Liferaft or Rhib - What would you choose?

[Blue Seas]

Imaginary scenario.

UK coastal cruising, 10-15 miles offshore, 20-25 to nearest harbour / safe beach. Force 5 Occ 6. Uncomfortable but not dire. 2 Adults + 2 kids, all with lifejackets, reasonably fit. You have to abandon ship (fire /flood) at say 5-10 mins notice max.

Your choices, you have onboard;

a) 6 man liferaft, in-date, plus as many grab bags as you can throw in or,

b) 3.5 meter Rib, 15 H/P O/B, 5 gals fuel, fully charged battery, installed vhf and nav lights, plus again whatever you had time to chuck in.

What would you choose and why?

 

[Bobc]

Chuck the raft into the rib and get into the rib and head for shore. With the rib you are at least in some control of your own destiny.

 

[Tranona]

Why do you think your boat is going to sink in those circumstances? almost unheard of in UK coastal waters. If you really think your boat is so badly maintained that those events will happen then do something about it. Reported founderings have 3 main causes, collision, overwhelming weather or serious structural failure. All are rare and easily avoided. That is not to say that incidents don't happen that could potentially lead to a foundering but we have arguably the best rescue services available. In extreme circumstances where it is necessary to abandon ship there is no substitute for a proper in date liferaft.

 

[billskip]

If you really think your boat is so badly maintained that those events

An accident that results creating a fire is not necessarily due to bad maintenance.
I bet you are a real wow at a party playing Trivial pursuit...

 

[ylop]

In either case you probably live to tell the horrific tale. If the question was 90 seconds rather than 5-10 minutes it would be whichever you can actually deploy in the time. If the weather was much worse than you describe then a small RIB is going to be very hard going. Even in a F3-4 with 15 miles fetch I’m not sure you would get a rib that size planing with that load - so you are probably 4+ hrs from safety anyway in a small exposed boat with your wife and kids - so presumably still looking for help! If you have 10 minutes you can probably launch both.

 

[ylop]

Reported founderings have 3 main causes, collision, overwhelming weather or serious structural failure. All are rare and easily avoided.

The Titanic didn’t bother with enough lifeboats for its entire occupants because it was unthinkable that it would sink!

 

[Tranona]

An accident that results creating a fire is not necessarily due to bad maintenance.
I bet you are a real wow at a party playing Trivial pursuit...

Perhaps - but it is extremely rare in small sailing boats and rarely results in foundering. You can imagine all sorts of scenarios but much more difficult to find empirical evidence of them actually occurring.

 

[Tranona]

The Titanic didn’t bother with enough lifeboats for its entire occupants because it was unthinkable that it would sink!

Yes, but the question is about which survival vehicle to use and the RIB is not a direct substitute for a life raft.

The scenario posed by the OP is not one that is likely to occur - and the reported incidents of founderings rarely identify a boat (as opposed to a liferaft) as being a successful survival vehicle. Most potential founderings in UK coastal waters are resolved by rescue services. As I said if you still think that you are likely to need independent means of survival because your boat has sunk then there is no substitute for a liferaft.

 

[Hadenough]

Imaginary scenario.

UK coastal cruising, 10-15 miles offshore, 20-25 to nearest harbour / safe beach. Force 5 Occ 6. Uncomfortable but not dire. 2 Adults + 2 kids, all with lifejackets, reasonably fit. You have to abandon ship (fire /flood) at say 5-10 mins notice max.

Your choices, you have onboard;

a) 6 man liferaft, in-date, plus as many grab bags as you can throw in or,

b) 3.5 meter Rib, 15 H/P O/B, 5 gals fuel, fully charged battery, installed vhf and nav lights, plus again whatever you had time to chuck in.

What would you choose and why?

The RIB without a doubt. That’s what I have in davits with quick release fastenings. Can be deployed as an alongside tow in case of engine failure too.

 

[NormanS]

The circumstances described in the first post, could be caused by hitting something like a semi-submerged container or other wreckage.
Given the choice, I would use the rib.

 

[billskip]

there is no substitute for a liferaft.

So we can take it that your answer is liferaft ...

 

[AllanG]

As the OP hasn’t told us what type and size of boat he has, it’s difficult to comment on which would be the best option, but with a 3.5 RIB and 15hp engine, I would presume he has a fairly largish motorboat, with the RIB stowed on the bathing platform.

If this is the case, then I wonder how easy it'd be to deploy the RIB in a F5-6 wind?

 

[billskip]

The circumstances described in the first post, could be caused by hitting something like a semi-submerged container or other wreckage.
Given the choice, I would use the rib.

Or even an Orca ripping his rudder off...
Oh, that must have been poor maintenance...

 

[dunedin]

As the OP hasn’t told us what type and size of boat he has, it’s difficult to comment on which would be the best option, but with a 3.5 RIB and 15hp engine, I would presume he has a fairly largish motorboat, with the RIB stowed on the bathing platform.

If this is the case, then I wonder how easy it'd be to deploy the RIB in a F5-6 wind?

Yes, outwith the world of very large motor boats, the scenario is largely fantasy land.
We are rare for a sailing boat under 40 feet keeping an inflated dinghy on davits with 3hp outboard engine attached. Tender 2.7m.
Some keep a dinghy inflated without engine, many (perhaps most) don’t have space to keep inflated.
The concept of 3.2m RIB with all the extra weight of a big outboard, 20kg fuel, plus batteries lights etc is extremely rare for most UK boaters - and probably needs the electrics or hydraulics still working to be launched.

 

[seeSimon]

Why do you think your boat is going to sink in those circumstances? almost unheard of in UK coastal waters. If you really think your boat is so badly maintained that those events will happen then do something about it. Reported founderings have 3 main causes, collision, overwhelming weather or serious structural failure. All are rare and easily avoided. That is not to say that incidents don't happen that could potentially lead to a foundering but we have arguably the best rescue services available. In extreme circumstances where it is necessary to abandon ship there is no substitute for a proper in date liferaft.

Not unheard of, and apparently a sinking in UK near coastal waters an easily foseeable scenario ...according to some UK "Authorities".

As I've posted before on here, our local race organising "Authority " REQUIRES liferafts for all competitors for WS Cat 4 races, those being near coastal, in daylight and favourable weather. They in turn, when questioned, state that this is an "RYA REQUIREMENT".
I do not agree with is requirement. My push back has got me nowhere...

 

[samfieldhouse]

Imaginary scenario.

UK coastal cruising, 10-15 miles offshore, 20-25 to nearest harbour / safe beach. Force 5 Occ 6. Uncomfortable but not dire. 2 Adults + 2 kids, all with lifejackets, reasonably fit.

Not imaginary for me. I sold my life raft and carry a Seago dinghy. Could I inflate it in under 3 minutes? Maybe. Is it sometimes inflated anyway and stored on deck? Yes but that’s beside the point. On a 28ft boat space is limited and in 11 years I’ve used that dinghy a LOT.

 

[Sea Change]

Yes, outwith the world of very large motor boats, the scenario is largely fantasy land.
We are rare for a sailing boat under 40 feet keeping an inflated dinghy on davits with 3hp outboard engine attached. Tender 2.7m.
Some keep a dinghy inflated without engine, many (perhaps most) don’t have space to keep inflated.
The concept of 3.2m RIB with all the extra weight of a big outboard, 20kg fuel, plus batteries lights etc is extremely rare for most UK boaters - and probably needs the electrics or hydraulics still working to be launched.

Maybe it's unusual in the UK, but further afield it's absolutely par for the course. And you definitely don't need electrics or hydraulics to launch it. A ~3.2m dinghy plus 15hp two stroke will weigh about 100kg all up. Our 2.8m RIB + 9.8hp weighs 60kg plus tank. These tenders are easily lifted with a tackle fore and aft.

 

[Hadenough]

As the OP hasn’t told us what type and size of boat he has, it’s difficult to comment on which would be the best option, but with a 3.5 RIB and 15hp engine, I would presume he has a fairly largish motorboat, with the RIB stowed on the bathing platform.

If this is the case, then I wonder how easy it'd be to deploy the RIB in a F5-6 wind?

Properly rigged, no less difficult than a LR. In my case with quick release fastenings on the davits even faster. Also with the comfort that it is inflated and operable against a once in a lifetime, will it work situation? How many horror stories have you read about LR’s not inflating or having out of date equipment have you read. I’m not advocating this for ocean passaging but coastal, cross channel even, a fast deployable RIB is my preference.

 

[rafiki_]

I have a rib and liferaft. I brief my guests that the rib is plan A, liferaft plan B. Plan A needs the electrics functioning to run the paserelle.

 

[Sea Change]

The question reminds me of a tale I heard from a friend a couple of years ago.
Early 1980s, large ply/epoxy catamaran. Fifty miles off Florida they struck a whale and one daggerboard sliced in to the hull, causing a catastrophic leak.
Interestingly, the yacht was powered by a large outboard, so they had plentiful petrol onboard.

They didn't use their liferaft. They launched the RIB, loaded up with spare fuel cans, and set off for the loom of a distant lighthouse. Took them a few hours but a heck of a lot faster than drifting around in a life raft.