Yachting and Boating World forums: "Liferaft" is it needed for coastal cruising in UK

If I may be permitted one last comment then I will shut up. In an earlier post I referred to a phenomenom called "Moral Panic" where untrue things get into the public consciuosness and then take on a life of their own. (Devil worship in the Orkneys and systemic child abuse in Lancashire are examples). Look how much effort was needed to erase these untruths once they had been stated - and right to the end some supporters still refused to believe the facts.

A similar issue to this liferaft debate is the original AIDS campaigns where the general thrust was that it was "everybody's" disease. Those who are old enough will remember the scary leaflets and posters our children brought home from school. In this country and in most other developed countries it was never going to spread outside certain sections of the community because of the way it was transmitted, or through contaminated blood. To my mind, the effort spent on trying to make it everybody's disease diverted attention away from the real victims. Of course attitudes changed and our society generally has no taboos about AIDS, because we know the "truth" about it.

Suggesting that all yachtsmen need a liferaft is not dissimilar. The truth is the need is confined to narrow subsets. If I were crossing the Bay of Biscay in the winter I would take one because that is where I have a high probability (based on recorded past data) of encountering conditions that could overwhelm even a well found yacht. If I were an ocean racer intent on pushing my yacht to the limits in any conditions, I would have one (indeed would be forced to). If I habitually sailed in boats of an unstable design or had a propensity to lose its keel, I would have one. If I were a professional fisherman operating in all weathers I would have one.

The only cause of foundering which is partly outside my control is collision. And even there the 5 cases in the last 12 years have so little in common, both in the way they occured and location that the only way of avoiding them is vigilance and good seamanship from both parties.

So, fellow yachtsmen avoid the trap of moral panic and concentrate on the facts, there is more than enough to learn from them to make yachting safer.

And if you are still emotionally attached to having a raft, then by all means do so and be thankful that they are a fraction of the price in real terms than they were in the past!

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