VIEWING PORTS/VISIBILITY/VENTILATION
The Avon rafts use a circular viewing port with a drawstring closure. Several teams allowed water to enter through the viewing port, since it is on the weather side and quite low on the canopy. Teams who secured the port with the drawstring were able to stop the influx of water almost completely. Although somewhat claustrophobic and leaving one feeling vulnerable, most teams could stick their heads through the ports for a scan of the horizon. The Plastimo raft had a straight zipper horizontally across the weather side of the canopy which was uncomfortable to stick one’s head through. A curved zipper shape was suggested for greater comfort and ventilation. Neither design seemed as it would be particularly effective at catching rain water from the canopy, although the Avon design was considered better in this respect. The Switlik raft did not have a viewing port as such, but its canopy design allowed visibility by adjusting the zippered panels.

One team suggested that a handle be placed on the outside of the arch tube to help stabilize a crewman attempting to stand in the raft’s opening. Several members tried to stand in the rafts and were very unstable due to the motion and lack of hand holds.

The rafts’ bright orange canopies were visible over several miles from the escort vessels. The Rescue Platform, due to its lack of a canopy and low freeboard, was much less visible. Occupants of a Rescue Platform would have to rely on the pyrotechnic devices supplied.

FLOOR DESIGN
There were four distinct types of floors represented: the Avon Coastline and Switlik Rescue Platform with their single layer floor; the Avon Offshore with its double, integral floor; the Plastimo with its removable, double floor; and the Switlik with its removable drop-stitch floor. The overwhelming consensus of our testers was that single floor rafts are very uncomfortable due to the heat loss from one’s rear and legs. Although we were only in the rafts for three hours, and the water temperature was 56°F, the heat loss through the single floor was remarkable. Even with Space Blankets under the our rears, the continual feeling of cold was very uncomfortable. One participant began to shiver after only one hour in the Coastline raft. It was the group’s strongly held opinion that only those who use their boats in consistently warm waters (greater than 75°F) where there is a strong chance of a fast rescue should consider a single floor raft. The option of taking inflatable air mattresses along in the Abandon Ship Bag was not tested, although it would have likely provided the insulation gained by the other designs.

The Avon Offshore has a tufted, integral floor that is inflated separately using the hand pump. The pump was difficult to insert into the valve, due to the lack of resistance to downward pressure. Once inflated, the floor was comfortable and provided good insulation. It was nearly as easy to bail the Avon Offshore as it was the simpler Avon Coastline.

The Plastimo raft had a separate floor that tied into the corners of the raft. It, too, is intended to be inflated using the raft’s topping off pump, but the team could not figure out how to do this so they blew it up orally. Once tied in place, it provided comfort similar to the Avon’s double floor. It also allowed water to collect between the inflatable floor and the floor of the raft, making the raft difficult to bail dry. We did not try, but rather surmise that to completely bail the raft it would be necessary to untie most of the retaining straps and roll the floor against one side of the interior, while collecting the water on the other side.

Neither of the two "tufted" floor models had a pressure release valve built-in, so it was difficult to judge how much pressure to apply. One Plastimo tester said that "...floor was too soft and collected water where your tush or feet were". More pressure might have solved this, but there was no way to judge other than by guessing.

The Switlik Coastal raft had a separate floor that was tied in place like the Plastimo. This floor is made from a "drop stitch" fabric, which has two layers a material separated by hundreds of 3" threads. This allows the floor to assume a uniform 3" thickness throughout. It was inflated over a period of about 8 minutes and assumed a oval shape that matched the raft’s interior dimensions perfectly. We inflated it quite hard, which gave our rears enough support to be isolated from the water below. The flat surfaces of the floor did not hold water in puddles, and it was much easier to bail as a result.

The Rescue Platform takes a completely different approach to floor design. Since there is no canopy, and since the freeboard is only about 6", water is shipped easily over the sides. The floor leaks around its entire perimeter as well, collecting in the dish-shape formed by the other tube and floor. When loaded with eight testers, the raft ended up with about a foot of water in it, which could not be bailed as fast as it came into the raft. Although intended to reduce hypothermia by supporting a vessel’s crew out of the water, the water which accumulates in the floor would have the same heat-robbing effect as any other water. One tester commented that the platform appeared to be sinking! We have to conclude that the Rescue Platform is better than nothing for keeping a crew out of the water, but not as good as a quality inflatable dinghy or sportboat which would have remained drier.

We equipped each Abandon Ship Bag with several Mylar/aluminum "space blankets" to see if they would be effective in insulating the crew members from the cold floor. Several participants said that it was much more comfortable while sitting on the blankets, but others could not discern any difference. When the blankets were placed over wet legs and torsos, they seemed to work, although probably due to reduced evaporative cooling rather than insulation.

FAMILIARIZATION
Other than an occasional label saying KNIFE or TOP OFF HERE, there are precious few instructions to guide the occupants of the liferaft. To the question "Were instructions clear on the outside of the raft, the Plastimo team responded "Yes for launching, other instructions were not clear". It may seem peculiar to observers at boat shows when they see large stencils on rafts saying such apparently obvious stuff, but raft occupants need all of the basic instructions they can get. Add the complexity of multiple languages, and one could easily imagine the interiors of rafts looking like those of Egyptian tombs.

The Switlik raft and Rescue Platform did have several yellow on black and black on yellow stencils that were quite obvious. At night, of course, written instructions would have been marginally useful. The group felt that it would be helpful to have a laminated card with survival basics, located in a prominent location, similar to the instructions on the outside of the raft.

As an example of the consequences that a lack of information causes, most teams could not figure out what the rescue quoits were. These soft rubber heaving rings are designed so that raft occupants can make contact with a victim before the raft drifts away from them. Without this knowledge, the rescue quoits become useless.

The Plastimo team noted that they could not find the knife because it was partially hidden by the canopy. The Switlik team could not find the drogue for several minutes because the canopy, in its furled configuration, covered the drogue instructions.

AIR HOLDING ABILITY/REPAIRABILITY
All rafts were inflated hard by their inflation cylinders, and were not observed to leak during the short duration of the test (5 hours). One manufacturer suggested that we puncture the rafts with a rigging knife so that we could test the ease of repairability, but we declined. All five rafts had two inflation chambers, but there were several differences in how they separated the air chambers.

The Rescue Platform and the Avon Coastline use a single tube that is separated into two chambers by vertical baffles. If one side is damaged, the other half remains inflated until a repair can be made. In the case of the Coastline, the enclosed configuration should allow the occupants to remain fairly dry, although the Rescue Platform occupants would have a hard time staying aboard in our opinion.

The Avon Offshore and Plastimo rafts have dual buoyancy tubes stacked on top of one another. These are capable of supporting the entire load if one tube is damaged. The circular shape of the tubes provides a symmetrical enclosure even with one tube irreparably damaged.

The Switlik Coastal takes a different approach entirely. Although it has a single buoyancy tube, the baffles separating the inflation chambers are extremely long and will inflate to fill the void left by air escaping from a damaged tube. The baffles end up acting like inner tubes in the damaged half of the raft, allowing the raft to retain its original shape after being re-inflated.

Both of the Avons and the Switliks use a single skin construction like an inflatable dinghy. The Plastimo raft is different, however, in that it uses an inner bladder to retain the air, surrounded by a fabric shell to protect it. This construction makes it easy for a liferaft repacker to repair the raft because he can simply unzip the outer cover and replace the "inner tube". This construction also makes it difficult to discover the locations of leaks, if the raft is not unzipped, since the leaking air can migrate far from the source of the leak before escaping. If the clamp-type leak repair device (below) were used on both of the skins simultaneously, it might be possible to slow the leakage, but we doubt it would seal as effectively as if used on a single-skin raft.

The Switlik rafts were the only ones to include clamp-type repair devices. These are oval-shaped metal and rubber devices which are pushed into a hole and then tightened into place with a wing nut. This design seems to be much more effective than the traditional glue and patch method (whose instructions start with "Make sure the surface is clean and dry") and the spiral plug style supplied with the Avons.

SURVIVAL KITS
Survival kits, as has been documented in numerous articles on survival in the past, are meager in their contents. Depending on the degree of completeness supplied by the manufacturer, and purchased by the customer, liferafts may or may not contain water, flares, fishing kits, first aid kits, repair kits, etc. Suffice to say that at the checkout counter, liferaft buyers are extremely resistant to paying for more complete kits; however at sea, they believe that every kit is woefully inadequate.

Our overall comment regarding survival kits is that since they vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, and from model to model, every liferaft owner should know what his/her raft contains. If unknown, then is should be documented at the raft’s next repack. No one, in our opinion, should rely solely on the equipment supplied in even the highest specification liferaft, but should rather augment it with a separate kit.

This separate kit, often referred to as an Abandon Ship Bag, should contain an EPIRB, a watermaker, and additional SOLAS-grade flares at a minimum. Although these items can be packed within the raft, there are numerous stories of needing these items without having launched the raft. Therefore, we believe that they should be in the raft only if two of each are carried on board.

Instead of documenting every item in each kit, our testers made some generally observations about their contents and packaging.

1. The Avon survival packs used cardboard as an enclosure which immediately became soggy and began to float in the bilge water of the rafts. It was felt that they should change to plastic immediately.

2. The contents of the kits quickly got "lost" under thighs, inflatable floors, space blankets, etc. The addition of pockets along the interior of the raft’s tubes would facilitate storing the goods in an organized fashion after they were unpacked from their enclosure. The numerous accounts of survival kit contents being lost due to raft capsize leads us to believe that such pockets should have secure closures.

3. Water was stored in sachets (small plastic pockets with several ounces of water each) and in cans (Avon Offshore). The sachets were difficult to open without spilling some of their precious contents, and were practically useless when partially full due to the ease with which they spilled. The cans held about one pint apiece, and came with lids to allow them to be sealed when partially consumed. Water was easier to ration in the sachets due to the numerous, individual containers. The Switlik and Avon Coastline rafts did not contain any water.

4. Paddles were included in all kits, although it was not obvious what one was supposed to do with them. A small fishing rod would make more sense. Due to the substantial ballasting of the rafts, it would be very difficult to paddle the rafts for any distance. We believe that the inclusion of paddle comes from the desire to paddle away from a burning boat which, in calm conditions, might be a nice ability to have.

5. First aid kits were small, and of undetermined value. The Plastimo kit, although tightly sealed, was impossible to re-seal after the tape had been removed even though contained in a "Tupperware-like" container. The Avon kit was stored in a cardboard box, encased in a zip-lock bag. The Switlik and Avon Coastline rafts had no kit, other than seasickness pills.

6. The Plastimo survival kit came in a large, milky plastic bag with Velcro® closures at one end. This made it easy to inventory the contents, and to store them. The Switlik kits came in International Orange cases with drawstrings that were useful as signaling devices, bailers, etc. Almost all of the contents of the Switlik kits had thin lanyards on them to secure them to the raft.

7. The Avon survival instructions, including such critical information such as how to cut the painter and how to deploy the drogue, were packed inside the equipment package where they were found much later than these operation needed to be accomplished. The paper was flimsy, and deteriorated noticeably in the wet liferaft interiors. If any of the information was actually critical to the survival of the occupants, it would have been discovered after the fact.

8. The Switlik Coastal included a copy of its brochure in the survival package. This was laminated in plastic for waterproofness, and it covers many of the design details that might be unnoticed by the rafts occupants otherwise.

9. Fishing kits were extremely marginal, and we did not take the opportunity to try catch the salmon that boats in the test vicinity were quite successfully doing. One Avon team reported "no fishing!!! (for an offshore!)". In fact, there was a fishing kit, but it was so small that it was overlooked in the kit.

In conclusion, we were reminded of Michael Greenwald’s comment that "Flares are like blessings; you can’t have too many of them." Most rafts had three...

PERSONAL VOLUME/FLOOR SPACE
Except on three occasions, all rafts were crewed by three or four persons. The liferafts were all six person rafts. It was felt that it would undesirable to put any more than four persons in any but the Switlik raft, with three being more comfortable. One team commented that comfort and volume of the Avon Offshore were "adequate - small for four adults - impossible for 6 persons". In rafts containing four crew members, they afforded enough room to barely stretch one’s legs out 90°. Most occupants sat in a slightly crouched position with their knees bent. The Plastimo and Switlik rafts seemed to have the most floor area of the four rafts tested. In them, four large men could sit with legs extended without overlapping one another. All participants thought it would be difficult to sleep on board.

The dual-opening design of the Switlik made it feel like there was more room than any of the other rafts. With one person in each end, and other team members near the doors, it was actually possible to have six people in relative comfort. When loaded with eight, the Coastal still had freeboard, although occupant’s legs were overlapping and cramped.

Headroom was at a premium in the single arch tube rafts, but the Plastimo raft had substantially more than either of the two Avons. It was actually possible to sit erect under the canopy in the Plastimo, without hunching over. This seemed to help with the nausea felt by crew, who preferred to sit more upright. The increased headroom was largely due to a taller arch tube, positioned on top of the double buoyancy tubes. This probably gave the raft more windage as well.

The Avon Coastline raft, due to its single tube construction, was very cramped on the windward (non-door) side. Its arch tube seemed to have more vertical sides, but to use that headroom you had to practically lean against the arch tube. The worst area was by the observation port on the weather side of the raft, where the canopy reduces headroom like the sides of a pup tent. Positions by the door of the raft became in high demand due to the extra overhead room.

The Switlik Coastal, with its two arch tubes, did not have the same "A-frame Cabin" feeling that the other rafts had. Except at the far each ends of the raft, it was possible to sit erect almost anywhere within the raft. It was the most comfortable, in our opinion.

WATER SHIPPED WHILE AT SEA/BAILING
None of the rafts leaked water in through their floors or tube seams, except for the Rescue Platform as previously mentioned. That water which did get inside came in primarily through the doors while crew members were entering or exiting the rafts. Crew members who were seasick also pushed the gunwale down to the point that it allowed water in. The seams in the canopy of the Avon Coastline were not taped, and let a steady drip into the interior. The Avon observation ports, as noted before, also let in water unless they were carefully tied.

Rafts were bailed almost exclusively with sponges, which were effective down to the last drop. One crew member would stand in the center of the floor, while two spongers mopped up the water around his feet. As the different teams visited each raft, each would begin a different routine depending on the condition of the crew members. Teams that did not suffer from seasickness generally spent more time inside the canopies, working on bailing, operating the electronics and general housekeeping.

The rafts with pillow-style floors tended to collect water in the numerous pockets, while the drop-stitch floor of the Switlik tended to shed the water to the perimeter and leave the sitting surface dry.

One team resorted to using a deck shoe as a bailer when they could not find the bailer in the raft.

Several teams decided that it was too difficult or uncomfortable to bail the rafts, and put up with a few inches of water in the bottom. Other teams actually compressed their canopies and sat on top of them to avoid the water inside the rafts, and to enjoy the fresh air outside. None of the teams used the designated bailing devices included in the survival kits: a yarmulke-looking scoop in the Avons, and a small dinghy scoop in the Plastimo.

The Rescue Platform shipped and leaked gallons of water, in fairly calm seas, which collected in the center of the floor. It might make more sense to have a large hole in the bottom of the floor to actually let the water out. Although this sounds like a Three Stooges solution, the buoyancy of the inflation tube may actually have been holding the water inside at a higher level than that on the outside.