Dangerous Fakes

Happy New Year K1W1

Thanks for the heads-up. I hope this is e-mailed to all boats offshore by the insurance crowd.

Elsewhere on another thread there is another warning.

The other skipper sent his liferaft for a service to keep to Regs while in Asia, returned was a nice shiney heavy white box that was dutifuly strapped to the deck.

Next service the box was popped and inside was a car tyre and some bricks in bubble-wrap. Not a nice thought.

Answer:- Only ever go to a regestered Lloyds' or SOLAS accredited centre, not and inflatable dinghy shop.

Fish

Fakes

"Always purchase your products through approved distributors or authorized service points for life rafts and Epirbs"

It comes down to dealing with the correct suppliers. Sometimes more expensive and inconvenient, but at the least, you know that you are getting what you paid for. There's nothing that isn't faked by some creep out there. I've seen faked yellow tags on instrumentation, fake A&N hardware, and even oil filters.
If there's a big difference between the price that you have paid before or the price in the general market, and the price that you are being offered for that same piece by a supplier that you haven't dealt with before, the warning bells have to go off.

If i am in any doubt about a service centre i would have a crew member present with a camera during the servicing. In practice I have only felt the need to do this once; the centre's manager seemed only too happy to have the deckie around "for the benefit of his training"....

If you feel the need to do that you're in the wrong yard.

That car tire in the raft container is a VERY unsettling story. I am...shocked. Just think of the horror if you actually had to deploy the raft and found that.