The Air Force were doing training just offshore from my house when I arrived home a few years ago.
A guy was trying to get into a liferaft in a choppy sea. When he got in, he soon fell out. Eventually he managed to stay in, and the helicopter winchman came down to pick him up.
As they rose, the winch reversed, and the winchman dropped into the sea near the liferaft. The rescued guy was winched on board.
A few swim strokes took the winchman to the raft. He immediately got on board, and stayed there while it drifted ashore.
The first guy was presumably young, fit, and trained. For most of us, collapse by exhaustion would occur before he got in. The second guy made it look easy.
This article has surfaced… it is several years old but probably still applicable.
Thanks @Peter
Another less-than-glowing review of our Survival raft, I see! Have you ever seen one deployed – how do we know they work? The company is hopeless at customer service so one can’t help but wonder…
Also, how do I get notifications of replies to posts? I received one, once, but I have to check back to that same email to see if others have been made. All boxes ticked in Prefs, so not sure what else to check?
Jonathan
Ah, click the ‘Watch’ button…?
Notifications work only if you have a valid and working email address in your account (many don’t) and potentially only if your email system whitelists the relevant senders.
Watch button seems to have fixed it.
Interested in your thoughts on Survival raft demos/tutorials if you have a moment.
Thanks.
I have never tried mine 
This may be interesting and there is one to follow it
Fascinating (and alarming) to see seemingly intelligent people fail with basic tasks and in a non-emergency situation.
Fairly cr*p performance for the Survival raft. Hm…
Thanks Peter. Look forward to the next one!
Jonathan
BTW, in case this was not mentioned before, if you inflate a raft using the built-in air bottle, it is usually considered trashed because the cold air exiting the bottle makes the rubber brittle. So if one has a raft, one should not “have a go” with it in a pool. The guy in those videos seems to have enough money to not worry about this
Definitely more money than sense, but hats off to them for actually giving us a real-time demo – which is more than the manufacturers do!
