After a lot of work and with the help of amazon.com, the ditch bag is finished!
Using inspiration from Quantum Sails Ditch Kit Guidance, we have completed the assembly of our abandon ship ditch kit.
Sometime ago, we were lucky enough to get a good deal on our ACR EPIRB, which included a free ditch bag. When it arrived, we thought it was enormous!
Completed ditch kit. Color coded
We never realized we would need every cubic inch of that bag. The life raft we chose, does not allow custom packing so everything extra has to be in the ditch kit.
Some online advice was to pack everything in dry bags. We did so and color coded them for inventory purposes. In addition to the items in the bag, we have a list displayed on the front of the ditch bag of items to grab and take into the life raft. Kind of a memory recall device in a stressful situation.
We also made a decision to put all of our emergency signaling devices in the ditch bag. We don’t see a need to have one set of devices for the boat and another in the ditch bag. If the boat is floating, we will simply pull them out of the ditch bag. It’s kept handy.
Once the kit is complete, consider actually abandoning ship. This thing weighs around 50 pounds! We plan to attach it to a couple of life vests to keep it from sinking should it hit the water instead of the life raft. We have read accounts of the ditch kit sinking in actual emergencies.
Again… this a really awesome safety device we hope to never use.
Here is a laminated list of the components.
Ditch kit color coded inventory
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