liferaft servicing - a salutary lesson

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I wonder if an Avon dinghy and a footpump being used by a scared man would be a more reliable solution than a liferaft for coastal cruising?

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If the man could walk on water or wore a fireproof suit it might. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

On the other hand we and many many others sailed for years and some still do with a half inflated Avon on deck and no liferaft. The doughnut Avons can still support the crew when half inflated but then their compartments are front/back rather than the more usual side by side of the transomed versions.
 
As debated ad nauseum on previous threads the chances of a liferaft being used by a typical yachtsman is so small as to be almost irrelevant.

This makes it even more depressing that those who do have one (including me) cannot have confidence that they will work, either through design or poor maintenance.

By the way, there is no recorded example in recent years of a half inflated Avon being used successfully as a liferaft.

The only way to stay safe is to understand the situations in which yachts founder and avoid going there. Then you will never know if your liferaft works or not!
 
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The only way to stay safe is to understand the situations in which yachts founder and avoid going there

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....and not being sure if your liferaft will work should concentrate the mind.
 
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By the way, there is no recorded example in recent years of a half inflated Avon being used successfully as a liferaft.

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I should qualify my comment by adding that I had assumed the other half would be inflated either before launching (taking half as long) or even when in the dinghy, difficult but not impossible.
 
I had similar a few years ago with what was meant to have been a new raft.

I became suspicious and inquired from the manufacturer quoting the data on the cannister.

It seemed that the raft was at least a year old, I opened it and discovered that it had been repacked without the vacume
bags and tied up in a piece of string.

According to the service card which was inside the raft it had been serviced, but yet many of the supplies batteries/ flares were out of date.


On the manufacturers advice I sent it to another service center to have it repacked.

There really is no way to see that it has been packed properly except by testing it.

Have a look at the megawatt report here. http://www.mcib.ie/

The firm I dealt with was not the one that supplied the raft in their case. But the firm in my case also hires out rafts.

I understand that the merchant navy routinely set off a sample of their rafts prior to service to test the integrity of the previous work.
 
For many, having a liferaft is about meeting chartering or racing requirements. It allows you to tick the box and pass off a little of the responsibility to the liferaft manufacturer/service centre.
They aren't there to be used.
 
hmm
i saw it this morn on the box, stupid little cow was what i thought, you could see it coming a mile off, it was their fault cause they sold it to me on the beach!!, never mind the fact that it had warnings in 27 languages that it was a toy!! says it all about the spoilt little brats and the parents that this country is producing!!
i thought the mca chap was very constrained in the circumstances!
 
Amazing how quick some people are to be rude about others.

A toy is what it was sold as and a toy is how it was used - she wasn't using it as a yacht tender or a liferaft - she used it as a toy close to the shore and was swept offshore by either a current or the tide. [--word removed--] happens - if it's never happened to you, then maybe you've been very lucky.

The young lady sounded very sensible to me, coped with a difficult situation very well, tried to resolve it without calling for help, recognised when she needed help and then asked for it. What more could she have done?
 
point i was making was it is always someone elses fault! the poor litttle princess coulnt possibly be in the wrong!
 
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By the way, there is no recorded example in recent years of a half inflated Avon being used successfully as a liferaft.

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er, whose records, what sea area?

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Wasn't there a book in the seventies about a family that survived for months adrift in a little blow up dinghy after their yacht sank eating nothing more than toenails and things.
 
I was about to say - RTFThread - but actually, if the company has only recently been taken over then it is likely that others have LifeRafts that have been "serviced" by these ppl - so it would be sensible to name them so others can get theirs checked out too ...
 
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