Viking Life-rafts

[Sandy Feet]

Howdy, I thought I'd share a cautionary tale regarding Viking for those looking at buying a liferaft.
We had our Viking raft accidentally deploy whilst on passage. The canopy suffered some damage on recovery. Back in Fort Lauderdale the raft was dropped off with a vendor specialising in inflatables and life rafts who then sent it on to Viking. Viking advised the liferaft was condemned much to our and the vendors surprise. Unfortunately we had to leave the States at this point for a sick family member. On return we followed up with the vendor and decided we would get the raft back and have another look at it as a few torn seams in the canopy is not a structural part of the raft and look at alternatives. On contacting Viking the vendor was told "they'd binned it". Naturally we were a bit taken aback and asked to at least get a damage report and have the safety equipment from the raft returned as it was all quite new. After many follow up calls and prodding for the damage report we have hit a wall. Although the primary responsibility to return our raft is probably more with the vendor (as we dropped it off to them) I can't blame them, they did the right thing and have been totally transparent throughout the process. I have been with them twice when Viking promised the damage report and been copied into their emails. The vender says they hate dealing with Viking precisely because of this arrogant attitude, this being one of many issues they've had with Viking. We have now bought a new raft, sold to us at cost price by the vendor.
So if you're thinking about buying a Viking liferaft ask around, our experience of their after sales service stinks and I would never buy another product made by them.