Safety equipment

Safety equipment combines personal gear, distress communications, fire/flood response and abandon-ship equipment. For this voyage it includes properly fitted inflatable lifejackets with integrated harness/crotch strap, tethers, jacklines, recovery gear, EPIRB registered to the vessel, personal locator/AIS beacons, VHF/DSC, flares or approved electronic signals, fire extinguishers, smoke/CO alarms, medical kit, damage-control plugs/materials and an offshore liferaft. A grab bag holds items needed after abandoning.

US Coast Guard carriage rules are a legal floor, not a bluewater equipment design. The World Sailing Offshore Special Regulations (OSR) provide a useful structured offshore benchmark even for non-racers. Product approvals, service dates and vessel/owner registration matter as much as physical presence.

This equipment is used after prevention has failed. A lifejacket without crotch strap or light, an unregistered EPIRB, expired raft, inaccessible extinguisher or tether that lets crew go over the rail can turn a recoverable event fatal. Two-handed sailing makes man-overboard prevention especially important: the remaining person may be asleep, below or unable to turn quickly.

Use authorized service for liferafts and beacons. PFDs can be owner-inspected/inflated according to manufacturer guidance, with dated cylinder/activation parts changed as required. Repack medical supplies by actual expiry and voyage needs. Service or replace extinguishers by type/inspection status. Add AIS MOB/PLBs to worn PFDs only if mounting and antenna deployment remain correct.

Hardware alone is inadequate. Drill PFD inflation in water, tether/jackline movement, MOB recovery, fire response, flooding plugs, Mayday/DSC/EPIRB procedure and raft launch. The best cost may be two excellent worn-always PFD/harnesses rather than numerous uncomfortable spares, while still carrying legal guest flotation.

• Covered by a standard survey — inventory, visible approval/expiry/service labels, legal carriage items, mounting/access and often fire extinguisher status. A surveyor does not certify raft contents or inflate PFDs.
• Not covered — authorized raft/beacon/PFD service, medical-content validation, crew fit, jackline engineering and operational drills. Obtain raft service history/quote before valuing it. Specialist service cost is product-specific; for unknown/expired gear, value it at zero in the offer unless a service station confirms otherwise.

• The broker or owner — “Send photos of model/serial, approval and expiry/service labels for raft, EPIRB, PFDs, beacons, extinguishers and flares.” “Send authorized service invoices and confirm EPIRB deregistration/transfer process.” “Which gear is physically aboard and included in sale?”
• The surveyor — “Inventory by serial/date and distinguish legal minimum from offshore readiness; inspect jackline attachment/recovery arrangement and access to raft, EPIRB, extinguishers and plugs; do not assign serviceability to sealed gear without records.”

Photograph every date/serial label. Put on each primary PFD and tether: it must fit with foul-weather clothing. Trace jacklines and check whether the short leg prevents going over the rail. Lift the raft to learn whether two people can deploy it and whether inversion traps it. Confirm the EPIRB self-test status without activating distress. Shake/inspect extinguishers as specified and find plugs beside through-hulls. If gear is buried, it is not accessible.