Would you buy a second hand life raft?

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Deeks

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Just that really? we don’t currently have a life raft but we are intending to sail a lot more this summer and longer ( for us) distances. I feel we need the security of a life raft but I don’t really want to spend £700-1000 so I have been looking on eBay etc and there are some on there at reasonable prices albeit un serviced in most cases.
thoughts please.
 
I bought mine second hand , and got it couriered up to me , it was still in date but checked it all and seems fine the owner was selling as they needed an ocean certified one for the ARC so in that sense he came across as a trusting fellow and very helpful in the sale via Ebay 6 man £400 go with your gut , and maybe messagethem and get a feel for why there selling
 
I’ll be selling a 2014 4 man valise just in or just out of service seago something or other coastal raft cause I need to get a 6 man for the summer cruise if you find nothing more suitable. £250 if in service, £200 if out.
 
Deeks said:
Just that really? we don’t currently have a life raft but we are intending to sail a lot more this summer and longer ( for us) distances. I feel we need the security of a life raft but I don’t really want to spend £700-1000 so I have been looking on eBay etc and there are some on there at reasonable prices albeit un serviced in most cases.
thoughts please.
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Yes I would. But bear in mind that an out of service raft will be a hefty sum to service (£350 ish ?) so you probably only get back to square I. Plus, if you should want to race, the older raft may need a service every year.

For cruising with a cherished family I would prefer to buy new. Old farts need not bother they are gambling with free chips.
 
I bought one with the boat about 5 years out of service and about 15 years old.
Just for fun we fired it off in a pool and it still went up fine. It stayed up for over a week, maybe 2 weeks if you were desperate - which you would be of course as it was basically sinking.
 
Like JBJag, I bought one waaaay out of date (in good condition from a boat jumble for £25) and kept it for about 3 years before buying a brand new one a couple of years ago prior to our first cross-channel trip. I set the old one off, and it went up beautifully.

I never had it serviced. It was so old that it would have been cheaper to get a new one. I suppose that means that for 3 years I was carrying around 25kg of what could have been a perished, hole-riddled rubber doylie.

No conclusions to be drawn from that I'm afraid. It will come down to your sensitivity to risk and cost.
 
Personally, if it was first service - yes. Beyond that...I would consider contracting to pay for it subject to passing its inspection.
 
I’ve got a 6 man one from 2013. It should have been serviced 2 years ago but given the service costs of £350 I was thinking of letting it go and renting one when needed. How much are they to rent?
Perhaps I should get it serviced.
 
I fired one that had been in the store for ten years, Plastimo 4 man. The local service people, long gone bust, had fitted the lanyard so it wouldn't come out through the canister. Once I got in and fired the bottle it was fine. I would hire, I think, for seasonal use.
 
Must admit I had not realised they were so expensive to service. I thought maybe £150 but looks like I am way off.
 
Seeing as a life raft is your last resort, you need it to work when deployed. If it's not been serviced I would assume it's won't inflate and the contents will be unusable.
There's no doubt that servicing charges are often unreasonable and unjustified but that's the cost of peace of mind. (Of course there are anecdotes of serviced rafts still failing to inflate but I think the majority of servicers are reliable).
A cheap way of proceeding (but not acceptable to official bodies) would be to buy an unserviced one of eBay (or other) and service it yourself. It doesn't look too difficult on YouTube but I don't know where you gas the gas cannister.
 
I’ve serviced rafts before now. You use a pump to inflate them, not the canister, which is weighed to confirm that it’s full. The contents of most rafts are laughable, both in terms of what’s there and the quality of the kit: I now have a more or less bare raft with a grab bag with decent kit in it.
I’ve also opened up a couple of fairly ancient rafts and junked them. Not because the firing mechanism was unserviceable but because the glue used to attach the ballast bags and other things (life lines and the like) had deteriorated to the point of failure. The rafts passed the 24 hour inflation test but the ballast bags would almost certainly have parted company in any sea at all. So worth checking a raft yourself if you’re seeking to use one outside the service dates, especially if it’s more than about 12 years old.
 
doug748 said:
For cruising with a cherished family I would prefer to buy new. Old farts need not bother they are gambling with free chips.
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Agreed, I'm failing to understand why someone would knowingly consider buying an out of date liferaft and lugging it around hoping it might work when needed... I bought my current Ocean Safety raft new in 2017 for £599, just having its first service now, after phoning around, at Universal Safety for which I'm quoted <£300. Sold my old out of date raft on ebay as it had gone onto annual service dates and thus uneconomical ( I believe it's three or four 3 year services then annually thereafter) Do sailors carrying long out of date rafts also carry similar date expired EPIRB's, flares and other safety kit hoping it'll be alright on the night ?
 
Deeks said:
Must admit I had not realised they were so expensive to service. I thought maybe £150 but looks like I am way off.
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We service our own, as it is an important safety item and you need to be certain it is done correctly.

When we got our boat, the raft was marked as serviced and the seals on the container intact. The little card inside was nicely signed up and stamped etc. but the para flares and first aid kit that were signed off were missing. I've read other reports of people finding the deflation plugs missing from rafts etc, so my preference is to check it regularly ourselves, for exactly the same reason parachutists always pack their own chutes, it is simply too dangerous to leave the task to someone else.
 
ghostlymoron said:
It doesn't look too difficult on YouTube but I don't know where you gas the gas cannister.
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It's not difficult, and if you are careful and competent, it's in my opinion a safer option that hoping someone else gets it right. CO2 cylinders are generally not replaced, simply disconnect the firing head and weigh it, the correct weight shoudl be on the bottle. A set of digital scales will see you right.

It's not rocket science, but the industry tries to make you think it is, as it is the cost of servicing that drives new sales ...
 
QUOTE="rszemeti, post: 7052636, member: 171604"]
It's not difficult, and if you are careful and competent, it's in my opinion a safer option that hoping someone else gets it right. CO2 cylinders are generally not replaced, simply disconnect the firing head and weigh it, the correct weight shoudl be on the bottle. A set of digital scales will see you right.

It's not rocket science, but the industry tries to make you think it is, as it is the cost of servicing that drives new sales ...
[/QUOTE]
What if the weight is less than the embossed weight?
 
Deeks said:
Just that really? we don’t currently have a life raft but we are intending to sail a lot more this summer and longer ( for us) distances. I feel we need the security of a life raft but I don’t really want to spend £700-1000 so I have been looking on eBay etc and there are some on there at reasonable prices albeit un serviced in most cases.
thoughts please.
Click to expand...
You do that anyway when you buy a second hand boat. I see no problem with it if it's properly serviced by an approved service station.
 
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