At 12:00 AM 2/12/2005, you wrote: >Is your railing removable? The railing has an opening where the raft is pushed over the side. The raft is mounted right into the opening so that it doesn't leave an un-safe gap for people on deck. You can make a little of the opening out in the picture you saw before. We have a door from the pilot house to the boat deck about 5 steps and tons of hand holds from the door to the liferaft. With a harness and tether we can stay tethered the entire way. Even so, the points made about the challenge to enter in a rough sea and potential injuries are very valid. >You might consider a small (cheap!) dinghy/liferaft just to allow the >coast guard to retrieve an injured crew. >I believe there are more crew injuries then sinkings. Very good idea. You are right about the rescues. Many of the ones I've read about, they had to have the rescuee jump into the water to the rescue swimmer in order to be rescued. -Wray Wray West M/V Anjumal (Cape Horn 65) Portsmouth, NH www.anjumal.com