Don W wrote:

I've read plenty of stories of about sailboats sinking where they tried
to deploy the life raft unsuccessfully. Obviously the people involved
were rescued anyway, or the story would not have been told. Most of
these stories can be summarized as follows: 1) crew got scared due to
water ingress that they could not identify, or could not stop. 2)
Weather was bad. 3) Crew attempted to deploy life raft, but it blew
away as it was inflating. 4) Crew did something else and were
successfully rescued. In one case, they actually had the foresight to
tether the raft to a rail before inflating it, and it blew away after
breaking their tether!!


OTOH, a survival suit and personal GPIRB together should make rescue a
near certainty in most areas, and deployment is not an issue. Those in
combination with a larger RIB type dinghy with a tent type cover that
can be snapped on and erected in decent weather would be my choice.
Obviously deployment of the RIB in bad weather could have nearly the
same problems as deploying the life raft.


Don W.

Further to your notes, most boats abandoned in favour of liferafts are
subsequently found floating and fine. It would seem to me that putting
on a survival suit and sitting around waiting for the boat to sink is a
better idea than climbing into a liferaft and watching the boat float away.

Gary