Boarding a life raft in a PFD is no easy ûmatter in a well-lighted wave pool, even for ûa person in good shape. Design of boarding ûaids is critical.

It's been only a couple of years since our exhaustive series of life raft reviews ("Life Rafts: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" in the May, June and July 2000 issues), but there have been some developments worth covering.

Our current round of tests were held, as before, as a collaboration between Practical Sailor, Powerboat Reports, Aviation Consumer, and Equipped to Survive, the Web-based publication of the non-profit Equipped To Survive Foundation.

We tested 17 life rafts, six of them recreational marine rafts. For consistency, we tested under the same conditions as last time, using the same wave pool and testing protocols, and with the participation of many of the same…