Life rafts on small bluewater boats

[goboatingnow]

You cannot really prepare for “ almost all” scenarios , people are limited by circumstance , financial constraints etc. You have to make a judgement call and live or die ( possibly ) by that judgement call.

For Example I carrying a valise life raft because my judgement is a total yacht loss is unlikely and will not be a particularly fast situation.

[aqfishing]

Originally Posted by wingssail

OldManMirage, Even with excellent weather knowedge or routing one can find themselves in really bad conditions. Sailing around a suddenly developing low pressure system is not always possible and often these systems arise after you have departed. If the boat is badly damaged in a storm you may not have much choice about abandoning.

But your point about it not being the most likely scenario is the wrong position to take. None of these potential disasters are ever the most likely scenario. If we only prepared for the most likley scenario we'd never take any safety equipment. Because you are playing for keeps you should prepare for almost all of the possible scenarios. Losing my vessel at sea is definately one that I will prepare for.

Exactly!
Plan for worst, hope for the best!

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

You cannot really prepare for “ almost all” scenarios , people are limited by circumstance , financial constraints etc. You have to make a judgement call and live or die ( possibly ) by that judgement call.

Well said. I think too many of us have this illusion that we can mitigate all risks. This comes from living in our rich, highly controlled, developed countries where risks ARE largely minimized. But even this is an illusion in many cases.

I am in no way suggesting people not carry all the safety gear they can afford, and they deem useful. But unless you have no resource limitations (mostly, this means money), then we all must make decisions based on risk and cost-benefit.

In the case of a liferaft, I remain unconvinced they pass my benchmarks. They are very costly, and have a questionable reliability record. But I certainly don't dismiss them either. It is definitely a question of cost (both financial and others) vs benefit.

[contrail]

Originally Posted by thomm225

Actually he had an EPIRB but of the old school type. He never got a response.....

But, as I am sure you know, those EPIRBs needed a lot to go right, which is one reason the new ones (new for several decades!), using a completely different technology and network, were developed. If I remember correctly, the old ones are not even legal, any more.

[Calif.Ted]

Free for pick-up in S. Calif. is my Revere 6 man coastal life raft last certified 2005 and stored in a cool, dark basement for the last decade. I might even deliver if your anywhere in S.Cal I frequent.

[hpeer]

Originally Posted by Breaking Waves

This did actually happen - we were involved in the incident response.

BUT it was like 2 decades ago, AND the Indonesian CG has been comprehensively restructured/reoriented since then.

However, there are certainly still other places in the world where the local CG resources are not very rich or responsive. Most of those places you would still get help decently soon (48-72 hrs) from gmdss response.

However, there have more recently been some gmdss screw-up resulting in no response at all - again we were directly involved in one in Chile. There are hand-offs and language issues and humans involved and things can (and do occasionally) get screwed up. It is a good system but it can and does fail. (edit the Chilian's navy were the direct GMDSS response they started to spin up assets and then misunderstood the situation and never launched and there was no other response. Boat was lost all crew dead - honestly, they were probably dead even with an excellent response as conditions were terrible - we were right within 60 miles of them)

Pretty much everything can fail - good brand life rafts can and do fail (fail to inflate, fail to hold their inflation, get rolled in 8m breaking waves, etc).

The skipper and his seamanship is BY FAR the most important point for minimizing risk. WAY way more important than any gear. The basic boat structure and quality is a strong 2nd, again WAY way more important than gear. EPIRB and other communication methods (2 way coms can be quite important in response time and quality) is the 3rd priority, along with some of the basic safety stuff like fire fighting equipment and repair materials and hole plugging stuff. Beyond that . . . you are mostly working around the marginal edges.

Going to remote places, doing challenging things simply poses risks - relatively small risk and that is mitigable by good seamanship - but in the end **** can and does occasionally happen. How you deal with this is more a matter of life philosophy than a logically debatable point.

Breaking waves;

Curious if you have any insight in this incident.

About 2 years ago there was an experienced German skipper who left Carriacou, and a couple of days later his EPIRB went off. I have heard something to the effect that the search was delayed due to being dripped or miss handled between agencies. By the time they got airborne, several days, the beacon was silent and, to my knowledge, neither he or the boat have shown up.

I may be substantially off in my telling but hopefully you can recongnize the incident.

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by wingssail

….

But your point about it not being the most likely scenario is the wrong position to take. None of these potential disasters are ever the most likely scenario. If we only prepared for the most likley scenario we'd never take any safety equipment. Because you are playing for keeps you should prepare for almost all of the possible scenarios. Losing my vessel at sea is definately one that I will prepare for.

Nuclear power plants are literally designed to deal with any situation the engineers can think and look at what they cost.

Engineer’s designing roadway improvements look at cost vs long term number of lives likely to be saved. In the Late-1980s early-90s when I was in engineering school the number was about $1.5M/life. The rationale was that the money could be spent elsewhere to save more lives.

Going to sea recreationally is needlessly dangerous, deciding when the crew and boat are prepared enough is more of a philosophical question than one that can be quantified.

[OldManMirage]

Originally Posted by wingssail

OldManMirage, Even with excellent weather knowedge or routing one can find themselves in really bad conditions. Sailing around a suddenly developing low pressure system is not always possible and often these systems arise after you have departed. If the boat is badly damaged in a storm you may not have much choice about abandoning.

But your point about it not being the most likely scenario is the wrong position to take. None of these potential disasters are ever the most likely scenario. If we only prepared for the most likley scenario we'd never take any safety equipment. Because you are playing for keeps you should prepare for almost all of the possible scenarios. Losing my vessel at sea is definately one that I will prepare for.

Perhaps I wasn't clear on my reasoning, or my plans.

I will definitely prepare as much as I can for the possibility of losing the boat.

I don't think that weather is my biggest danger for losing the boat. My biggest concern is hitting something, or having some other problem such as thru-hull failure or shaft damage or some such scenario that allows more water in than I can control with pumps and other measures. Fire would also make the list, but much less so.

I don't think a life raft is my best choice if forced to abandon ship.

Now, if somehow I find myself in a storm bad enough to sink my boat I may well regret not having a liferaft. But I still feel that with today's technology that scenario is unlikely.

To me it is similar to staying out of the bad parts of town at night. That way I don't have to worry (much !) about being mugged or killed. I plan to stay away from disastrous weather. Bad weather is one thing, you expect and prepare for it. Disastrous weather - imho - can and of course should be avoided.

[OldManMirage]

Here, I copied this from the thread "Cost/Benefit of Offsoundings Weather Report" and it illustrates exactly why I feel with today's weather information sailing into dangerous weather is unlikely. if you want/need more information go and browse that thread.

Originally Posted by BillKny View Post
The OP has come to the completely uninformed conclusion that paying to get weather forecasts offshore is a waste and wants people to support his opinion. There are two reasons that this might be true. He can't afford the service and wants to feel better about that, or he doesn't understand how to use it and will feel better if he can convince himself that it has no real value and he isn't missing anything. Or maybe he's just a troll stirring the pot for entertainment.

As an experienced offshore passage maker and delivery captain, I update my weather information every 12 hours and evaluate my route decisions with each new forecast. The idea that this information is somehow not "actionable" is just hooey.

The focus of this thread has been all about storms and dangerous weather, and that certainly can be a factor, but what about calms and head winds? I far more often adjust my route to get MORE wind, or wind from a better direction.

Just as an example: Knowing days ahead of time a front is going to pass through, exactly WHEN, and the wind direction shift that will accompany it is EXTREMELY valuable information to the knowledgable sailor. It can make a HUGE difference in the passage time by allowing me to know when it makes the best strategic sense to tack or gybe. If the value of advance knowledge of a 150 degree wind shift is lost on you, then there isn't much I can do to convince you otherwise, and I am not going to try.

The idea that the only weather information that has value is what you can SEE is just wrong.

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by OldManMirage

Perhaps I wasn't clear on my reasoning, or my plans.

I will definitely prepare as much as I can for the possibility of losing the boat.

I don't think that weather is my biggest danger for losing the boat. My biggest concern is hitting something, or having some other problem such as thru-hull failure or shaft damage or some such scenario that allows more water in than I can control with pumps and other measures. Fire would also make the list, but much less so.

I don't think a life raft is my best choice if forced to abandon ship.

Now, if somehow I find myself in a storm bad enough to sink my boat I may well regret not having a liferaft. But I still feel that with today's technology that scenario is unlikely.

To me it is similar to staying out of the bad parts of town at night. That way I don't have to worry (much !) about being mugged or killed. I plan to stay away from disastrous weather. Bad weather is one thing, you expect and prepare for it. Disastrous weather - imho - can and of course should be avoided.

It's funny (not really) how these things just tend to occur at 2am when its blowing 40kts and the seas are peaking.

[Bycrick]

As any piece of "emergency" equipment, you won’t know you need it until it’s too late to get it.

I bought a life raft for my first cruising in the late 1970s. I met a fellow who was all set to leave a year ahead of me. We of course, mutually showed off our boats.

When he saw my life raft, he told me that he didn’t have one. "Five years ago, I was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given six months to live. So when I get caught in that Force 10 storm and 50’ waves, I’ll go down like a gentleman figuring I’m ahead of the game."

"If I get caught in the Force 10 storm and 50' waves, I’ll probably go down too. But you’ll feel pretty silly standing in the cockpit with water up to your mustache say, 'If that $3 hose clamp hadn’t corroded, I wouldn’t be in this position." '

The next week, he showed me his new liferaft. You pays you’re money and takes your chances.

[Mara Mae]

"The idea that this information is somehow not "actionable" is just hooey."

This is not really argument but simply a personal opinion that the member wants us to accept based on his experience. I do not know what I said that indicated to this member that I was looking for support for my opinion and in fact I didn't express an opinion. I asked a question. The question meant to probe the value of offsoundings enroute weather forecasts for a small (ie slow) boat sailor. In my professional experience judging go or nogo weather based travel decisions, the more dangerous the cell the faster they are moving. A slow boat 4-6 kts (Westsail 32 etc, ) has slim chance diverting and running away from them. I do not really understand why my question has caused such a commotion. Might I respectfully suggest that the more emotional and passionate responders reread my OP slowly and closely?

[mvweebles]

From a recent similar thread on Trawler Forum, a BoatUS article cited the most likely reasons to board a lifeboat is hitting a submerged object or fire. They went on to say that extreme weather is typically endured more safely in the mother ship, not a lifeboat.

Having emergency gear quickly and easily deployed is of great importance. A dinghy lashed upside down on a foredeck probably won't cut it.

Good luck

Peter

[hpeer]

I respectfully suggest that the more emotional and passionate responders reread my OP slowly and closely?

1+

This is a common problem, as much as I agree with your suggestion even I occasionally “Fire, Ready, Aim”.

Best to assume the best about one another and mark it up to the internet environment.

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by OldManMirage

Here, I copied this from the thread "Cost/Benefit of Offsoundings Weather Report" and it illustrates exactly why I feel with today's weather information sailing into dangerous weather is unlikely. if you want/need more information go and browse that thread.

……

Didn’t think this thread was contentious enough so you had to import more contentiousness from another thread. [emoji79]