You could make your own. Hypalon glues very well as long as you have the
proper glue. Make double butted seams for strength (put the ends of the two
main pieces together, then glue a strip on the inside and outside of the
seam). Look up Hypalon, or Coated Fabrics in Thomas Register or online for
sources.

"Rufus" wrote in message
...
Do you by chance know who produced their bags for them? It seems like a
good idea to me also - I'd much rather be stranded with my whole boat
than with just a liferaft.

Seems to me that with 35'+ boats with bulwarks, the bags could be
mounted _outside_ the rail, just under the cap rail, or down lower under
the rub rail where such existed. By designing the hull to accomodate the
bags, you could get good strength and good appearance, with minimal
intrusion. The biggest problem would be salt water corrosion of various
bits and pieces, but given the potential advantages, that _should_
solveable.

IMHO. Rufus

Evan Gatehouse wrote:
I used to have Yachtsaver bags in our old boat so I feel (somewhat)
qualified to reply to all this:

- they are indeed out of business

- they closed about 3 years ago, citing 2 reasons: lack of sales, and CE
tests for Europe that indicated the actual volume of some of their bags
was
less than calculated i.e. some of the systems already installed may have
been marginal at best in terms of how much actual flotation provided.

- each of their standard bags was supposed to provide 1 ton of lift.
Bags
were about 4" thick x 24" long x 8" high. Pretty easy to find room for
4 of
them in our small 30' cutter. Easy to bolt their mounting straps to
bulkheads that could withstand 1 ton of force. I did the calcs on
bulkhead
bearing strength and taping and it was o.k.

- 1 CO2 cylinder was enough for 4 bags.

- Price for the system was $2200 USD +/-. About the same cost as a
liferaft, and you might well save your boat with the system. Pretty
good
idea if you ask me.

- for larger boats, they become pretty costly quickly, so a liferaft
starts
to sound very appealling in cost, especially if your boat is insured (we
were not)

Our next boat is a 40' catamaran, with 6 different w.t. compartments.
Should be enough to float the boat with any 1 compartment flooded (but I
will do the hydrostatics to check this for myself).


--
Evan Gatehouse

you'll have to rewrite my email address to get to me
ceilydh AT 3web dot net
(fools the spammers)