Baker wrote:
I consider my dinghy a connection to the landside....I never really consider it a life raft.
Depends on how big your boat is, the waters you boat in,*and what your requirements for a life raft are.* Most boats in the 30 to 40 foot range don't have room for a shoreboat plus a full-size life raft.* In our waters a requirement-- or at least our requirement---*for a life raft is to*keep everyone out of the water because of*the temperature of the water.*
We have a ditch bag with a strong tether and clip so if we had to get off the GB in a hurry we could go aft with the bag, clip it to the dinghy,*release the standoffs and the dinghy would be in the water immediately.* Lke Carey's dinghy, ours has a motor and fuel and we could actually get somewhere in it although it's not as seaworthy and fast as Carey's.
A snazzy Bering Sea crab*boat-type*life raft with stormproof*canopy, sea anchor,*and built-in survival gear would be way cool but we've got no place to carry it on our boat, let alone afford it.* So our shoreboat has to do double-duty as a lifeboat.
In warmer waters perhaps something less than a hulled craft would work okay as a life raft.* It was a rule in Hawaii when I flew there that all general aviation planes that were going to be flying over water (which was all of them) had to have a raft on board with the same capacity as the plane.* 2-place plane, 2- person raft.* 6-place plane like I flew, 6-man raft.* These were quite compact, very expensive, had to be checked, recharged, and repacked every x-years, and would serve as little more than something to hang onto in the ocean waters over there.*
But the water was fairly warm, and since you had to file a flight plan when flying inter-island and report in at a variety of check points along the way*the chances were that if you went into the water and survived the impact and weren't*eaten by a*shark you'd be pulled out of the water pretty quickly.
The situation is a little different for boaters here and on up the BC coast into SE Alaska.* Staying out of or getting out of the water is the number one priority.
-- Edited by Marin on Monday 24th of January 2011 10:12:41 PM