Moon 2 Halcyon 27

[Moon 2]

Hi , it’s my first post on this new forum .
Can I ask where is it best to fit my life raft six person canister on my halcyon 27 .. I was considering all balance aspects ?
Mark

[OldManMirage]

I've not seen one in person but I just looked at several pictures on the internet. Not a lot of room is there ? I think your best bet might be to try and make a set of brackets behind the mast, or perhaps in front of it. Does yours have the large base for lowering the mast ? That seems to get it the way. You could also make a mount for the foredeck. Not many options unfortunately !

[Moon 2]

Hi Old man mirage ,
Thank you for your help , I will try to look at attaching it just behind the mast .
For balance I feel that would be best .
I will try to rig something .
Have you ever owned a H27
M

[boatman61]

I would install it just fwd of the raised doghouse so as to leave room for deck/mast work and in case you decide to run lines back to the cockpit.. also, why a 6man raft, its rare you'll have that many aboard I would imagine and their function is very weight dependant, surely a 4man would be a better fit price, weight, size and safety wise.
No room ahead of the mast without compromising the forehatch.
Nice little boats and good sailers..

[TrentePieds]

A six-man raft seems an awfully big one for a 27-footer, and a very nice one at that :-).

That you are new to our forum doesn't mean that you are new to sailing, of course, but you've given us no information about your level of experience or about where you are going to be sailing the boat, so I'm prompted to ask: Why do you even want to carry a raft?

What, precisely, are the circumstances in which you can envisage yourself leaving the boat? The only circumstance in which I would leave my 30-footer would be if I had an UNCONTROLABLE fire. In all other circumstances I would, here in the Salish Sea (twixt Vancouver Island and the west coast of British Columbia) be better off staying with the boat because a "mayday" on VHF would bring assistance in a very short time, given the amount of traffic we have, and the ubiquity of well trained and well-organized chapters of the Royal Canadian Search and Rescue organization.

Consider what risks you as an amateur seafaring man are exposed to:

Being holed by a floating object and sinking as a result of ingress of water? Most unlikely given sound seamanship in regard to look-out and boat handling. A fracture in a fibreglass hull or a broken seacock will obviously admit water, but we all have an established procedure for dealing with such a quantity of water.

Having a medical emergency? Well, yes, but as skipper you will have, or should have, a First Aid qualification at some appropriate level and a knowledge of any special medical requirements your crew may have. In any event, you are unlikely in the UK to be more than a few hours from a useful port and of course you have the VHF, so something as drastic as an evacuation by helicopter/long-line is eminently possible.

Will "stress of weather" ever put you in a position where you have to leave the boat? Most unlikely! As a sensible skipper, and never being far from port, you will have taken your boat out of harm's way long before rude Boreas can do you harm. Weather-forecasting is a component of every skipper's intellectual tool kit, and the ether is replete with up-to-date weather synopses. On your VHF you will have a weather channel with a continuous broadcast of conditions all around the shores of Britain.

Fire in the galley? Your cooker is likely to be propane gas. Provided you observe the normal safety routines in handling the gas supply, you will not have a fire there.

Fire in the engine room? Presumably your auxiliary is a diesel engine. Petrol engines are long since passé, so there is really no risk of that, and, of course, you have, and know how to use, the mandated fire extinguishers.

Electrical fire? Not if you keep your system tidy and sound as every skipper should do. Your main circuit breaker and the mandated fire extinguisher will keep you safe there.

Well, enuff of that. For cruising around the British Isles I really do not see a reason for accepting the encumbrance of carrying a raft in a cannister at all, and I should think that if you are indeed a novice, you will come to share that opinion after a very few seasons of coastwise cursing.

All the best :-)!

TrentePieds.

[Pete7]

Mark welcome

Spent many an hour sailing on H27s. One thing you do not have is lots of space.

As Boatman61 and TP have questioned, that is a big raft. For sailing around NW Europe, I would down grade it to a 4 man in a valise and carry it below out of the weather. This is were ours is most of the time or in the cockpit locker occasionally. Servicing will be cheaper too. About £260 every 3 years for our Seago 4 man like this one:

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace...2-52eaaf4164d1

Pete

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by TrentePieds

A six-man raft seems an awfully big one for a 27-footer, and a very nice one at that :-).

That you are new to our forum doesn't mean that you are new to sailing, of course, but you've given us no information about your level of experience or about where you are going to be sailing the boat, so I'm prompted to ask: Why do you even want to carry a raft?

What, precisely, are the circumstances in which you can envisage yourself leaving the boat? The only circumstance in which I would leave my 30-footer would be if I had an UNCONTROLABLE fire. In all other circumstances I would, here in the Salish Sea (twixt Vancouver Island and the west coast of British Columbia) be better off staying with the boat because a "mayday" on VHF would bring assistance in a very short time, given the amount of traffic we have, and the ubiquity of well trained and well-organized chapters of the Royal Canadian Search and Rescue organization.

Consider what risks you as an amateur seafaring man are exposed to:

Being holed by a floating object and sinking as a result of ingress of water? Most unlikely given sound seamanship in regard to look-out and boat handling. A fracture in a fibreglass hull or a broken seacock will obviously admit water, but we all have an established procedure for dealing with such a quantity of water.

Having a medical emergency? Well, yes, but as skipper you will have, or should have, a First Aid qualification at some appropriate level and a knowledge of any special medical requirements your crew may have. In any event, you are unlikely in the UK to be more than a few hours from a useful port and of course you have the VHF, so something as drastic as an evacuation by helicopter/long-line is eminently possible.

Will "stress of weather" ever put you in a position where you have to leave the boat? Most unlikely! As a sensible skipper, and never being far from port, you will have taken your boat out of harm's way long before rude Boreas can do you harm. Weather-forecasting is a component of every skipper's intellectual tool kit, and the ether is replete with up-to-date weather synopses. On your VHF you will have a weather channel with a continuous broadcast of conditions all around the shores of Britain.

Fire in the galley? Your cooker is likely to be propane gas. Provided you observe the normal safety routines in handling the gas supply, you will not have a fire there.

Fire in the engine room? Presumably your auxiliary is a diesel engine. Petrol engines are long since passé, so there is really no risk of that, and, of course, you have, and know how to use, the mandated fire extinguishers.

Electrical fire? Not if you keep your system tidy and sound as every skipper should do. Your main circuit breaker and the mandated fire extinguisher will keep you safe there.

Well, enuff of that. For cruising around the British Isles I really do not see a reason for accepting the encumbrance of carrying a raft in a cannister at all, and I should think that if you are indeed a novice, you will come to share that opinion after a very few seasons of coastwise cursing.

All the best :-)!

TrentePieds.

Steven Callahan had an Avon 6 man life raft aboard his 21' boat Napoleon Solo.

The raft is what saved his life (and his engineering and fishing skills) as it carrier him the 1800 miles across the Atlantic after his boat was broken in half possibly by a whale.

Even at that size it was still a tight fit for one person plus gear needed to stay alive for an extended period

[TrentePieds]

thomm225:

Quite right. And Callahan, an experienced yottie, had the raft because he had assessed his risk exposure, and on the basis of that assessment had made appropriate preparations for his Atlantic crossing.

You will note, upon reflection, that that is exactly what I'm counselling Moon2 to do: Assess your risks on the basis of WHERE you sail, WHAT you sail and HOW you sail!

You will also have noted that Moon2 is a Britisher and that I happen to be an FDP domiciled in Britain's former Senior Colony. It goes without saying, therefore, that he and I are not terribly infatuated with the prospect of calamity in the abstract. I think it is fair to say that cultural forces impacting both him and me make us rather more interested in preventing pedestrian, garden variety difficulties than in fantasizing about calamities inhabiting the furthest reaches of probability. In northern European waters destruction by whale is extremely unlikely!

You will recall from my reply to Moon2 that I left the door open to the possibility that he is NOT a novice and that, if he is not, his ability to assess risk and elude calamity is quite the equal of mine.

FWIW, there in the Salish Sea we have the pleasure of the company of both humpback whales and orcas. They and I share the view that respect is a two-way street :-)!

Cheers

TrentePieds

[Adelie]

Welcome.

I would suggest updating your profile with your general location and your boat make & model or “Looking” in the "Boat" category. This info shows up under your UserName in every post in the web view. Many questions are boat and/or location dependent and having these tidbits under your UserName saves answering those questions repeatedly. If you need help setting up your profile then click on this link: https://www.cruisersforum.com/forums...ml#post3308797

I would happily help more if the link above is not enough.