Offshore life raft or Leisure

Daydream believer said:
Not everybody runs around with a field mouse on a bit of string & I was talking about dogs in general. I would never have a dog on a boat, & cerainly not a cat.
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You are treading on dangerous ground, never badmouth someones dogs.
A friends dog sits on the slipway totally bereft unless it is allowed on board so he virtually never goes out without the dog, as for cats few enjoy travel but the occasional one will insist on jumping aboard.
 
Tranona said:
You won't ever need it but if it makes you feel safer then get the cheapest one available. They all look the same perched on top of the boat which is where it will spend all of its life except when you take it off for the winter.
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Dunno! Orcas getting closer!
 
I know that this boat was racing & was rescued because the RNLI was out in force. However, if the boat had NOT been racing but out for a jolly or just practicing then a LR might have come in jolly handy. I can suggest that if one were sailing around the Channel Islands or the N Brittany coast, there are a few rocks that can have the same effect as this wreck.
A life raft would not be needed for long, but an incident like that at night could have serious consequences
Sinking close inshore
 
Daydream believer said:
I know that this boat was racing & was rescued because the RNLI was out in force. However, if the boat had NOT been racing but out for a jolly or just practicing then a LR might have come in jolly handy. I can suggest that if one were sailing around the Channel Islands or the N Brittany coast, there are a few rocks that can have the same effect as this wreck.
A life raft would not be needed for long, but an incident like that at night could have serious consequences
Sinking close inshore
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All sorts of things CAN happen - but don't. add to my earlier list. Keep away from hard bits close underwater.

The reality is that over the years the number of incidents of founderings of yachts has steadily declined while the level of activity has risen. Mostly down to better information that enables people to avoid problems in the first place and better rescue services that are able to respond quickly and provide help while the vessel is still afloat.

The rocks off the NW coast of France have been there for ever but you don't see an epidemic of boats foundering on them. Something to do with the human desire for self preservation.
 
On a related track, I bought my 4 man liferaft in 2017, the first service in 2020 was a waste of money due to Covid. I've just had a quote for the next 3 year service which has gone from £327 last time to £432 (said he, choking)

I'm going to stump up for it this time but as 95% of my sailing is meandering around the coast of Atlantic France and on very occasional years crossing the channel I'll be seriously re-assessing the need to carry one when the subsequent service becomes due in 2026 (subject to the further effects of old age that is...)

Every item on the quote has gone up in price significantly plus there's 'ORC certification' with £19 fee and another 'documentation fee' of £25. There's also an 'Aircraft LED light for £35 instead of 4 AA batteries... We'll be having a conversation later today
 
pmagowan said:
You might not have a choice. I am not sure I would fancy swimming with them even though their risk to humans is apparently very small.
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There are certainly documented examples of them exhibiting hunting behaviour towards humans; the earliest I know of was on one of Scott's expeditions when a team of dogs and humans was attacked while crossing sea ice. And if they're sinking a yacht, how safe would you feel in an inflatable liferaft? I'd be doing whatever I could to ensure the yacht didn't sink. As far as I know, all the yachts have been damaged at the rudder stock; it ought to be possible to restrict inflow from such a leak using a sail externally or cushions/mattresses internally.

I'm afraid I view all the evidence as saying "These are animals that are perfectly capable of killing and eating a human, are evolved to tackle prey the same size as a human, and have certainly exhibited hunting behaviour towards humans, up to and including captive ones killing their keepers". All the evidence says is that in the wild they don't leave evidence of killing humans!
 
Priority number one is always not to sink! Sinking is a bad idea unless you are a submarine!. I suspect the problem is that if you need a liferaft then you have sunk. In that situation I would choose the liferaft over swimming with the big dolphins!
 
#60, It depends a lot on where you are sailing in and around UK waters, we often sail between Aberaeron and various ports in Ireland, so midway if something happened, you are at least 40 miles either way to land so even a Shannon class will take about 2hrs to reach you once they have received the call.
We had a good example of what can happen in the Irish Sea, when David Sinnet-Jones (single handed round the World yachtsman) was sailing his 'Zane Spray' across to Ireland when one of the keels broke off and the boat sank, David and partner decamped to the life raft and I seem to remember him saying it took about 1-2 hrs to be picked up.
 
AntarcticPilot said:
But that was a wooden boat, which is much less resistant to impacts than fibreglass. I haven't been following it in detail, but aren't all the recent incidents a result of them attacking rudders, with leaks arising from rudderstocks being dislodged?
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Yes but GRP rudders also don't seem to strong enough to resist the attack of Orcas would a Foam cored GRP boat fair any better being head butted by an Orca at full speed

I would trust my ductile steel hull and rudder to resist an Orca attack

I have has my boat attacked by a steel walk on jetty in a 100km storm that sunk several GRP boats.

My boat has the scars to prove it
 
Praxinoscope said:
#60, It depends a lot on where you are sailing in and around UK waters, we often sail between Aberaeron and various ports in Ireland, so midway if something happened, you are at least 40 miles either way to land so even a Shannon class will take about 2hrs to reach you once they have received the call.
We had a good example of what can happen in the Irish Sea, when David Sinnet-Jones (single handed round the World yachtsman) was sailing his 'Zane Spray' across to Ireland when one of the keels broke off and the boat sank, David and partner decamped to the life raft and I seem to remember him saying it took about 1-2 hrs to be picked up.
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Perhaps the money would have been better spent on keel maintenance and inspections?
 
rogerthebodger said:
Yes but GRP rudders also don't seem to strong enough to resist the attack of Orcas would a Foam cored GRP boat fair any better being head butted by an Orca at full speed
I would trust my ductile steel hull and rudder to resist an Orca attack
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But whilst your tin boat might be eminently suitable for world girdling; whether that entails surviving Orcas, or bashing island reefs; one might ask if the resulting differences in design & other possible disadvantages of steel would be desirable to the buying public.
The number of Orca attacks throughout the world are miniscule in the grand scheme of things. I cannot imagine any manufacturer who will start panic building of yachts with massive rudders at the loss of other advantages of GRP
I understand that an aluminium yacht has already suffered severe damage & one might have expected that to be only one step down from steel
 
AntarcticPilot said:
I'd be doing whatever I could to ensure the yacht didn't sink. As far as I know, all the yachts have been damaged at the rudder stock; it ought to be possible to restrict inflow from such a leak using a sail externally or cushions/mattresses internally.
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How do you expect to wrap a sail around a stub of a rudder fin & get a tight seal to the area around the bearing where the shaft enters the hull? Just think about if for a moment & you will see that it is nothing like placing a sail over a hole in the side of a flat hull.
It just ain't going to work & any attempt will be time wasting.
Your next option will be to get something around the area inside, where the shaft enters the hull.
Water will push anything that you place in position, away from the area. You would have to get any gear stowed there out of the way.
Could you actually get access to that area ?
A mattress ( you suggest) would not bend around the shaft. Anything you use would have to be wedged in place. Do you have timber struts of suitable length ready to do this?
I doubt it.
The armchair theory is all there, but the practice is totally different. Fear, seasickness, crew panic, screaming wife, time spent on the VHF to CG, everyone manning the pumps.-or taking the dogs for a walk ;)

I put it to you that there is not much that you can do to stem a decent leak, other than wrap a sheet around it & get seasick doing it.
You would be better grabbing the proverbial bread bin, keep bailing & pray
 
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I haven't got a liferaft and presently no intention of getting one. I'm lucky that my 9m cat has a back deck that my dinghy just manages to rest on so is ready to launch in seconds. I know the dinghy works and is ready to go. I'm am more concerned about a following sea taking the dinghy or filling it up. If I was sailing elsewhere apart from the channel and coastal waters I would reconsider the options. I've just invested in an EPIRB with AIS (already have VHF DSC, PLB, mobile phone ...) so hopefully if anything happens I should be collected quite quickly - I hope.
 
pmagowan said:
Perhaps the money would have been better spent on keel maintenance and inspections?
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To be accurate David had just re-welded the keel (Zane Spray was a steel hull, which David had built himself and had already completed a circumnavigation in it. He was on his way for yet another Atlantic crossing when she sank, an attempt was made to recover the hull (ITV Wales were making a programme about it) but bad weather added to the difficulties and in the end salvaging it was abandoned, so why this keel sheered off has never been fully established,
 
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