A dinghy as a lifeboat

[a64pilot]

Same reason I guess almost nobody is making commercially available chaps.
I thought sure there would be a market for that.

Then surely there has to be some kind of liability for selling an item that is marketed to turn a dinghy into a liferaft?

[fieldmedik]

Originally Posted by fish53

As I've said numerous times in this thread I want you all to do as you see fit, it is after all your opinion. My opinion is you're wrong, don't like it tough that's why there's an ignore button. A CF poll is meaningless as many seem to be poorly informed, in my opinion.
As you appear poorly informed I'll help, lifesaving equipment like rafts are vastly improved from 1979, both in design and construction, in numerous maritime organizations around the world's opinion. You are correct that during Fastnet lives could have been saved if more had stayed with the boat, I'm wondering where you got the idea I implied otherwise. EPIRBS were available in 1979, that some chose not to carry them is most unfortunate. Your foolishness about expecting someone else to hop over and rescue you hardly deserves a response but if you want place your life in the hands of luck that's fine, I think it's neither realistic nor particularly well thought out, in my opinion. I have a 28 foot Cape Dory and I have plenty of room for my four person SOLAS raft and my dinghy I don't know what you have but I'm assuming it's smaller. After you do the calculations on providing sufficient flotation to make a ballasted sailboat unsinkable tell me where you're going to sleep or make coffee or use the head. Compartmentalization would help but few if any boats are built with that and converting would cost more than a raft and take valuable space as well as possibly make staying on the boat unpleasantly inconvenient. I'm sorry that you've decided that my desire to not see anyone die at sea as some sort of indictment or as some slight against you personally but so be it. At the risk of sounding pompous I suspect I've spent significantly more time at sea than you in places I doubt you're interested in going and seen a lot that you will never see. If you think you know better that's great confidence is usually a good thing, except when it's misplaced. The preceding has been in it's entirety my opinion and in no way is intended to influence anyone to do anything outside of what they believe is best for them. Happy sailing!

I don't know how much offshore sailing experience you have but to imply that those that disagree are "wrong" is just arrogance. I was born on a cruising sailboat. I have circumnavigated more times than I can count. We sailed through three hurricanes before we could really track them like you can now. So, I have more than 50 years on the water in every kind of sea and weather. I would much prefer my set up to a life boat. I KNOW my pudgy will float, that me exposure enclosure will work, that I have the gear and supplies needed already staged. No one knows whether their life boat will actually inflat or not. The "supplies" they come with are a joke, so you still have to build your own ditch kit. Which also means you have to take time and effort to get to your ditch kit and get it into your life raft and hope you don't lose it on the way. Once you do all that, you just float around and pray someone finds you in time. No thank you. I'll save myself with my pudgy. I'm sure you believe your way is THE right way but that is incorrect as there is no one right way. For my family and me, I'd rather have a active solution than a passive one but better yet proper planning and avoid the problem in the first place.

[olaf hart]

So, I have two life rafts, they are both out of their inspection period.
Does this make them less safe than a tinker or a hard dinghy?
I also have a tinker and a hard dinghy.
A couple of years ago I inspected the raft in the valise, pumped it up and left it up for a week, replenished all the supplies, weighed the gas bottle and inspected the fittings, and repacked it.
Does this make it any safer?
IMHO this whole topic is a load of c**p. Yesterday an apple packing shed over the road caught fire and burned to the ground, we could easily have been caught in the fire if the brigade hadn’t kept it out of the wood packing boxes.
I could be killed crossing the road today, or catch a nasty strain of meningococcus...
I have no intention of ever leaving my boat for a liferaft, apart maybe from using it as a staging post for a chopper rescue, and an inflatable or a hard dinghy would work just as well.
The best advice I ever heard was you only get into a liferaft when you have to step up from the top of a mast.
Most situations in life are analogue, not binary, I make myself aware of the incidence of risks and play the odds.

[Don C L]

A little off topic, but, when I got my 57 year old boat, it came with a Winslow liferaft! I am pretty sure it was the one the owner put on the boat when he first bought it, and I am PRETTY sure it had never been serviced. (note date on it, Sept. 1962) It was neat small package tucked up in the v-berth. Just for fun I had my daughter try it in our garage (the rusty old air cannister still there.) I fully expected it to just dissolve on the floor but lo and behold, it still worked! And it held air (pretty much) overnight. I thought to myself, "darn, I shoulda kept it!"

[thomm225]

Based on a true story, these guys were able to use a dinghy effectively as a lifeboat...…….except for going through the surf

The Open Boat by Stephen Crane

[contrail]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Same reason I guess almost nobody is making commercially available chaps.
I thought sure there would be a market for that.

Then surely there has to be some kind of liability for selling an item that is marketed to turn a dinghy into a liferaft?

Actually, that is how the Tinker works, a fact that Fish seems oblivious to, although he is firm in his opinion! The Tinker's liferaft attachment is an inflated cover, that stands up curved, like a covered wagon. It has more flotation than the Tinker, itself, which is a flat bottomed dinghy.



When I used the word "stability", I meant both static and dynamic, in that the boat has the advantage of both a flat bottom, and a curved top. Since the top is curved, and more buoyant than the hull, it only goes over about 120 degrees, and even that is not easy to happen. Then if flips right back up, which it would also do if you could ever get it to capsize. In equal test conditions, the Switlik raft capsized rather easily, but the Tinker could NOT be capsized, even when the testers were attempting to make it do so. Fish's description of what he theorizes, as he obviously has no direct experience or knowledge of the Tinker, has no relation to what happens.



The ONLY advantage of the liferaft is that it is somewhat quicker and easier to launch. Period. And they can carry more people.


A64, you are correct that someone ought to make the covers, again. They work very well.

[MartinR]

Of course, a round canopy on a life raft makes much more sense than the pyramids they are using mostly, They are stable in 3 situations, and if you are unlucky and the wind pushes against the bottom while the raft is on its side, very hard to right. Round canopies provide very efficient righting.

This is the same for sailboats. Narrow round coach roofs practically kill inverted stability, so are a very desirable feature.

I also vote for making the covers again!

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by fish53

As I've said numerous times in this thread I want you all to do as you see fit, it is after all your opinion. My opinion is you're wrong, don't like it tough that's why there's an ignore button. A CF poll is meaningless as many seem to be poorly informed, in my opinion.
As you appear poorly informed I'll help, lifesaving equipment like rafts are vastly improved from 1979, both in design and construction, in numerous maritime organizations around the world's opinion. You are correct that during Fastnet lives could have been saved if more had stayed with the boat, I'm wondering where you got the idea I implied otherwise. EPIRBS were available in 1979, that some chose not to carry them is most unfortunate. Your foolishness about expecting someone else to hop over and rescue you hardly deserves a response but if you want place your life in the hands of luck that's fine, I think it's neither realistic nor particularly well thought out, in my opinion. I have a 28 foot Cape Dory and I have plenty of room for my four person SOLAS raft and my dinghy I don't know what you have but I'm assuming it's smaller. After you do the calculations on providing sufficient flotation to make a ballasted sailboat unsinkable tell me where you're going to sleep or make coffee or use the head. Compartmentalization would help but few if any boats are built with that and converting would cost more than a raft and take valuable space as well as possibly make staying on the boat unpleasantly inconvenient. I'm sorry that you've decided that my desire to not see anyone die at sea as some sort of indictment or as some slight against you personally but so be it. At the risk of sounding pompous I suspect I've spent significantly more time at sea than you in places I doubt you're interested in going and seen a lot that you will never see. If you think you know better that's great confidence is usually a good thing, except when it's misplaced. The preceding has been in it's entirety my opinion and in no way is intended to influence anyone to do anything outside of what they believe is best for them. Happy sailing!

You want us to all do as we see fit but you heap condescension on anyone that disagrees with you. Bit of a mixed message there.

My point in bringing up the poll was not to indicate which was the appropriate course of action, but to indicate that a LOT of folks disagree with you so your previous statement about being "absolutely amazed at the pushback on the use of liferafts and this bizarre idea of using a dinghy for lifesaving" seems more like a rhetorical device than an actual description of surprise.

Since I have not indicated that I expect anyone to come and rescue me in the event of mishap (which I don't and since I don't carry an EPIRB wouldn't have a means of calling for any long distance help anyway) I assume the whole point of that sentence was as a means to call me foolish rather than a response to anything I'd written.

If you look below my avatar you will see that I sail a Cal 20. Yes, my boat is much smaller than your CapeDory 28.

I would rather remain aboard a partially flooded boat and be unpleasantly inconvenienced than take to a liferaft. The survival odds are better that way.

I don't have a problem with your "desire to not see anyone die at sea", I have a problem with your ongoing rudeness to the members who disagree with you on this subject.