Liferaft experience

[SteveGorst]

I have been reading the report on survival in the North Sea

http://www.hse.gov.uk/research/otopdf/1995/oto95038.pdf

It seems that for the older sailors, like myself now, there would be a big thermal shock as you enter the water and you may not be able to pull yourself into the lifeboat and die in minutes. If you are going to be serious about using one it would be an idea to consider wearing a buoyant survival suit and a lifejacket as talked about in the report. If you were to do that you would have 2 chances of survival.
1 successfully getting into the liferaft.
2 surviving, for a few hours if necessary, in the water till you get picked up holding on to the liferaft

 

[robertj]

Practiced righting rafts in pool on survival course but not easy. That's one of the reasons our replacement raft is one of these - https://www.seasafe.co.uk/shop/ct/-self-righting-life-rafts

Just look for at the makers label if it’s Harland and Wolfe then beware.
Looks a good raft.

 

[robertj]

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.

Private me DOm

 

[Netdrum]

Hi All,

Apart from positing a wanted add, this my first post on the forum and adding to the discussion.

How long in the raft, really depends on your position when you take to the raft. As an example 50 miles offshore abandon into a life raft, during the day, with PLB/EPIRB and no Mayday call, you might expect to be located by an aircraft (Helo) within 90 minutes, this includes time for the Beacon to be detected by the RCC, plot the position, search for PLB/EPIRB reg details, scramble Helo at 15 min response time, flight out, search and winching. Having flares or AIS can really be helpful to pin point the raft from the air as the aircraft closes on the position.

If you get a mayday call away it could be quicker if a vessel is close by

At Night double the time, as all SAR Ops slow with night planning etc.

In the raft expect to be sick, wet and cold, you may not know help is on the way until the Helo, lifeboat or another vessel arrives, so be prepared and don't expect help to arrive based on timings you get from the internet, as every situation is different and poses unique challenges to the Search and Rescue team.

 

[Roberto]

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.

Most recent one, yesterday night.
Off Cap de la Hague, at 2340h the MRCC receive a cospas-sarsat distress message (report does not say if epirb or plb).
They send a Mayday Relay, a few vessels are in the area, both civilians and military. They also send an helicopter.
Rescue vessels are guided by the homing signal of the beacon, though they do not know if it is the boat or an MOB.
Moments later, at 0042h some flares are seen a few miles from Aurigny.
The helo finds a sailboat aground, they send a diver and he finds it empty. Not far from there, they find an empty liferaft.
They eventually find the skipper afloat, wearing a thermal suit. They recovered him and brought him to the hospital, he was found in good conditions.
In all, less than a couple of hours, a night rescue.

The report says "the 68yo man fell outside the liferaft", unfortunately no more details for the moment but it appears one can also fall out of the raft, a case for liferaft tethers?

https://www.premar-manche.gouv.fr/c...vetage-dun-skipper-dans-le-raz-blanchard.html

 

[Yellow Ballad]

No experience but I did buy a ex merchant immersion suit from ebay for about £40 as I don't have a liferaft and mainly sail on my own and although the sailing I've been doing doesn't really require it I do plan of crossing to Ireland next year and if I can't borrow a raft I'll be looking at buying one.

But, there was a chap from Canada that was sailing to the UK last year to bring his boat over for the Jester Challenge. 4-5 days out he was dismasted and holed and the boat went down very quick. He's not spoke about it and I think it really knocked him back but he's recently got another boat. He was picked up by a ship and taken to somewhere in Europe before heading home. I know he had an immersion suit, I'm pretty sure he had an epirb but I don't know if he had a raft or not.

I would like to hear his account to learn from it but I think he thought he wasn't coming home and doesn't want to speak about it.

 

[Tranona]

One of the problems with this topic is the lack of reliable accounts or statistics. The MAIB reports are good because of the level of detail analysis but of course they don't report on all incidents involving yachts, only the "serious" ones or involving commercial vessels as well. However what they do show is that there are really only 3 underlying causes of incidents that result in foundering - severe weather, structural failure (usually keel loss) or collision. The problem with trying to learn from these incidents is that no two are the same.

What would be far more interesting is having some real data on the causes of incidents that lead to a rescue, but if the rescue had not occurred might have led to a foundering. Lessons on how to avoid problems and ways of dealing with them before they become a disaster are far more useful. Unfortunately the bodies that hold this information (mainly coastguard and RNLI) don't keep and disseminate in a form that is useful for this purpose. So we are left with press reports, write ups in magazines and TV shows such as the RNLI one currently running.

Think it is reasonable though to draw a few basic lessons, the first of which is to avoid getting into trouble in the first place (avoiding bad weather, having a sound vessel, keeping out of the way of other ships - and hard bits of land!); the second is to communicate your difficulties to others before they overwhelm you and the third to have appropriate gear to deal with any expected problems.

Personally I think in our "local" waters a liferaft is probably very low on the list of priorities but moves up rapidly once you decide to sail further from land, and particularly from VHF range. In recent years though an EPIRB has improved communications outside VHF range, although it is still relatively slow and simplistic. Within VHF range (ie most of N European waters) the use of EPIRBS by yachts is almost non existent compared with other parts of the world even though many yachts have one on board.

 

[Daydream believer]

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.


Pete

Bought because it was the cheapest liferaft I could find at the time.

 

[oz-1]

Happy and safe sailing to you, Steve, and your wife.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

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.

On our Sea Safety course, my wife (who weighs about 40 kg and is not strong, with long term heart issues) was able to right the inverted life-raft - a 6 man one, I think. Whether she could do it at sea is another matter, but she was asked to do it first so the rest of the class would see that if she could do it, they could too! There is a trick to it ; ensuring the bottle is at the bottom and using the hand holds on the base of the raft. But if my wife would do it, anyone can - without the strength of an athlete!

 

[fisherman]

My friend, not fit by any means, had to right a twelve man in the pool at Robt Gordon, with weather laid on, he did it, (lord knows how, fifty, smoker, drinker, bit overweight, never remotely fit in his life).
The raft will float belly up, on an angle, held up by the canopy, and the bottle will be at the bottom. from the bottle across the btm is a tape, you haul it to you, drag the raft under you/yourself up and stand on the bottle, holding the tape, fall over backwards, and STAY FACE UP, keep hauling the tape to push the raft off you, and the tape leads you into the door. One chap under the raft turned over face down and tried to swim out, don't!

 

[robertj]

DOM your mailbox is full

 

[dom]

DOM your mailbox is full

Oops, apologies, will sort now!

 

[Flica]

As part of RNLI training I, with 3 others, spent a short time in Cardigan Bay, in a liferaft.
There was a shout, so instead of the 20' in the raft we'd expected, we were left for 2:30.
By the end of the 1st hour we were no longer fearing death, but actively praying for it!!
The only time I'd consider taking to the raft would be in the event of a terminal fire.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

As part of RNLI training I, with 3 others, spent a short time in Cardigan Bay, in a liferaft.
There was a shout, so instead of the 20' in the raft we'd expected, we were left for 2:30.
By the end of the 1st hour we were no longer fearing death, but actively praying for it!!
The only time I'd consider taking to the raft would be in the event of a terminal fire.

I've only spent a few minutes in one in an indoor pool, and that experience was enough to convince me that short of the boat being on fire or being within moments of sinking, I'd stick with the boat! I think a telling pointer is that a) seasickness tablets are included in a lifeboat's kit and b) the survival course says that everyone boarding a liferaft should be given a seasickness tablet as soon as possible after entering the raft!

I notice that one scenario people refer to when thinking of liferafts is that of being run down by a ship. In practice, I doubt very much that it would be feasible to deploy a liferaft in that circumstance. The MAIB reports of yachts struck by ships all seem to indicate that the yacht was overwhelmed too rapidly for the crew to react at all (e.g. Ouzo and Orca). In any case, there must be a high probabllity of the yacht and/or the liferaft being sucked into the sterngear of the ship and being destroyed anyway.

 

[James_Calvert]

I notice that one scenario people refer to when thinking of liferafts is that of being run down by a ship. In practice, I doubt very much that it would be feasible to deploy a liferaft in that circumstance. The MAIB reports of yachts struck by ships all seem to indicate that the yacht was overwhelmed too rapidly for the crew to react at all (e.g. Ouzo and Orca). In any case, there must be a high probabllity of the yacht and/or the liferaft being sucked into the sterngear of the ship and being destroyed anyway.

The radar assisted Wahkuna sinking in 2003 being an exception.

 

[fisherman]

As part of RNLI training I, with 3 others, spent a short time in Cardigan Bay, in a liferaft.
There was a shout, so instead of the 20' in the raft we'd expected, we were left for 2:30.
By the end of the 1st hour we were no longer fearing death, but actively praying for it!!
The only time I'd consider taking to the raft would be in the event of a terminal fire.

My friend above who did the RG centre course, along with another, (RNLI second cox on Penlee night) who also never had been seasick, were put in a raft at sea for a while: within twenty minutes everyone was seasick

 

[Praxinoscope]

Fortunately I have only ever suffered a ‘real’ bout of sea-sickness over the years, usually it’s just that awful queasiness you get when looking for something down below in a locker, but I seem to remember that at the time I would have rather died than carry on suffering. However no matter how bad I felt in a liferaft, I feel that if I was ever stuck in one for a few hours I would prefer the sea-sickness to drowning.
I just hope that if the worst ever happens and I have to use one that I am brave enough to adopt the old adage don’t get into the liferaft until you have to step up into it from the main vessel.

 

[Sybarite]

......it appears one can also fall out of the raft, a case for liferaft tethers?

In the case I cited above Daniel was about to be winched up when he realized he was still tethered to his water-logged raft. So, to make sure you are not racked, remember to unhitch in time.

 

[Sybarite]

One of the problems with this topic is the lack of reliable accounts or statistics. The MAIB reports are good because of the level of detail analysis but of course they don't report on all incidents involving yachts, only the "serious" ones or involving commercial vessels as well. However what they do show is that there are really only 3 underlying causes of incidents that result in foundering - severe weather, structural failure (usually keel loss) or collision. The problem with trying to learn from these incidents is that no two are the same.

I would say that fire should be included. I would guess that there would be more losses to fire than from the loss of a keel. It is certainly what I consider to be the biggest risk when sailing.

What would be far more interesting is having some real data on the causes of incidents that lead to a rescue, but if the rescue had not occurred might have led to a foundering. Lessons on how to avoid problems and ways of dealing with them before they become a disaster are far more useful. Unfortunately the bodies that hold this information (mainly coastguard and RNLI) don't keep and disseminate in a form that is useful for this purpose. So we are left with press reports, write ups in magazines and TV shows such as the RNLI one currently running.

Think it is reasonable though to draw a few basic lessons, the first of which is to avoid getting into trouble in the first place (avoiding bad weather, having a sound vessel, keeping out of the way of other ships - and hard bits of land!); the second is to communicate your difficulties to others before they overwhelm you and the third to have appropriate gear to deal with any expected problems.

Personally I think in our "local" waters a liferaft is probably very low on the list of priorities but moves up rapidly once you decide to sail further from land, and particularly from VHF range. In recent years though an EPIRB has improved communications outside VHF range, although it is still relatively slow and simplistic. Within VHF range (ie most of N European waters) the use of EPIRBS by yachts is almost non existent compared with other parts of the world even though many yachts have one on board.

Epirbs are now obligatory in France (as is a handheld vhf in addition to the fixed) for offshore rated boats i.e. more than 60nm from a port.