Liferafts - a summary

[charles_reed]

on hitting marks

In 1995, my insurance premium went up by 18%, and I was informed that I would no longer be covered for single-handing after dark.

It transpires that some fellow, single-handing after dark, had used one of the Thames buoys as a WP, hit it, sunk the boat and the marker buoy - the big hole-in-the-pocket for insurers was the costs levied by Trinity House for the replacement, not the boat!!

 

[Tranona]

Re: Reasons why a liferaft might be needed

I don't think I have ever suggested that a liferaft might not have its uses in certain circumstances, just that the evidence is inconclusive. Thank you for directing me to the digests. From a scan of both the 2004 and 2008 reports, which distill 12 years of significant reports. I think there are 11 cases that are analogous to the original post question (Yacht going cross channel needing a liferaft) although in fact only one was on a cross channel passage, but others were similarly off shore. Two were in the Bay of Biscay and one was a charter boat on an afternoon trip. In all cases except one which was caused by mechanical failure and another where it is believed that there was a collision, the main contributory factor was the boat being overwhelmed by conditions. In 4 cases the liferaft was used (or an attempt was made to use it). In two cases the result was partially effective, but in the other two it failed either through drifting away or capsizing. Note that there is no mention of fire, holing (except in one case where the boat ran aground in adverse conditions), propshafts falling out etc.

This is pretty much what I expected from being an informed observer of leisure boating and I think supports my view that the risk in the circumstances mention is minimal and the effectiveness of liferafts in saving lives (for whatever reason) is doubtful.

It is clear from reading the other cases that going overboard is a major cause of deaths and quite rightly much attention is paid to persuading people to use harnesses and lifejackets.

However given that there are still a large number of incidents. over half of the 8000+ RNLI launches were for pleasure boats (2007), of which 40% were for yachts (1725). Significantly MOB were up by 25% on the previous year. What would be useful in the absence of any systematic data on the deployment of liferafts, would be an analysis of rescue situations that might have deteriorated to the point at which a liferaft might have been an alternative.