HOW DEFLATING
By Mark Callanan

Liferafts are at best a last ditch effort to survive a disaster at sea. Like insurance they're taken along as a safeguard against what you hope will never happen. Better safe than sorry, no? But just how reliable are these expensive items and will they in fact serve their purpose if and when the dire need arises?

Many modern seafarers have partaken in mock drills of their implementation, and I'm sure some, like me, have a few horror stories to tell from such trials. It's a sobering sight indeed to heroically pull the ripcord only to see it deflate or over-inflate, even if the experiment is within the benign setting of a public swimming pool. Shit does happen, even under controlled conditions.

Of course the best way to give yourself a fighting chance is to keep the liferaft serviced. I.e. regularly have the container opened, the raft’s construction and contents inspected or renewed as required by an authorized service center and repacked. But this story is offered as a darkly comical example of what to expect from a long-outdated 8-man liferaft of uncertain lineage. It is a cautionary tale of what can befall liferafts that are neglected beyond all reasonable safeguards, and as such does not point the finger at manufacturers or service centers, only at imprudent sailors.

The scene for our tragi-comedy is a backyard pool in Bucerias, many miles from the Canadian factory where the raft was born. The history of the raft is not an uncommon one; inherited as part of a boat purchase package, carried aboard for a spell and later resigned to live under a tarpaulin while the boat sits ‘on the hard’‚ in the Opequimar boatyard undergoing a refit that spanned more than a few cans of worms. It would have been foolhardy to expect it to be in A1 condition but there’s only one way to really discover the truth and Saturday barbecues make great excuses.

The tags on the container were barely legible and it looked suspiciously like the numbers had been tampered with, as if some attempt at feigning legitimacy had been hurriedly undertaken when threatened with inspection by an unannounced authority (the US Coast Guard are infamous for such surprises)... The best we could decipher was an original date of 1974 and a dubiously dated repack 10 years later. So on the day of our experiment it
had been at least 15 years since it had last seen the light of day.

Exteriorly the hard plastic case was weathered but sound; the rubber joint between the two halves slightly disfigured but more or less intact.

You have to imagine for a moment the horrific conditions that would necessitate the deployment of a liferaft at sea: strong winds, high seas, sinking boat and rising panic. And never do such disastrous situations arise in the middle of the day with the sun shining. More often than not it’s nighttime and freezing cold to boot, á la the Perfect Storm. You issue your Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, flick the switch on the EPIRB that you are so glad your Mum made you buy before you left port, cut the lashings and with a burst of adrenaline-driven strength heave the liferaft overboard, hopefully having first secured one end of its tether to the boat.
In our fearless experiment it took two of us to launch the weighty case. The flat-braid painter was secured to a pillar by the pool and the canister hefted (with great effort) into the water. Unaided by the forces of nature that would normally aid in the raft's downwind detonation, the cord was pulled to its bitter end and then refused to give any more. Only by wrapping the lanyard around a protected hand, bracing both feet against the canister and giving a mighty pull did the expected happen. The gas cylinder exploded into action; the case splitting open like some sci-fi time-lapse hatchling from which emerged a grotesque orange and black beast. The metamorphosis was quick and complete and the object of our theoretical salvation lay there in the pool...hissing madly.

The two rings of patched rubber tubing seethed with a hundred streams of tiny, cloudy bubbles; the briefly proud-looking orange canopy started to collapse and the clean pool began to discolor. We continued our observations on terra firma without even time to clamber aboard the rapidly deteriorating raft.
Exploring the interior was a sticky business; tacky smears of perishing black rubber adhering to skin on contact. The neatly bound packages of survival supplies were released from their lashings and inspected. The contents were as full of surprises as they were empty of useful contents.

Of the 13 steel cans of drinking water, 7 were utterly rusted through and the liquid in the rest tainted and not palatable. The flashlight was loaded with D batteries and predictably corroded beyond repair. (The seemingly superfluous instructions for its operation were on paper wrapped around the 'waterproof' case and were long-since unreadable). The raft's patch kit was another victim of prolonged moisture damage and simple old age; the sealed
ampoules of glue were dry, the sandpaper like papier-mâché but the patches themselves in good condition.
Most of the First Aid supplies came in a watertight but not moisture-proof plastic box. The bandages, swabs, tapes and creams were good enough to care for moderate illness and injury but largely insufficient for dealing with the likely eventualities consistent after an "SOS" has been sent and "abandon ship" the only recourse. All the metallic contents in the case (tweezers, scissors and safety pins) though still 'sealed' in plastic, bore little resemblance to the originals other than by their preserved shape of delicately joined rust flakes which crumbled to the touch. All other loose medical supplies like vials of seasick tablets were so contaminated that they would've been surer to induce rather than cure the complaint.

The plywood paddles were rotten and broke at the first stroke. The safety knife likewise separated from its handle after a few uses. Only one of the 6 flares was serviceable. There was no food and no means (e.g. fishing gear) to procure it. There was no bailer and only 1 sponge. Not even a signaling mirror. It was not the state of affairs that would have inspired confidence had it been a real life emergency.

In fact the only items salvageable from what once must've cost at least a few thousand dollars were a length of polypropylene throwline, a foot pump, a small drogue, a whistle and 3 emergency hard rubber bungs (plugs). Oh. And there was also a 20-inch length of 2 inch diameter hard black tubing, which we're still scratching our heads with to figure out where it fitted into this bizarre and pieceless puzzle!
In all fairness though, the unknown history of this raft and its obvious antiquity could well explain many of the surprising discoveries and omissions. In some ways it smacks of a 'home' repair/repack. No reputable service would pack up a patched lifesaving device any more than a motorcyclist would depend on patched inner tubes except in an emergency. And of all the missing items? Who knows? Maybe one day someone really needed some fishing hooks, something to nibble on and a mirror in which to admire theirself... Maybe they figured a piece of black plastic pipe was a fair exchange for these rifled samples...?

After this deflating experience and having unceremoniously tossed the deadweight mess into a dumpster I added to my short list of liferaft philosophy the absolute need for confidence in the state of the beast and its contents. Having read a morbid number of survival-at-sea stories, I already felt that if I ever had to resort to one I would step up into it and I'd have in my hand a grab bag full of pre-packed essentials as added insurance.

If you do own a an outdated liferaft that you're going to have to service anyway, go on, toss it in the pool, just for a giggle.
PS The boat undergoing the extended refit entered the yard 7 years ago as ‘Tern’ and should be happily floating as ‘La Conquistadora’ as this goes to press. Mas vale tarde que nunca, eh Carlos?! Bon voyage.