Originally Posted by
mike cunningham
I was going to buy a used - well pre-owned- Revere Offshore Commander. At the last minute I had another look at the equipment requirements and saw that the requirement reads
"A boat shall carry an inflatable life raft designed for saving life at sea with designed capacity for containing the entire crew. The raft shall
be SOLAS, ISAF, ISO 9650-1 or ORC approved. The raft shall be stored in such a way that it can be brought to the lifelines within 15
seconds. The life raft may be stowed in a deck mounted rigid container, stowed in a watertight or self-draining purpose-built rigid
compartment opening adjacent to the cockpit or the working deck, or stowed in a valise not weighing over 88 lbs. secured below deck
and adjacent to the companionway. The life raft shall hold a current certificate of inspection."
I saw no mention of any of the approvals on the Revere website and subsequently called them. To their credit they were very responsive but did confirm their rafts are recreation only and no approvals. As I read the rules you have to have at least one of the ones mentioned. The Viking I am considering has the ISO 9650-1. I have no idea if any inspectors will be anal enough to actually check this technicality. But it would suck to have an expensive raft and find out it did not meet the requirements.