Boarding a life raft from a boat or the water can be difficult. That is why the OPR is built with four (4) boarding stations. Each boarding ladder has a wide, stiff step to make it easier to climb over twin tubes.
Unlike any other raft on the market, the CPR’s soft valise and hard container options each have a first of its kind 5 year service interval. This extended service interval helps to reduce the overall cost of life raft ownership. SWITLIK accomplished this in a responsible manner through the combined use of our patented and military proven hermetically sealed packaging system and compressed air inflation. This better protects the raft’s materials and provides excellent cold weather inflation performance versus traditional CO2 inflation systems.
The OPR comes standard with four high-capacity rapidly deploying weight ballast bags. The water pockets provide weight to the raft to keep it stable during entry and exit. The OPR is also upgradable to the full wrap around Torodial Stability Device (TSD). The SWITLIK TSD provides superior stability and has been proven by the USCG, the RAAF as well as other SAR Organizations worldwide, to be the best option for keeping a raft stable and upright during all conditions including the helicopter rescue.
Capacity
There is no one universal method of rating raft capacities (see here). In fact, there are several different methods and governmental agencies worldwide that rate the capacity of a life raft based on the following criteria: usable floor area, inflated buoyancy, size of an average individual, and their concept of how long someone might be in the raft before rescue, not to mention how you find yourself to be there, i.e. from a sinking vessel or a ditched aircraft.
As a result, SWITLIK takes the position that a life raft's capacity is truly defined by its total size in floor area and inflated buoyancy. How many "people" that translates into depends upon your usage and interpretation of the above criteria. A raft that might safely support 6 or 8 people in an emergency for 24 hours will seem a lot smaller for a transoceanic passage where rescue might be weeks in coming.
1Weight may vary depending upon options. 2Optional Cradle will extend the overall installed height and width dimensions of the Hard Container by approximately two inches. **Specifications are subject to change without notice.
