Though she was at the edge of the circular raft, her life jacket and wetsuit pushed her upward and into the floor. It was hard work and took her a few tries, but soon the raft slowly rose and rolled back onto its bottom-landing on top of a disoriented Elaine. We decided that Elaine, the smallest and lightest, would use the strap across the bottom of the raft to climb up its side and right it. Then we crowded to one side of the raft, used the strings hanging from the bottom to empty its ballast bags, and flipped it over, taking to the water again. One by one we jumped into the water, then used the Winslow’s inflatable ramp and ladderlike webbing that runs across the raft’s interior to pull ourselves back aboard-a maneuver that took a surprising amount of upper-body strength and defied a graceful execution. As those aboard Little Wing let out our painter, we were pushed backward by the current that in a minute would make it hard for us to swim about in our foul-weather gear, life jackets, and other clothing. As a group, we found notable variations in comfort, kit, and construction, but we also agreed that should we find ourselves on a sinking boat far from shore, we’d be pretty relieved to step aboard any of the rafts that we’d looked at.įirst though, we had to put these puppies through their paces. Elaine, in fact, was about to get a too-real taste of trouble as we went through our planned assessment drill.īy day’s end, once we’d finished going through the inventory of safety equipment stored aboard each raft, Steve would conclude that, as with most things relating to boats, a lot of compromises had to be made on how each raft was designed, built, and equipped. And then there were four of us under the fabric canopy, sizing up the space and imagining what it would be like if we were really calling this home until rescuers arrived, what boarding might have been like if it were taking place at night and in heaving seas, and, most important, how easy, even in these controlled conditions, it would be for someone to be injured-when jumping or when being jumped upon-and for serious complications to quickly set in. Quickly, our consultant on this project, Steve Callahan, the author of Adrift, the chronicle of his 76 days in a raft crossing the Atlantic, and CW managing editor Elaine Lembo followed, with knees and elbows flying. The floor pitched, and Doug Ritter, executive director of Equipped to Survive, tumbled into me as he slid out of the doorway and off to the side to make way for the others. With a dull thud, heavy boat shoes hit the life raft’s floor. I’d always wondered how it would feel to abandon ship, and though this was but a drill, that first step from a solid deck to a watery, bouncy raft had been, well, different. As I landed and slipped quickly to my knees, I felt cold water rush around my legs and up my coat as I scurried out of the entranceway. No time being like the present, I stepped to the lifelines and made the leap. While we weren’t conducting a formal test, the CW editorial team had decided to review the features of each raft, spend some time using them, then pass along our findings to readers to help you consider the many options available. Streaming out behind us were seven more life rafts (a ninth was tested on another day), representative of the latest generation of safety equipment being built to standards now mandated by some offshore-racing and rally organizers. Three feet below and a couple of feet from the deck, the gaping mouth of a Winslow ISO Global Star six-person life raft awaited me and my three colleagues lined up along the rail. It was August in Rhode Island, and I wore my foul-weather jacket and had a life jacket zipped tightly around me. The first came about as I stood amidships on Little Wing, the Passport 40 we’d borrowed for the day. Gretchen ThorĪfter a full day of climbing into, out of, over, and under a string of new life rafts, I couldn’t decide if it was my jump off the boat or the jump that followed mine that gave me the most pause for thought. The Winslow raft’s wide opening is an easy target for life-raft expert and CW consultant Steve Callahan.
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