After 3 days hard graft the new liferaft is finally fitted! The teak mounting blocks for the previous liferaft needed shaping in situ.....not so easy when you're working in a cramped cockpit with your arse stuck up in the air for most of the time. To make matters worse, I didn't even have the room to use any power tools! Finally new eyes and a steel bridle needed to be made and fitted to hopefully deter those unwanted thieves.

Whilst it's taken 3 days to fit, it took just as long to identify a make/model of liferaft that actually fitted the space available - you will see from the photo that it needed to fit under the small table. Numerous phone calls to distributors (and them to manufacturers) to confirm the actual dimensions of the container eventually gave us a short list to choose from - bloody typical, none of the cheaper liferafts would fit!

So why the change? Our previous liferaft (an inshore liferaft; designed for use up to 12 miles offshore) was eighteen years old and required annual servicing for a typical sum of £250 (more every 3rd year when flares etc need replacing). Our new liferaft is an "Open Sea liferaft" (> 12 miles offshore) and benefits from being vacuum packed with a service interval of 3 years. With luck this means we should get a return on our investment in year 5. (Mark, Denise - I'm sure you would be impressed with our business case and if Jenny reads this, our cost benefits analysis :-)).

Of course, Caroline and I are praying we never need to call on this piece of lifesaving kit......but as the saying goes, be prepared!