Ditch Bags & Emergency Gear
A survival situation rarely unfolds as it has been rehearsed. The longer you are on the raft, and the farther you are from a well-equipped RCC, shipping lanes and land, the more your survival depends on things beyond your control. Drinking water immediately enters the equation.
Sailors in the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) should find enough rainfall, but those elsewhere will face bleaker prospects for catching water. All too often, the rain comes with wind and sea and chop, and spray taints the fresh water running down the canopy into the catchment container. The solution is to bring extra drinking water aboard the life raft and to have a hand-pump watermaker in the ditch kit.
For more advice on life raft survival packs, purchase Practical Sailors downloadable ebook, Survival at Sea, Volume 2: Ditch Bags & Emergency Gear today!
