WILL YOUR LAST RESORT LET YOU DOWN?

Statistics show that up to 20% of liferafts are incorrectly secured and may not work in an emergency!

A liferaft may be your last resort in the event of an emergency at sea. Its important to know how and where to stow liferafts to maximise their potential availability and effective operation. Its equally important to know how to connect the hydrostatic release unit (HRU) - if its wrongly connected, the liferaft simply cannot float free. *Marine Guidance Note (MGN) 104 (M+F) on Stowage and Float Free Arrangements for Inflatable Liferafts contains essential advice on these points, including colour diagrams of the correct (and incorrect) methods of connection of common types of HRU.

A life raft must be capable of two things:

1. Floating free and inflating automatically if the vessel sinks

You can achieve this by fitting a HRU, which releases automatically when the liferaft is submerged.  The liferaft then starts to float away from the ship because of its internal buoyancy, pulling out the painter, which is now connected to the vessel only by the weak link at the end of the painter.  When the painter is pulled all the way to the end, the gas cylinder is activated, and the raft inflates, the weak link is broken, and the liferaft will float to the surface, fully inflated and ready for boarding.

2. Being manually released and thrown overboard

In a more controlled abandon-ship situation, the liferaft retaining strap is released at the senhouse slip (Quick release clip) and the raft is physically thrown over the side.  The painter is then pulled to inflate the liferaft.  This system relies critically on the painter being made fast to a good strong point, such as the HRU if it is rigged correctly.  If the raft is secured to the ship only by the weak link, and is thrown over the side, the dynamic shock of being thrown over board may break the weak link, instead of pulling out the painter, and the whole liferaft and painter may then be lost.  

So, the liferaft and HRU must be fitted correctly, or else one or both of the above functions may not work.