum of 24hrs of water/'food' in the raft
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The commonly used leisure rafts - Seago Offshore, Ocean Safety Ocean, etc - don’t contain any food or water as standard. You need to add the ISO over-24hr pack for that.

Anyone adding a raft to their boat needs to know what’s in it in order to pack the associated grab bag properly.

Pete
 
SteveGorst said:
I am curious about liferafts and how long realistically one would have to survive in them if you had a epirb/plb and flares. Has anyone on the forum actual real experience of using a liferaft and how long did it take to get rescued. I am particularly interested in up to 50 miles offshore UK, Ireland, France rather than transatlantic. There are 1000's of members on this forum so someone must have actually used one?
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SteveGorst said:
I am curious about liferafts and how long realistically one would have to survive in them if you had a epirb/plb and flares. Has anyone on the forum actual real experience of using a liferaft and how long did it take to get rescued. I am particularly interested in up to 50 miles offshore UK, Ireland, France rather than transatlantic. There are 1000's of members on this forum so someone must have actually used one?
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I wrote an article in Yachting Monthly (May 2015) about Daniel Fournier, a retired Colonel of the French Sapeurs Pompiers ( fire service) who suffered an explosion on board followed by a fire, dismasting and sinking one August morning 10 miles off the Northhumberland coast. His nearly new life raft did not fully inflate meaning that he was continually wet. Although he estimates that help came within about an hour he was already seriously suffering from exposure. Due to the intensity of the fire immediately after the explosion he could not reach his radios and it was by chance that he had his nearly flat cell phone with him.

He has a lot of interesting reflections based on his professional experience. He perhaps survived because of his training and because he kept himself physically fit. The life raft involved was an Ocean Safety. I contacted them for comment and they said that they would recover and examine the raft and get back to me.

I'm still waiting...
 
oz-1 said:
Hi Steve, i am sorry to say i had to deploy my liferaft, and only a few miles from my home port of Torquay. It was in 2002, my lovely partner Linda had not long passed away, we used to go every summer to France. I decided to take the boat across on my own. I left Torquay in the afternoon with a lovely breeze. This didn't last long though, the wind died and by the time it was dark i hadn't done many miles. At dawn the next day i was still this side of the west going shipping lane. For breakfast i used to have porridge and a cup of tea, cooked on my origo 2 burner stove. The burner with the kettle on it fired up straight away, but the one with the pan didn't, it was dry. Instead of turning the cooker off to refuel, i did the most stupid thing of my entire life. I got my gallon container of meths and thought i would just pour a bit in the cannister, what could go wrong! I forgot that just above the gauze in the cannister there is a small metal disc. The meths hit the disc and spalshed everywhere, the spilt meths cought light from the other cannister with the kettle on it. The flames travelled down the front of the cabinet and then the gallon container cought alite. I had both fire extinguishers and fire blanket, but now the fire had taken hold and i panicked. The galley at the time was up forward, so i went back to my small chart table and with my handheld vhf sent out a mayday. I was really lucky the Brixham coastguard ( now sadly gone ) picked up my signal immediately. The lady asked if i had a liferaft, and when i said yes, she said to get in it, which i did and looked on as my boat sailed on with smoke billowing out of the cabin. A new survey ship, the three counties ( on sea trials ) picked me up, after what seemed a long time to me, not too long afterwards. This accident was entirely my stupid fault and completely avoidable, but i am glad i had it. My boat, a 21foot homebuilt flicka was saved by Salcombe lifeboat and the fireboat. The interior was gutted but hull and deck survived. I have since restered her and been to France and Aldernay since. If your wife feels safer with a liferaft, get one, hoping that you will never need it. All the best.
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May I say - and I am sure others will feel the same - thank you very much indeed for an honest and clear account. I once came within a hair's breadth of filling a kettle with petrol and putting in on the stove...
 
Pete7 said:
Couple of examples of rafts being used:

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/safety-failures-sparked-crew-s-life-raft-ordeal-1.1041213

Seem to remember an Irish trawler heading to France also sank and the crew took to the liferaft for a week.
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The second example you quote is in fact one of the examples in the press report Inis Mill. The other is a well known sinking of a Hanse when the rudder stock failed.

Both illustrate something that has not been raised yet and that is the variable reliability of liferafts when needed.

The Megawat raft failed to inflate despite having been recently serviced and of a well regarded (expensive) make. (Megawat was a sailing school boat).

On the other hand Inis Mill had a "cheapo" Seago raft - at the time they were considered the bottom of the heap - which performed perfectly and kept the crew safe for 8 days.

So while liferafts perform the role of "comfort" particularly for wives their record in use is pretty poor as reading the MAIB reports will show.

We have been lulled into a false sense of security as in recent years there have been so few cases of rafts being used in anger that we forget how poor they are. There are many reasons for this reduction in use, but probably principally because the gear and techniques available to minimise the possibility of foundering (better boats, AIS, more accurate forecasts, DSC, EPIRBs, more responsive rescue services etc) have improved out of all recognition.

Despite that sales of rafts have also increased substantially which is not surprising as the cost in real terms has more than halved in the last 20 years.
 
We had our liferaft serviced in HK for the last series of ocean races we did. When we moved to Oz we took the spare bits of kit with us, including the LR. We had a cage built on the transom of Josepheline to house the LR. My father was picked up after 3 days from a LR, Coastal Command, so we hold them in high regard - and I had the LR reserviced.

At the reservice It contained none of the listed flares, food (which I think was simply biscuits anyway) and no water. The LR also had holes in it - which may have been caused by my inattention (but the absence of flares etc does make one question) and was condemned.

I watch how my LR is serviced now and here reviewing how the service is conducted was not onerous for the service agent - they were most accomodating.

Jonathan
 
prv said:
The commonly used leisure rafts - Seago Offshore, Ocean Safety Ocean, etc - don’t contain any food or water as standard. You need to add the ISO over-24hr pack for that.

Anyone adding a raft to their boat needs to know what’s in it in order to pack the associated grab bag properly.

Pete
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At the first service the wife went to Premium Life rafts to watch our very basic Ocean safety liferaft being tested & the packing ( saw the water- contrary to your comment- & flares etc go in) to see what the liferaft looked like & filmed it so I could see also.
I see one of my biggest dangers that of being run down, having had a lot of near misses over many years. By near misses I include, less than 2 boat lengths by a container ship in fog & a vessel that constantly changed course as we tried to avoid it, as the helmsman was not looking, in the Dover Strait.
Whether I would be in a fit state to get the liferaft operational after is debatable
 
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Daydream believer said:
At the first service the wife went to Premium Life rafts to watch our very basic Ocean safety liferaft being tested & the packing ( saw the water- contrary to your comment-
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Here is the packing list for the standard “Ocean” raft from Ocean Safety: https://www.oceansafety.com/product-range/liferafts/product/ocean-standard-liferaft#pack-contents

Since yours had water in, it must have been a higher-spec version.

My Seago raft doesn’t have any water or food (my grab bag has plenty) and nor do the majority of the Plastimo range.

Pete
 
I know a few who have used them. One crew were 40 hours in NE gales in the channel after the boat sank, the crew had so little time one of them climbed on the roof and fell overboard hugging the raft.
Another, boat caught fire in fog just outside Roscoff, they abandoned but the boat managed to get in gear, circled round and loomed out of the fog in flames. This was the second L/R trip for one man, he went to see Cosalt and got his fags packed in the next one.
Boat sank several miles off the Lizard, SW 4-5, they ended up nearly on the rocks and had to paddle.
Crew left on watch and disregarded order to get skipper up before the Gilstone (Scilly), he was unable to disable A/P and hit the rock, one died. Lucky to get in the L/R it was a NW gale.
I pulled my Plastimo in the garden, ten years since local service, it failed because the internal bottle lanyard was too slack and the knot caught in the canister. having cut open it fired perfectly. If you watch your raft being packed would you know about this? I wouldn't have. The people who did it went bust, so no retribution.
My friend had a hired Premium raft, I make no apology for linking to the report every time the subject comes up, obviously they will have improved now:
https://www.gov.uk/maib-reports/col...resulting-in-lady-hamilton-of-helford-sinking
 
I have deployed many life rafts. Over a 20year period I’ve been left in one for up to 6hrs in an easterly in the Channel. This is not a pleasant experience as you’ll soon realise the old saying you step up into the liferaft.
The most concerning is if the raft is upside down and you need to right it. This task with a life jack on is nigh on impossible unless you’re an ex Japanese gymnast who can pull yourself up at arms length. There is a technique which you can adopt to get the raft to right but mentioning it here will bring out the armchair abuse no doubt. If you need to know more please priv message me.
 
robertj said:
The most concerning is if the raft is upside down and you need to right it. This task with a life jack on is nigh on impossible unless you’re an ex Japanese gymnast who can pull yourself up at arms length. There is a technique which you can adopt to get the raft to right but mentioning it here will bring out the armchair abuse no doubt. If you need to know more please priv message me.
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No please do mention it; a clear interest within this community, just ignore the know-it-alls. I've done this a few times but only in a pool - ex military trainer once commented that the ability to perform 3-5 clean chin-ups with a 20kg weight hung from a belt was a reasonable strength target. Then there's the windage problem; like a dinghy one has to right to windward and I'm guessing your Japanese reference refers to doing this in a blow. Either way, informed opinion would be very welcome.
 
Quite some time ago, the requirement for Commercial Endorsement to Yachtmaster Certificates was introduced. As I was still in the RN at the time, I got myself onto the RN sea survival course.

Part of that is to right a 25, yes, 25 man liferaft by climbing on to one side and using the straps sewn to it, put feet through two, hold other with hand and lean back.

Observations.

Being a Submariner for a number of years before the course is not good preparation. We got a somewhat different system..

Being under a biig liferaft is not a bundle of fun.

Especially if it is February in Horsea (dirty, muddy) Lake in Pompey.

Dealing with a yacht liferaft in heavy airs is not going to be a bundle of fun either, but not being prepared by not doing a suitable course wont be too.

The last liferaft I had on my liveaboard boat had a ramp and inflated door to get in to it. Was not able to find a similar one when I replaced it.

15 year old liferafts can rot to bits despite servicing.

I still dont goto sea without one! Ask our Fishermen Friends!! :encouragement:
 
SteveGorst said:
I am curious about liferafts and how long realistically one would have to survive in them if you had a epirb/plb and flares. Has anyone on the forum actual real experience of using a liferaft and how long did it take to get rescued. I am particularly interested in up to 50 miles offshore UK, Ireland, France
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Maybe in the UK people are more cautious :)
In France there are regular reports of people having used their liferafts, from racers to normal leisure boaters. In the distances you are talking about, well equipped crews have been rescued say from 30minutes to a few hours.

Without signalling equipment, a totally different story: in the Channel, one liferaft once had to wait several days before being rescued, others along the Atlantic coast 1-2-3 days; sometimes liferafts are found empty, with no one inside, which might mean something about the difficulty to get into it.
 
Thanks for the honest account oz that was enlightening. With that in mind i will indeed get a liferaft and just hope I don't have to use it.
 
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