The length of time that your life raft need servicing depends on the age of your life raft. When you buy your life raft new it will come with a three or five year warranty. During that time you do not need to have it serviced.
Once it has passed its warranty, it needs to be serviced. During the service, the life raft will be blown up and checked for leaks. In addition to the integrity of the life raft being checked, the emergency equipment stowed on board, is also checked. Any equipment that is faulty or out of date will be replaced.
The life raft that we have on board is a Seago 4 man life raft which contains
- Pair of oars
- Red hand flares
- Bailer and two sponges
- Waterproof torch and whistle
- 6 Sea sickness tablets per person
- Drogue - This is a conical or funnel that you can use to stabilise the life raft in a storm
- Bellows hand pump
- Lifesaving signal cards
- Floating knife
- Repair clamps
- Rescue quoit and 30m line - ring on the end of a line
For the first nine years, this particular life raft needs to be serviced every three years, then every year after that.
Looking at the list of contents, you can see why it is important to have a grab bag. This is a bag that has other equipment that you might need.
We have not finished compiling our list, but so far it contains items like
- Water
- Fishing line and hooks
- Some way that you can collect water
- Some first aid equipment
- Emergency biscuits
In addition to these items we will grab the hand held radio.
