Life Raft for Coastal...Yes or No?

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by kmacdonald

A little bit of common sense goes a long way. You should try it. I know, that's asking a lot so I won't hold my breath.

The ocean is my friend, not the boogeyman.

You are deeply mistaken. The very first principle of seamanship is that the ocean is NOT your friend. The ocean can and will kill those, who don't respect it, and who don't have a healthy understanding of how many things can go wrong at sea despite the best of preparation, and how little power they have in the face of what the ocean can do to you. You had better stay in the bay (i.e., out of the ocean) with an attitude like that.



And "common sense" -- in this case, just a wild guess based on no actual knowledge -- does not give you the answer to a question like -- how often do accidents really happen, which require some means of abandoning ship? It's an objective question, and a relevant question. And the answer to it is -- not that rarely. A very small number of people make ocean passages in yachts in any given year, compared to the population at large (i.e., the population exposed to the chance of getting hit by lightning). How many people is it? 1,000? 10,000 at most? Even if it's 50,000, that's less than 0.001% of the population -- five orders of magnitude.



Yet a roughly similar number of people abandon yachts or are killed trying every year, anyway within one order of magnitude. An average of 48 people are killed every year by lightning. So that means that you are roughly 5 orders of magnitude more likely to get killed or need to abandon ship while making an ocean passage, than to get hit by lightning. That means, 100,000 times more likely. So the idea that "you are as likely to need a life raft as to get struck by lighting" is grossly wrong, by many orders of magnitude.


I guess if you were to compare it to the likelihood of a motorcyclist needing a helmet, you would find the odds to be closer.


This is not directly applicable to the OP's question, who is specifically asking about coastal passages. But the rough statistics on ocean passages is still very relevant to his question.

[tomrealest]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

That’s because most of the responses up until yours have been nothing more than emotional jabs and cheap shots .

You win the prize for best contribution o date. Well thought-out, non-emotional and I agree with you 100 percent.

Thanks

Ken

Ken, This a forum where people give their opinions. If you don't agree fine. None of us agree with plenty of what is on this forum, just not this thread. The insults you throw around are all we really need to know about you. I will try to stay off any thread you start and I expect you to be happy with that, if nothing else.

[waterman46]

First, coastal cruising in good weather, warm water, no problem go ahead w/o a liferaft if your ports are quite close together or getting ashore in a dinghy anywhere is feasible. Not so in my neighborhood.

But, in this thread I find way too much reliance on being quickly saved by SAR folks in general, and too much reliance on being able to keep your boat afloat in any situation of fire or collision, long enough for SAR to get to you. If you must depend on outside help, I would give SAR time to find you alive in your liferaft, rather than finding you dead in the ocean, if indeed they find your body at all.

[jtsailjt]

Originally Posted by waterman46

First, coastal cruising in good weather, warm water, no problem go ahead w/o a liferaft if your ports are quite close together or getting ashore in a dinghy anywhere is feasible. Not so in my neighborhood.



But, in this thread I find way too much reliance on being quickly saved by SAR folks in general, and too much reliance on being able to keep your boat afloat in any situation of fire or collision, long enough for SAR to get to you. If you must depend on outside help, I would give SAR time to find you alive in your liferaft, rather than finding you dead in the ocean, if indeed they find your body at all.

How about just as alive in your RIB as you would be in a life raft, or better yet alive in the nearest pub after you motor ashore in your RIB and call the Coast Guard to tell them where you are and what happened. In this thread we are talking about coastal cruising, not going off by himself far across an ocean.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by jtsailjt

How about just as alive in your RIB as you would be in a life raft, or better yet alive in the nearest pub after you motor ashore in your RIB and call the Coast Guard to tell them where you are and what happened. In this thread we are talking about coastal cruising, not going off by himself far across an ocean.

If you don't go out in weather above F4 or maybe the low side of a F5, that is perfectly reasonable, and in fact that was our plan for nearly 20 years of cruising around SW Florida and the Caribbean. And we in fact did not go out in F4 or the low side of F5, which is realistic in those latitudes. Very very different where we are now!

[kmacdonald]

I just broke down and bought a PLB and strobe light for my inflatable life jacket. That should do it as far as safety is concerned for the next 5 or 10 years. YMMV