self servicing of liferaft

[srm]

Its not only out of date rafts that may or may not inflate.

While teaching fishing deck officer courses one of the students related his first hand survival experience. His vessel was of a size that required two in date liferafts, each capable of carrying the full crew. These rafts were subject to annual testing and servicing.

Following an incident where the watchkeeper fell asleap returning from a fishing trip they ran in to a cliff and the vessel started to sink. There was time to send a mayday. One raft was launched and failed to inflate when the painter/inflation line was pulled. Fortunately the second raft did inflate and the crew were rescued by the local lifeboat.

Leisure boats usually only carry one raft for the full crew !!

 

[raybattersby]

I can see why sailors are tempted to perform their own life-raft servicing.

When I bought my first sailing boat 30 years ago, I was surprised at the very high prices charged for everything from Anti-foul to stainless fittings to ‘Marine’ cleaning products. But I found then that in return, customer service was exemplary. Almost a no questions asked replacement policy. I remember when my VHF antenna failed (it was probably over 20 years old), the manufacturer replaced it free of charge and upgraded it to one with a windex.

But clearly, over the years, the marine industry has managed to retain its high prices whilst providing a low cost, cheap and shoddy customer service. Here’s a case in point.

I bought a new 6 man ADEC Almar canister liferaft on special offer from ADEC at the Southampton Boat Show in October 2012. The raft cost me £625 including shipping. Servicing was due at the end of last year but I waited until this May (just before relaunch) to have it serviced.

During the past three years it has been stowed on the coaming roof in a cradle supplied at additional cost by ADEC. Last year I noticed that one of the two straps around the top and bottom mouldings had detached. I secured this with a lashing and noticed brown rust stains on the plastic adjacent to the clamps. This indicated that despite the predictably harsh working environment, they were not made of stainless steel and had corroded thus releasing the strap. These straps were identical to the straps used by warehouses when packaging a crate so nothing high-tech here.

I also noticed that the labels on the upper face had not survived our incredible UK sunshine. The printing had faded to the point where it was difficult to read the Serial Number and the adhesive had hardened and the plastic embrittled so that large areas had broken away.

I shopped around for servicing costs with quotes of around £100-120 for the service fee plus the cost of replacing out of date items. Nobody would guess the ‘extras’ that might be needed and at what cost. I decided on giving the work to ADEC on the basis that they would know what they doing with their own liferaft but even ADEC would only confirm their £100 Service Fee.

So what did ADEC have to do to increase the full Service Costs from £100.00 to £241.86?

First they charged me £29.50 for two new bands (a bit of a cheek for substandard quality)
Then a further £22.50 to replace an out of date repair kit – Out of date? Per-lease.
Anti-seasickness tablets (out of date) at £7.25
A new vacuum bag to repack the liferaft at £19.90
A new set of labels (that will no doubt have faded and come unstuck by 2019) at a cool £12.50
Oh yes. Some new torch batteries (2 x AA?). They’d better be REALLY good at £6.50
And they cannot produce a Certificate with charging me a further £9.90
And finally, there’s the Survey Fee of £100.00
Ooooh! Nearly forgot. All these prices are subject to a further 20% VAT at £40.31
A GRAND TOTAL of £241.86 (actually ADEC cannot add up. The correct figure is £249.66).

And I reckon that all of these items could have been predicted by ADEC as requiring replacement. They know what they put in originally. They know their shelf life. ADEC could easily have quoted me a final bottom-line price of £249.66 instead of saying that all they could reliably quote was £100 for the Survey.

As for providing the two substandard straps Free-of-Charge on the basis that the ones originally supplied were unfit for purpose. No way. I challenged ADEC twice on this point and both requests were rejected.

I am sure that ADEC are not alone in pursuing such a shoddy retail pricing policy. So what can be done to shine a light on the true costs of a liferaft service?

All we can do is to publicise this sort of rip-off wherever and whenever we can. The industry should be ashamed of itself if my experience is typical where the cost of a routine service amounts to 40% of the price paid for the new item. At that rate a car service for the cheapest of new cars would cost around £2,500 whilst the garage would have quoted you a basic price of £1000.

 

[jfm]

The previous poster is wrong then and, in common with some others, is most likely under the false impression that foreign states can't touch a UK vessel. Certainly in Portugal, the raft log book must be stamped and and the raft within service date.

Yup, generally speaking, many states can apply many of their laws to vessels in their waters, even if not registered there, if operating from a port in their country (as opposed to just passing through)

As regards Uk law and LR servicing, many of us with class XII boats (broardly speaking that means vessels between 13.7 and 24m long, and operating privately not on charter) will, possibly unwittingly, be compliant with UK law only because of the MS 93/12/12 exemption from the much more onerous requirements in the shipping acts and regulations. This exemption states:

"In ships of Class XII, every inflatable liferaft, compressed gas inflatable lifejacket and hydrostatic release unit shall be serviced by the manufacturer’s approved agent, at the manufacturers recommended intervals, however, where liferaft(s) are stored in valises these should be serviced at least annually."

This applies to UK flagged vessels anywhere and to non UK flagged vessels in UK waters and operating from a UK port. Length is complex: the law is badly drafted, like plenty of modern shipping law; the bit I've quoted above gives you a flavour of the poor quality English you find extensively in maritime law. There is an argument that length is the length on the registration certificate but also an argument that it is length from the "96% least moulded depth" calculation. Either way, you would usually need to be about 15m LOA to be over 13.7m, and of course with SSR you can within reason choose the registered length and you have carte banche to use the 96% LMD calculation, which will make your boat quite a bit less than its LOA (eg my boat is 24.37m LOA and 19.7m using the 96%LMD method)

The same law requires LR(s) to be carried if going >3nm from coast, iirc. The further you go offshore the more solas packs you require.

So, bottom line is that UK law requires LRs to be carried (if>3nm) and requires them to be dealer-serviced, if your boat is roughly in the 48-90 foot category. (Actually you can argue that with a valise LR, only the manufacturer's interval service need be done by a dealer and if that is 3 years then the intervening the annuals can be DIY - look at precisely how that sentence is formed). For smaller boats used privately none of this applies.

 

[nigelmercier]

I've a couple of LR's that need servicing (mainly because the Mars Bars are a few years past their best

Why are the perishable items not packed in a seperate container.

 

[Neil_Y]

I haven't read all the replies so somebody may have covered this but my concern would be that you are opening it and packing it in whatever humidity you have in your shed/garage/living room, as much of the UK will have quite high humidity you are packing away moisture, as the raft sees a drop in temperature that moisture will condense and you risk the deterioration that can cause. The place I took my raft to unpacked and packed in an air conditioned room so relatively dry, I think it is important to see it packed so I went along to watch what they put in.

I'd do it myself if I had a sealed room with airconditioning and moisture measurement.

I know of at least one raft that was perished and fell to bits when it was opene.

 

[prv]

Then a further £22.50 to replace an out of date repair kit – Out of date? Per-lease.

It's probably a kit involving glue rather than clamps, and glue does have a shelf-life. I've had some types expire on my workshop shelf in under a year.

The joke of course is the bit in the instructions where it says the raft needs to be dry in order for the repair to stick...

Pete