Depends on how much you sail. If you treat your boat as a country cottage and rarely head out to sea, a liferaft is an expense you can do without. Hiring will suffice for the annual holiday cruise.

If you use your boat lots and passage make on a regular basis, your needs will change. Even very close to home it might take an hour for you to be picked up should disaster happen. It's a long time to be treading water...

A chum thought it would be OK for him, his SWMBO and his three children, all under the age of six, to rely on the soggy dinghy. I'm pleased to say, I managed to beat some sense into him.

Offshore racing and you must have one on board anyhow.

When I sailed from the Hamble I decided that we'd have one onboard if we were headed out of The Solent. After a couple of races it was cost effective to go for long term hire.

Then I bought one for our Atlantic circuit as we were away for two years.

On my current boat, a cheapo liferaft came with the inventory. This will do us for the next year or two in the North Sea. When SWMBO and I head off in a year or two a new SOLAS raft is on the shopping list.

Sorry for waffling on.