GREAT idea Jim ! Can you get a "coast guard " approved model?? #50
flotation device
GREAT idea Jim ! Can you get a "coast guard " approved model?? #50
emergency boat flotation idea
We have to invent this, ok?
For ballasted monohulls going offshore:
Imagine long slender tube along toerail both sides of boat. Could be designed as a bulwark cupping the rail, or inside, or outside the rail. Could be one piece, or two or three each side. I would vote for one tube each side, about 3/4s of the length centered on the designed balance point - for economy. Can you see the tube ready to be deployed from an oval, flexible, clamshell package attached to a well supported life rail? Or lower down to the hull itself, with the rails controling the bags? Hypolon tube in a shell of UV-protected polypropylene like the Potabote material.
Would be designed to keep an Ariel or Commander (or any small boat) from sinking. That, let's say, is about 3000 pounds flotation per side. CO2 inflated. I would guess the tube would be around one foot in diameter. 18 to 20 feet long. And would be repackable by the skipper back into its ready state - a much smaller dimension - after the crisis was over.
Selling points: Boat is usable, mother ship is the best possible life saving platform at sea. Cause of emergency could be attended to at sea. Life raft unnecessary. Boat could even be awash but would float evenly, and even provide safety from boarding seas and falling overboard. In a less disasterous scenario the vessel could still be sailed.
The device, while not particularly adding to the lines of the boat, would be viewed as the signature of a self sufficient skipper and an offshore competant voyager. Cost would be like that of a six person life raft and would be installable by the owner. Good selling points. Already SEE it at the sail-only boat show!
There is enough expertise in this consortium to put together something...!
IDEAS, anybody? Let's go!
[ how'bout: AIR RAIL or OBUOY!]
Last edited by ebb; 01-24-2005 at 08:07 AM.
Ebb I'm running with the inflatable doll idea. It just makes too much sense.
Gentlemen, we need to raise the level of discussion here.
Anna K models a new line of boat shoes
Boat shoes . . . right.
Hey Ebb, West Marine sells an 8 foot dingy that has a floatation device that fits your description (no container, however, for the deflated tube). I think they classify it as a "RIB." Comes with oars and available sailing gear.
Great ideas have always been scoffed.
But, you know I'll get rich - and the time will come
when Anna K will be sitting in MY cockpit.
And while I muddle with her pumps we'll be
scoffing apple knocker martinis
and be admiring life saving flotation devices over
a platter of haut hors doeuvres
Of course you're going to need more than one boat, maybe a Friendship 40.
Wait a minute...look at that cockpit...a deathtrap!
Cancel my order.
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