A good life raft not only prolongs your ability to survive, but also adds to your chance of being rescued. Despite the fact that some rafts can be trimmed up by retractable water ballast bags and actually sailed downwind at a knot or two, the real hope for rescue lies in being visible to others.
In a passive sense, this may mean a ships crew seeing your yellow, orange, or red canopy, or a spotlight hitting the reflective tape of the canopy at night. Signaling mirrors, flares, water-surface streamers, VHF radios (marine and aviation), EPIRB (emergency indicating radio beacons), (personal locator beacons), SART (search and rescue transponders), cell, and sat phones all play a role in being visible.
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