A liferaft can sit in its canister for years and look perfect from the outside while quietly going out of certification. The rules that keep it valid are strict, specific, and easy to trip over, and an inspector checks two separate dates that operators routinely assume are one.
The Certificate Is the Point
An inflatable liferaft is one of the few pieces of life-saving appliances that spends its entire working life sealed inside a container, invisible and untested, right up to the moment a crew needs it to inflate and hold them out of the water. That is precisely why the rules are built around a servicing certificate rather than a visual check. What matters is not whether the canister looks sound on deck, but whether the raft inside has been opened, inflated, inspected, and repacked by someone qualified to certify that it will work. The paperwork is not bureaucracy. It is the only evidence that the sealed box does what it promises.
SOLAS is unambiguous about the interval. An inflatable liferaft must be serviced at intervals not exceeding 12 months, at a service station approved by the flag Administration and formally appointed by the manufacturer of that raft. There is a narrow allowance to extend the interval to 17 months, but only where the Administration accepts that meeting 12 months exactly was genuinely impracticable. It is an exception for remote-area difficulty, not a routine buffer, and treating it as normal practice is a reliable way to end up non-compliant.
What Actually Happens at a Service
The annual service is not a glance and a re-seal. At an approved station the raft is fully inflated and held under pressure to check for leaks, the fabric and seams are inspected for damage and perishing, and every item of equipment is verified against the SOLAS packing list for that raft’s pack. Expired pyrotechnics are replaced, food and water rations are renewed, and mechanical components including the inflation cylinder and relief valves are tested. Only then does the station issue a servicing certificate, valid for 12 months, which must be retained on board and produced on inspection.
A liferaft that has never been opened cannot be trusted, no matter how new it looks. The whole regime exists because the one test that matters, inflation, cannot be done without unpacking the raft.
This is also where the choice of pack matters. Rafts are equipped to a SOLAS A-pack for ocean service or a lighter B-pack for coastal work, and the servicing station verifies the contents against the correct list. A raft serviced to the wrong pack for its trade, or with items missing against its packing list, is a finding waiting to happen even though the raft itself may be sound.
The Two Dates Trap
Here is the single most common and most consequential error in liferaft compliance. The raft has a service date. The hydrostatic release unit that frees it from the ship has an entirely separate expiry date. Operators repeatedly assume the two move together. They do not, and a Port State Control officer checks them independently.
The raft’s service date: Set by the annual service, valid for 12 months, evidenced by the station’s certificate on board.
The HRU’s expiry date: A disposable hydrostatic release unit is replaced every 2 years regardless of apparent condition, because its internal components can deteriorate with no visible external sign. The date is printed on the unit.
Why it matters: A raft with a current service certificate but an expired HRU is non-compliant. The valid raft does not rescue the expired release unit.
The practical fix: Track the HRU expiry separately from the raft service, and replace the HRU during a service whenever its date falls within the coming service year.
The hydrostatic release unit is the component designed to work with nobody there to operate it, at the exact moment the ship goes under. When the vessel sinks, the HRU automatically releases the raft from its cradle at a depth of between 1.5 and 4 metres, the painter line then pays out and inflates the raft, and a weak link breaks so the raft floats free rather than being dragged down. Every part of that chain has to be in date and correctly rigged, which is why inspectors treat the HRU expiry as a hard, standalone check.
What Voids Certification Between Services
A valid certificate can be undermined by things that happen after the service, and these are what a diligent crew watches for during the required weekly and monthly checks. The most common are straightforward once you know to look.
Getting It Right
Managing liferaft certification well is not difficult, but it is unforgiving of assumption. Book the annual service before the 12-month date rather than after, because the certificate expiry is a hard line, not a target to drift past. Track every HRU expiry date on its own, separate from the raft service, and replace units on the 2-year clock regardless of how they look. Use only a station approved by your flag and appointed by the raft’s manufacturer, because a service by anyone else does not count. And check the float-free arrangement, the painter attachment, and the container condition at the weekly and monthly intervals, so a problem that develops between services is caught by the crew rather than by an inspector.
Done that way, the raft is genuinely ready and the certification holds up. The failures that put rafts on deficiency reports are almost never exotic. They are an expired HRU on a well-serviced raft, a service booked a month too late, or a painter that was never rigged to deploy. Each is entirely avoidable by treating the two dates as the two separate clocks they are.
Frequently Asked Questions
How often must an inflatable liferaft be serviced?
Under SOLAS regulation III/20.8.1, an inflatable liferaft must be serviced at intervals not exceeding 12 months, at a service station approved by the flag Administration and appointed by the raft’s manufacturer. The interval may be extended to 17 months only where the Administration accepts that servicing at 12 months was genuinely impracticable, which is an exception rather than routine practice.
Why is a raft non-compliant if only the HRU has expired?
The hydrostatic release unit is what frees the raft from the ship if the vessel sinks with no one able to launch it manually. A disposable HRU must be replaced every 2 years regardless of condition, because its components can deteriorate invisibly. If the HRU has expired, the release function cannot be relied on, so the raft is non-compliant even if its own service certificate is still valid. Inspectors check the two dates independently.
What does the hydrostatic release unit actually do?
It automatically releases the liferaft from its cradle when the sinking ship reaches a depth of between 1.5 and 4 metres. The painter line then extends and inflates the raft, and a weak link breaks so the raft floats free of the ship rather than being pulled under. It is designed to work with no human intervention at the moment of sinking, which is why its condition and expiry are treated so strictly.
Can any service station service our liferafts?
No. Servicing must be carried out at a station approved by the vessel’s flag Administration and formally appointed by the manufacturer of that specific raft. A service performed by an unapproved or unappointed station does not satisfy the requirement, so the raft would be treated as unserviced regardless of the work done.
Sources: IMO SOLAS Chapter III, Regulation 20.8.1 (servicing of inflatable liferafts) · IMO International Life-Saving Appliance (LSA) Code, Chapter IV (liferafts) and hydrostatic release requirements · Flag Administration marine notice on approved SOLAS liferaft service stations (SAFETY4SEA) · SOLAS Chapter III LSA inspection guide (HRU/raft date checks)
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