What to do with Old Life Raft?

[Celestialsailor]

Originally Posted by Viking Sailor

Be careful when taking an old raft in for evaluation. I once took a raft in and the shop owner said that it was no good. Two weeks later I when back to pickup a new raft he had ordered for me. When I walked in to his shop he acted strange and kept trying to stay between me and his rental rack. I went along with it for a while until he got distracted by another customer. You can guess what I found for rent -- my old no good raft. Other then not using him again there was really nothing I could do about it either. Later I did find out that liferafts on recreational vessels don't need to have a re-cert. There is a thread on CF that deals with DIY repacking of rafts.

Hmmmm....This is very interesting...I am in your general area and went to our local liferaft service center to ask a few questions before buying a used one. Basically told me I really needed to buy a new one. That the brand he carried was the best and the others were junk. He kept using the same phrase over and over again, which was..."Well, to be honest...bla bla bla". I had heard many stories about the guy and bought a used Viking. The money he wanted for a re-pack was 1/2 the price for a new raft.