Life Rafts - Necessary?

[delmarrey]

Originally Posted by dana-tenacity

I have yet to be convinced a liferaft is the best way to improve safety ( 150,000 miles offshore), I think there are better alternatives.

You're 600 miles from any land and the boat rolls over in a storm, the mast breaks and punches a hole in the deck and the chainplate rips out the side of the hull ..........................

What would you do? I would really be interested..............................._/)

[Wahoo Sails]

When one anaylzes those rescues where a life raft was deployed, it is very, very rare to find a situation where the cause was striking a submerged object, or something along those lines. By far the most common problem was weather ... and not some "freak" of weather, rather weather that was predictable.
People with a life raft & EPIRB have a tendency to say "Yeah, it's "iffy", but we have purchased all of the safety items" ... those without them tend to say, "It's "iffy", so we will wait for better weather."
This is by no means meant to say that all life raft owners act irresponsibly ... or that those without, all show better judgement .... just a look at the "other side of the coin".
Bob

[seaclusion]

Bob,

Your argument is the same one the auto manufacturers used when the government was forcing them to install seat belts and then air bags. Unfortunately, there is statistical evidence to back up the argument. After seat belts were required in the late sixties and after air bags were required in the nineties, the number of vehicle accidents rose dramatically. The number of injuries did go down because of the safety devices but it is widely assumed there were more accidents because people took greater risks knowing the safety devices were there.

Even so I would take a liferaft on any long offshore passage because the possibility of sinking from something other than weather is still high. The Baily's were hit by a whale, the Japanese fishing vessel was hit by a submarine, and the Andrea Doria was hit by the Stockholm.

Richard

[Tnflakbait]

People have made a lot of good points here. I think this is really a matter of personal preference. Have a plan for when something goes seriously wrong. You should at least have a good dinghy. In my opinion a purpose built life raft is not essential.

Just thoughts.
Tristan

[Moby Dick]

Indeed they say a sharp spike in the middle of the steering wheel in a car ("auto") would be better than an airbag in terms of lives lost/injuries.

Maybe the equivalent here is that you have to have a couple of rocks in your pocket at all times?

[dana-tenacity]

The Baileys survived in a hard dinghy didn't they, can't be sure, been a long time since I read the book.
If I had to abandon I would be happier in this:

[haloman]

a dingy and a liferaft are two options instead of one just in case something goes wrong.

[coot]

Originally Posted by Wahoo Sails

People with a life raft & EPIRB have a tendency to say "Yeah, it's "iffy", but we have purchased all of the safety items" ... those without them tend to say, "It's "iffy", so we will wait for better weather."
This is by no means meant to say that all life raft owners act irresponsibly ... or that those without, all show better judgement .... just a look at the "other side of the coin".

Previously, you said:

I will not have either a life raft nor an EPIRB on my vessel. The rational (borrowed from Tanya Albei) is that with neither item onboard, one is not as likely to venture out ... when the weather is questionable.

I'm confused by your statements. Are you saying that you believe yourself to be one of those irresponsible people you refer to? And you need the threat of death to coerce you into making the right decision?

It seems a strange thing for someone to say, but unless I am misunderstanding something, that is the main point of your comment. Perhaps you could clarify.

The presence of these safety devices does not affect my evaluation of the weather -- bad weather that causes me to deploy either the EPIRB or the liferaft is going to cause pain and suffering to myself and the crew, as well as loss of the boat. Is that not enough incentive to act responsibly?

[schoonerdog]

just to expand upon what others have stated, look at your design layout in your hulls and then figure out how many completely water tight compartments you have, and then calculate how much volume of air is contained in the remaining compartments and if it would be enough to compensate for that particular compartment completely filling. Worst case is you loose a keel (or two) on a reef, would there be enough remaining water tight compartments to completely keep your boat afloat if this were to happen? To estimate roughly the size of a milk crate of air is enough for 63 lbs of bouyancy. For your boat you have around 9000 lbs divided by your two hulls, each hull would need about 71 milk crates of reserve bouyancy to be able to just lift that hull so the deck was awash. That's a lot of space, figure the space under your forward births is maybe 24 cu ft, and the space in the transom is around a third of that, so your up to only half of what you need. Different catamarans had different priorities when they were built. Some cats have tons of reserve bouyancy and even if they lost their keels and were hulled amidships, they would still be floating nicely. PDQ 44 has absolutely tons of reserve bouyancy and sacrificial keels, two holes amidships on them would not sink them very far before being raised by around 170-180 cu ft plus of reserve bouyancy fore and aft held behind full height water tight bulkheads.

Many others were designed to get lots of continuous room in the hulls for several paying guests and as a result have very little captive space and if they were to get holed amidships on that side, or both sides as often happens with a reef, they would very quickly sink. So, look at your boat, and ask the designer, and then ask yourself how willing you are to take the risk of having a reef rip off your keels in a bad storm by misjudging an entrance. A good rib might be all you would need in all but the most dire circumstances even then, and you can carry one which you can deploy in seconds off your transom. It's all up to you though.

[Boracay]

My understanding is that after seatbelts were made compulsory it was found that drivers who wore seat belts had fewer accidents than those that did not.(Australian report).
I would expect that yachts that have a high level of safety equipement fitted would have fewer problems than those without.
The main problem with discussing cruising problems is the almost total lack of information.
I don't even know how many yachts are cruising, let alone how many experience problems each year.
Does anyone know?

[smm]

Originally Posted by coot

The presence of these safety devices does not affect my evaluation of the weather -- bad weather that causes me to deploy either the EPIRB or the liferaft is going to cause pain and suffering to myself and the crew, as well as loss of the boat. Is that not enough incentive to act responsibly?

It isn't. People have a strong tendency to make the mistakes that they think they can get away with, particularly when the likelihood of some negative outcome is low. Someone who's just spent $50K outfitting his boat "for anything" tends to be a lot more sanguine about a gale than the guy who's a little worried about his boat's seaworthiness. Four wheel drive allows you to get stuck further from civilization, etc.

So, when you have a liferaft, you tend to rationalize away the danger of fire because "it wouldn't kill us, we'd just get into the liferaft." This isn't really an argument against having a liferaft, just against putting too much reliance on it.

-Scott

[seaclusion]

Chris31415,

The studies I refer to were Insurance Institute of America studies. They found that the number of accidents went up in cars that have seat belts and airbags after they were made mandatory. The wearing of the seatbelt was not factored in, just the total number of accidents per 1000 vehicles before they were required and after they were required. They also found that the accident rate settled back to previous levels for both seatbelts and airbags after a couple of years. I don't remember how many years.

Richard

[Joli]

We carry a life raft along with the rib but we do not generally wear life jackets.

Are we being unsafely safe?

[cat man do]

Gavin Le'suer on his sailing cat D'flawless hit a whale at speed and it broke into little peices.

Cat's and all boat's can also burn, so positive floatation won't help much, but I still am not a fan of a "Death Raft".

Dinghys and inflateables may be a poor 2nd cousin to a proper raft, but I don't feel i'll have one on the newie, but will have the dinghy set up as well as possible for an escape if required.

And to all you guys who reckon cats don't sink heres a pic of one going down.
Yeah OK it didn't really sink, it was recovered, but doesn't that solid glass construction make 'em sit low.

[redwitch]

A at best a bottom of list to worry about! Think about the first word in LIFEraft and make it a nobrainer. "Size, weight and cost" how much of that will matter when you and the people you love need to step up into it! Get it, mount it and work on you, the boat and your crews skills so that you will never need to Unmount it. THINK, PAY ATTENTION AND ENJOY!