Rubber ring

Even a Lifeboat can sink. It has happened too many times in the Institution's history to take it lightly. Lifeboats routinely take to the seas in conditions which have everyone else scurrying home to port, so they need to know that if the worst happens there is a plan B. On modern lifeboats this plan B takes the form of a sophisticated rubber ring, known in the trade as a liferaft. Ours sits in a little slot on the back deck and can be deployed rapidly by one man or woman. Ours has just returned from 'Cosalts' in Lowestoft where it has had a service. I hope that this will ensure that it is in top condition. It should include an inflation test, repairs as necessary, replacement of flares, batteries and other perishable stores. Of course, even in prime condition, a liferaft is one of the very last places one would want to spend any time at all. Indeed, even in the Survival Pool at the Lifeboat College, crewmembers under training routinely throw up!

In his usual diplomatic way Dave, our mechanic, has corrected me on some of the details of what happens to our Liferafts. I stand corrected!

Why don't you check before you write this stuff! :o) The liferaft that you have pictured there has arrived freshly serviced from Cosalt and will be swapped with the one on our boat when she returns from Poole. This raft will be with us for 12 months and then the same thing will happen again. Once I've changed them over the one on our boat will go back to Cosalt, be serviced, inspected etc, given a 12 month ticket and sent out to replace another raft somewhere . . and so the cycle goes on. DT