Sorry, alant but you seem to be blinded about liferafts being a viable and necessary piece of safety equipment for yachtsmen. Unfortunately the evidence is against you. The chances of your yacht foundering are close to zero (17 cases in the last 12 years in UK and Irish waters or involving UK registered yachts elswhere and almost all in situations that most are unlikely to ever encounter). In 7 cases liferafts were deployed of which two were entirely successful, one failed to work and the other 4 were only partially successful.

All of this is in the public domain in the MAIB and MCIB reports.

You owe it to the people you are training and giving advice to (and youself) to read all these reports so that your opinion and advice is based on fact and not speculation on what "might" happen.

We can all imagine scary scenarios and there are examples of extreme situations that have arisen, but they are far removed from the lived reality of our own lives and sailing practices. The only possible exception is collision, and even then there are only 5 reported cases at sea of which only 2 resulted in loss of life in that period plus two others in a commercial harbour, one of which resulted in loss of life (and where a liferaft would not have changed the outcome).

Amazing is it not that there are so few. Says a lot for standards of seamanship and quality of equipment available to us to allow us to stay clear of big ships and navigate safely in our crowded waters.