For owners and purchasers of liferafts

[Fortis]

I learnt something really really unpleasant this evening. The effects will linger with me for a while yet, but all that being said, it could have been much worse.

A mere five hours ago or so I was at a meeting of my Coast Guard flotilla. The last thing of the meet was an interesting opportunity to really get to know a liferaft.
One that was still in certification had been donated to us by someone that had just bought a new one to go with the new boat and did not feel like wearing the karma of selling the old one on the off-chance that someone might buy it, need it, and find it wanting in some way.

Anyway, I have so far done three Sea safety Survival courses that involved inflating, righting, clambering into and staying in a liferaft for up to six hours. Once in a wave pool, once on a calm river in late spring and once, for my sins, in the dead of winter, in a blustery northerly on Port Phillip Bay (Yes, of course that was the one that ran six hours).

The thing is, I have never actually used a liferaft FULLY, all the stuff that comes in them apart from the drogue, the throwing-coit and the flares.
Well tonight was that opportunity, we did the exercise on the floor of the main boat shed, in the dry, with sufficient light and time and everything and pretty much went through every bit of gear, checked the why's and wherefores of the raft's constructions and how it is supposed to be used when we are not just imitating salmon swimming upstream to get in the thing and huddle until the instructor calls "next group!"

Now maybe I'm biased, but the more I know about liferafts the more I am determined not to carry one on my boat. I want something that gives me a real chance at self rescue and movement, rather then a slow miserable death with a shred of uncertainty. But that is just my own bias showing. At least I did not think that I would have any issues with the gear packed into most rafts. In fact it is exactly the same as what I would buy as the survival kit for the dinghy that would form our lifeboat if things went truly pear shaped.

I did say we tried out ALL the gear, didn't I?

So how many of you have actually eaten or even tasted the emergency rations that are packed into your life raft? Sure, why would you? Just trust them for the time when the unthinkable happens. Its not like your life depends on them...oh wait!

Tonight we tried opening the water pouches. On dry land, not a pitching raft. Not in the cold or in extremes of fear or sickness.

Grab bag number one of water pouches, while tearing the bag open, our guy managed to launch the ten individual servings of water across the floor. The seem of the bag they are sealed in is just that tough...and it is not like you can use a knife to help open it
The water tastes awful. Distilled water always does...but it is somehow worse out of plastic bags.

The came the ration biscuits.
And my great discovery, the one that will effect my sailing for the rest of my life...which now may well be a longer span then if I had not made my discovery tonight.

Turns out that I am violently, almost immediately and very messily allergic to the preservative used in liferaft ration biscuits!

Yep. One of those great discoveries.

I took one quarter of one meal biscuit (about the size of a sugar cube), it tasted of nothing at all but had the texture of sugar cookies and either I imagined a very faint smell of vanilla or my brain conjured it in self defence to meeting a totally tasteless food.
Anyway, I was about half way through making some silly joke about the non-taste when I felt my gut cramp and my vision swam a little.

Toilet. Me. NOW!

I made it, for what that's worth. I still proceeded to decorate the inside of the cubicle with vomit while doing my unintentional best to destruct test modern porcelain with my other end.

About 15-20 solid minutes of gut churning misery and wishing I was dead, then I could try getting a little cleaned up and hosing out the mess I made on the walls and floor. Then I pretty much did it all again. Lots of feeling really miserable followed and I still feel pretty dreadful.

Despite around two litres of normal water I have still managed to come up dehydrated.

I do not think it takes any imagination at all to extrapolate what that experience would have been like if I was in the raft in earnest. Life threatening to me and the others on board, not to mention severely deleterious to the slight pallid thing that could be called quality-of-life on board a raft anyway.

So I got home and dialled up some info on the 'net. Turns out the serious liferaft manufacturers and stockists offer two varieties of emergency ration, using two different types of preservatives (why this is not more widely advertised is a mystery).

So do me and yourself and your loved ones a favour the next time you have your liferaft re-certified and re-packed. Actually get them to hold off loading up the new rations and re-packing the raft. Take the old ones home with you and have everyone that normally sails with you eat the rations. Make a themed picnic of it if you want (just stay within range of the bathroom, and stock up on disinfectant and TP beforehand).
Then, if all goes well, give the raft shop a call and tell them to go ahead and re-load with the same brand of rations.

By the way, just for the record, up until this evening I was positive that I was not allergic to anything at all. I have lived in over10 countries, have very wide ranging tastes in food and ingredients. Cook extensively and have tried just about anything that flies, swims, walks or crawls at one time or another.


There are a few other things that I learnt from tonight's exercise, but I think I will write about them when I am feeling more like myself and less like a fully squeezed out piping bag.

I hope I have given you something to ponder.


Alex.

[Parrothead]

Thank you for the post. First hand experience is always better than some drivel put out by "experts". Spending 6 boat units on a raft setup doesnt really sit well with me. Id rather spend the dough on Epirb SSB and Good Pumps (read  not RULE) etc. The 50% failure rate that many suffer after being in the canister for a year or two seems to be bogus. Spending a boat unit or two every year on recert is bogus also. For that money I could have better ground tackle  etc which will be better for my saftey and the boats.

As an aside of the 3 rescues off North Carolina 2 months ago by the CG during the storm ALL the vessels found there way back to shore with little damage and with all there rigs intact. There is no way i would jump off a perfectly good yatch to get into a rubber bubble to await "Rescue" because the ride was rough.

1)Seasickness is not a emergency.
2)Even if the rig comes down the boat will float in an upright position.(seaworthy monohull)
3)If I ask for a "Rescue" then I put others at grave risk of death or injury.

That is my opinion others must make there own choices based on the facts. I believe that some peeps buy them to make the crew "feel" safer.

Question: If your exhaust hose breaks or your shaft falls out or you hit a container or a whale or a rock. What would you rather have at that moment?
a)Crash pump.
b)Raft that has sat on deck for 3 years in the sun.

[AdriftAtSea]

Alex-

thanks for the report... sorry to hear about the projectile vomitting... never pretty, never fun... But a good thing to find out ahead of time. 

I'm of the camp that a I would rather work on making my boat less likely to sink and more safe to use, than invest in a liferaft that is essentially a gamble when push comes to shove.  Of course, my boat, having three separate hulls and no ballasted keel, is far less likely to sink than a monohull sailboat is.  Adding the bridge deck has also increased its seaworthiness IMHO, since the cockpit is now smaller by over four cubic feet (which is 280 lbs. of seawater)  and has a much higher tolerance for water getting in and out of it, but not getting into the rest of the boat.

I also agree with Parrothead that many of the recent rescues were comfort rescues, not life-saving rescues for the most part.  In many cases there was nothing wrong with the boat, except for the weather conditions that the boat was in... and in most cases the boats were perfectly capable of handling the conditions in question... not comfortable... but this is sailing in relatively small boats... If you want comfort, hire a cruise ship. 

[Fortis]

I have never understood the notion of climbing down into a life raft.
I can certainly not fathom (sorry about the pn) how anyone can ever even imagine that the liferaft will be more comfortable than a boat. Any boat. Even a farr37.

I can only assume that they have never spent a single moment in one on even a small swell, have visions of floaty toys in a luxurious tropical swimming pool and believe that as soon as they pull the release cord, the storm around them will all melt away and a tropical drink (with an umbrella in it) will self generate to greet them as they climb into the raft's canopy.

Liferafts are bloody dreadful things. Uncomfortable and smelly in almost any condition other then a dead calm...Actually, even then.

My boat would have to be on fire beyond redemption in the middle of the open sea for me to decide that stepping into a raft would somehow improve the situation.

The rule is you NEVER step DOWN into a raft. You step UP because your boat has gone down under you...or you at least step across as the waves close over the gunnels, but never ever DOWN. As an instructer of ours put it, a life raft is a hole in the sea into which you step to die. Sometimes there is salvation. Don't count on it.



And yet...We all need to know how to deal with them, if for no other reason then we may be the vessel that spots a raft and needs to go and do a rescue of crew on board.

This can get amazingly messy if there are injuries and you are sailing shorthanded. Rescuing people from a ferrel bowl of gel-o is the most charming way of putting it.

One note to be observed if you ever do need to rescue people from a raft. When you get them on board SINK THE RAFT. Stab some nice big holes into it, make sure you get all three or four chambers and sink the bugger. Otherwise a whole bunch of other people down the line are going to risk their lives to go and "RESCUE" the people they have to assume are inside the now empty raft.
Sometimes you get killed doing a rescue, this is acceptable risk...but I would be incredibly annoyed at dying to render aid to what turns out to be an abandonned and still floating raft from which everyone had already been taken safely.

Do not attempot to salvage and deflate the raft, no matter how much someone might beg you. You chances of ending up in the water are really high, none of the deflation valves are where you can reach them safely fomr the outside of the craft while staying on board your boat. If the survivors are walking, tell them to bring their EPIRB and flares, everything else is the insurance company's headache.


Alex.

the next thing I post on the raft is going to be about the painter-pull release system...and why it does not work for small sail yachts (it was never designed to)

[Parrothead]

I love this first hand stuff!! Thank you again for the input.

[AdriftAtSea]

The bowl of jell-o is a good description of a life raft... and good point about scuttling the raft once you've rescued its occupants.... That would be a really irritating to discover that you've rescued an empty life raft.

[rtbates]

http://www.tinker.co.uk/html/functions.htm

My plan is to use a version of the above with the sail rig along with a ditch bag full of MREs.

You can also get the tinker with a full liferaft canopy if you so desire. But then it can't be sailed. I'd rather be able to sail than have the canopy, I THINK!! 

Hopefully I'll never find out!

[Fortis]

I have somewhat mixed feelings about the canopy.
In part I instinctively agree with your assessment of what is more useful (the ability to self rescue by sailing!)..But on the other hand, I have all the coast guard studies and literature about what canpoies are there for and why they are important...I also have the begginings of an in-the-bone appreciation that those studies might be right.

There is a rule of thumb in emergency recue services that says a human can reliabely survive three weeks without food, three days without water, three minutes without air and three seconds without the will to live

That last one is not just tacked on for dramatic effect. They mean it.It's real and it matters.
...However tough you think or know you are.

Never mind extreme cold water, where I am sure you would see the point of a canopy. Lets call the water tempreture something around 20 degrees Celcius. Nice moderate stuff.
Now consider the mental and emotional state of someone that is having to abandon their yacht. They are possibly sea-sick, they are likely shocky, they may well be physically injured. The thing that is certain is they are not geared up to take on the world in the way they would be when say, riding a windsurfer full-tilt into waves. Mentally and emotionally, at that moment, they are a million miles away form being that person....And this has an effect...Because now they are going to interpret the pumelling of boarding waves as a direct assualt on their body. Even if the water is not cold, waves breaking over them are going to cause panic which is exhausting and shock, which robs the body of warmth, even in the tropics. They are being pummeled and drowned and they have lost their boat and things are NOT GOOD.

A flimsy rubber canopy actually does make a huge difference at this time. You are still seasick and miserbale, the floor is heaving beneath you...but you are not actually being beaten to death by waves and randomly chocked by facefulls of water as you try and breathe. Your heat is being stolen much slower and you can see other members of your crew, which is re-assuring, as opposed to towering waves looking to crush you.

That will to live thing can get pretty tenous...

Other issues with the canopy include its ability to prevent usefull "stuff" form being torn loose and washed overboard form the raft/dinghy. We have all read the article where a capsised boat crew opened a cannister of flares, fired three and then had a wave come aboard, swamp the container and sink it out of reach. Flares work even when wet...but having a container that is not bouyant unless the lid is on is just daft!  In the same way, waves will happily rip all the rescue gear, grab bags and all out of an open raft and that will be that. You will not be able to hold onto them, you will be doing your best to hold onto the ropes in the raft and maybe, if you are really still with it and thinking beyond your reptilian hind-brain you will be holding onto other crew members to make sure they stay attached to the raft too.

Rain is a misery without a canopy when you are flopping about in a rubber boat and are in post edrenal shock.
Full sun exposure and sunburn is worse.

This is a small rubber singhy we are talking about here, have you used one in largish waves? They break loose a spray that gets flung into the boat in even ideal conditons on just about every thrid wave they crest. How much fun is that for a day or two?

Anyway. I am not telling you what to do, but hopefully getting you to consider the broader picture. Sailing a dinghy is very different to the survival situation of losing your yacht, having the worst, and possibly last, day of your life and the weather that could go with that. I think a canopy is a good idea. I think having one that can be used for the immediate rescue phase and then taken down so that you can fit mast rig and self rescue once people get into "what do we do now?" mode is the best solution.


Alex.
....Yeah. I had a very rough weekend. If you are going to get seriously clobbered in an inflatable dinghy....let out some air so that it is soft beforehand. It will handle like poop, but having a wave impact burst a pontoon really ruins your whole day.

[Auspicious]

I do have, and carry, a valise life raft. I also have an EPIRB. If I get a hole too big to allow keeping up with incoming water or a fire that can't be brought under control I'm sure I'll be glad of it.

Offshore I also keep a ditch bag with water, food, documents, handheld VHF, and other assorted "stuff."

If I was only doing inshore sailing I would not have bought the raft. For sailing out of sight of land it seems to me a good investment.

[cgoinggal]

Wathched an episode of "Suvivor Man" that my fiance and I borrowed from the Library last night.  It was the episode where he tries 7 days in a liferaft. 

We have already decided not to carry a liferaft-Andunge serves double duty but, if we hadn't already decided that before wathching that show then by the time the episode was over we sure would have.

Granted, this guy was clearly not very comfortable being on the water so he was already behind the eightball but he really had a rough time.  The footage did not appear to Nathan and I as being that terrible (the weather held, though it rained now and again-which meant he had some 'fresh' water, but, the wind and waves were never that severe).  Even though the conditions were not that bad you could tell that trying to make a go of living in the raft was not something that you wanted to do.  It looked truly miserable.

[maxiSwede]

I don't think anyone ever claimed a life raft to be comfortable. But in the worst case; i e your boat is actually sinking, pretty fast too, I guess I could do with a bit less comfort.
      That said, mine came with the boat, don't know if I would have bought one, defintely not for inshore and coastal sailing and probably not on a smaller boat. Mine (32') is just about big enough to carry a raft IMHO. It's a bit bulky, and weighs a LOT.

BTW, I read someplace - don't remember where -  that for a crew of two, you'll need a raft designed for four, at least, otherwise it would be impossible to lie down and sleep on the floor...

I reckon the thinking behind the life rafts came (as usual) from racing. It's designed to keep the crew alive  afew hours or so waiting for a SAR vessel to come by.

Great reading on this subject:  Steve Callahan 'Adrift'  -This poor fellow spent some 80-90 days(!) drifting across the Atlantic on his raft... and survived. He would have died without it, that's for sure

[Fortis]

The four man raft is actually the smallest size produced. They are too unstable when they are made smaller. You do not lie down in them, you sleep with your shoulders slumped into the top ring. If you are lying on the floor of the raft then your shoulders are the lowest point in the raft and that is where all the water swills around. You do not want to breathe it as it sloshes. There is almost always water. The inside of the canopy makes a wonderful moisture trap for even damp air and exhalations...But you cannot drink the stuff that has been on a vulcanised rubber floor (especially after it has had salt water sloshing across it).

We have a 2man raft in the attic at our CG flotilla, it is rectangular (bad design) and is like a wide bathtub with a canopy. It gets pulled out and inflated for some training days...It takes all the bad of a standard liferaft and concentrates it into utter misery. (Getting in form the water is especially dreadful).

Alex.

P.S I field tested the standard drogue that came with the raft mentioned in the first post in this thread. We hooked it up to the boat at 3knots...it is rectangual drogue of four attachment points...three of which promptly failed within 5 minutes...So a night of pounding seas would see you a long long way form where you started.

Rememebr, this was a good quality raft in survey.

[AdriftAtSea]

Again... just more reasons to avoid using a raft if at all possible.  Positive floatation in a smaller boat is a good thing. 

[Lynx]

Positive floatation in a smaller boat is a good thing. 

Yep.

[el cielo]

http://www.tinker.co.uk/html/functions.htm

My plan is to use a version of the above with the sail rig along with a ditch bag full of MREs.

You can also get the tinker with a full liferaft canopy if you so desire. But then it can't be sailed. I'd rather be able to sail than have the canopy, I THINK!!  

Hopefully I'll never find out!

Doesn't look like the Tinkers are made any more. Does anyone here own a Portland Pudgy (http://www.portlandpudgy.com)? That seems like a very cool (and probably expensive) dingy/liferaft.

Dangit! I didn't realize how old this post was. Sorry guys.

[Skipper Dan]

Not a problem I would not have read it if you would not have brought it to the top.

Dan

[CapnK]

ec - sailFar member Lynx has one and has used it pretty extensively. He is off working in the Mideast somewhere, so now only posts rarely, but you could PM him for more info...

I saw it when he was here, and it is definitely a stout little craft! If there was a dinghy I needed to sail across lots of ocean to get somewhere, I have no doubts it could do so. Too big for my small boat, though, like many dinghies...

[Auspicious]

With regard to raft size, too big is as significant a problem as too small. From what I learned when researching my purchase five years ago the conclusion was that larger rafts have some stability and motion problems (depending on the specifics of the design). Depending on how the sea anchors are configured it is possible for an 8-person raft with 2 people aboard to overturn. I elected to carry a 6-person raft -- tight with 6 aboard (the most I have ever had aboard offshore) but still stable with 2. I think with a smaller boat I would have stuck with a 4 person raft.

My raft is due for recertification in the Spring. I'll get a sample of the new food going on board beforehand and Janet and I will *ahem* test it.

[Oldrig]

Janet and I will *ahem* test it.

You and Janet are in for a real treat (Ugh!).

I tested some life-raft food during a Safety-at-Sea seminar at LRSE back in March.

Sometimes I think I can still taste the stuff.

Good luck,

--Joe

[marujo_sortudo]

I just watched the Survivorman episode where he is "Lost at Sea" in a liferaft.  Admittedly, I was already against them, but my regard for them has sunk even lower after watching that.  I'll be figuring out my own hard dinghy as a liferaft solution when the time comes, and I'll pack my own food, too, it sounds like....