What Viking Liferafts do not tell you!

[Dougtiff]

As i recall, New Zealand tried to enforce their regulation's on foreign flag vessel's, but evidently under international law, could not do so, any comment's.

[JPA Cate]

@ dougtiff: Correct.

**********

And now, back to this interesting discussion about the servicing of liferafts, especially as to where are good places to have it done.

Ann

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by grantmc

And whilst you're correct about some of the Cat 1 requirements here in NZ, liferaft inspections are certainly much less costly. About NZ$1,200 (USA$900 approx.) for the same Viking service (assumption that it's a non Commercial). Plus, if you want to you can also watch the service provider and add more items to the pack.

Extra items I'd add include:
decent hand held fishing gear
a kite (for signalling much further over the horizon)
handheld GPS and PLB

What would others add?

I didn't find NZ as a low cost place to have a Viking raft repacked. There is only one factory authorized company, so no competition. They quoted me nzd$1600 to do the first repack on a 4 year old 4 man raft. The actual cost ended up being nzd$1817 (us$1250). That's about 50% of what I paid for the raft new.

I added a PLB to the repack.

[svrevelations]

Finally ... after days of hassles, around 40 emails, I'm happy to announce that it is sorted out. Marine Consultants, the appointed agents for Viking in Trinidad insisted on the wrong regulations. My life raft is clearly mark as ISO 9650-1 and for pleasure craft requiring inspections every three years, they insisted on applying the rules for commercial life raft purposes.

They now finally backed down after SAMSA (South African Maritime Authority) and Viking got involved and laid down the proper regulations. I wonder how many others got ripped off by Marine Consultants in Trinidad. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend them.

[taxwizz]

Originally Posted by Revelations

Finally ... after days of hassles, around 40 emails, I'm happy to announce that it is sorted out. Marine Consultants, the appointed agents for Viking in Trinidad insisted on the wrong regulations. My life raft is clearly mark as ISO 9650-1 and for pleasure craft requiring inspections every three years, they insisted on applying the rules for commercial life raft purposes.

They now finally backed down after SAMSA (South African Maritime Authority) and Viking got involved and laid down the proper regulations. I wonder how many others got ripped off by Marine Consultants in Trinidad. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend them.

Why not suggest that in return for all your troubles and costs over this matter, that the entire inspection be COMPLIMENTARY, and all costs REFUNDED?

[svrevelations]

Originally Posted by taxwizz

Why not suggest that in return for all your troubles and costs over this matter, that the entire inspection be COMPLIMENTARY, and all costs REFUNDED?

Fat chance of that!
As nice and friendly as the Trini's are, I have never met such money hungry people. Things here are far from cheap and there are better alternatives elsewhere.

[taxwizz]

Originally Posted by Revelations

Fat chance of that!
As nice and friendly as the Trini's are, I have never met such money hungry people. Things here are far from cheap and there are better alternatives elsewhere.

Try asking Viking for the refund.
The worst thing that can happen is that they say "NO !"
Point out that it would be good P.R. particularly considering this forum.
Good luck !

[snort]

Buy a Tinker Traveller. At least with one of those, you can sail it. If you're out in rough open ocean, you're pretty screwed if you're not in a proper boat regardless.

[gjorgensen]

$2108 is highway robbery for a liferaft repack. My Winslow 6 man raft costs around $500 to vacuum pack, certified for 3 years. I think Viking rafts are cheaper than that locally here in San Diego.

[Divevac]

Canadian military aircraft use Winslow rafts. I talked to the Winslow rep at the Annapolis show in October and he confided that a Winslow raft in a sealed hard canister should never need inspection and recertifying generally if not exposed to a salt bath or damaged. The consumables within(batteries.water.rations.meds) are all that need replacing. My ditch bag will more than make up for the out of date consumables in my winslow raft. And while the warranty would be voided without regular inspection, the Winslow rep was absolutely convinced that a canister raft would function as designed for 12-15 years if not abused.

If this true, why bother with exorbitant inspections and recerts on recreational vessels?

[gjorgensen]

The only reason I used to do it was because the races that required a raft also required that it be current on its inspection/repack. Since I quit racing I haven't done it at all. That comment about the raft doesn't surprise me really - if kept dry or sealed in a hard container there's really no reason the raft itself would go bad. Like others. I keep a ditch bag with the EPIRB, handheld VHF/GPS, etc. that I know is all functional, so the raft it just the raft.

[Seymore]

Originally Posted by Divevac

If this is true, why bother with exorbitant inspections and recerts on recreational vessels?

Because different life rafts are made of different materials--PVC and Hypalon, for example. Years ago I bought a 4 year old life raft (I've forgotten the brand), took it in to a service facility and they refused to service it. The PO had missed the mandated two year(?) service requirement. Later I read a Practical Sailor life raft review that said this particular life raft manufacturer used a fabric that tended to split when it remained folded tightly for 3 years, as in a packed life raft, and the USCG had accordingly stopped certifying them.

So I bought an 11 year old Avon 4 person life raft in a canister (after touching base with the service facility) whose service was years out of date. They serviced it and certified it! Incidentally, the service cost US$750.

[Symphony]

Very informative thread. Buying a life raft is more than a product, rather a long relationship

[messias]

As there are a few countries that do not require you to have a life raft and/or any kind of inspection/certification, I´d like to make one question... maybe a stupid one, but nevertheless something that is really on the back of my head:

How difficult is it REALLY to inspect/service/repack a life raft? (i don´t have or need one for my kind of sailing)
But I do it myself to my life jackets... and I have been repairing all kinds of RIBS (both PVC and Hypalon), so... really... if you won´t need a certification of course, is it that hard?

[steve77]

Originally Posted by KD8NPB

Honestly, from a labor perspective, a company will only have 2 to 3 hours in to packing a liferaft if their equipment is set up efficiently.

The "annual" service, which starts at usually 3 years, is very fast. For Zodiac, it only takes about 1 hour of labor to accomplish.

We had our Revere life raft serviced in Italy. One of the things they did was an eight hour leak down test with the raft inflated. Other than this, there was only a couple hours of labor, but the leak down test turned it into an overnight job.

If you really want more details and photos of the inspection, there is a posting on our blog "Time to Service the Raft".

Cheers!

Steve