survival boat

Is anyone aware of a survival boat that could take 4 man and max 12ft long? I know the http://www.portlandpudgy.com/ but its small and I do not like rotomolded boat makes me think of my trash bin. It should be able to sail, preferably min 1 person sleeping while 3 awake, small ballast tank/water tank, sufficient storage space and preferably closeable like a tinker. We could also consider a Torqeedo electric motor with a sun panel.
I know it's a lot but why not?

 

How long are you going to survive in this survival boat?
An hour or two weeks?
This is a specialist application asking a great deal of a very very small boat.
A fat 10-16 foot old fashioned ship's boat of 17th century shape has been doing this job very well for 400 years so I don't think anything much new can be added except good modern build and materials.
Here are two takes on a 10 foot burdensome work boat from Culler and Chapman, also a 12-14 foot 1830s crab boat on the beach.
If you find yourself with along with 3 equally unfortunate companions at sea in a twelve foot boat and trying to get somewhere before your food and water run out (with 4 people this is very fast) you'd want something:
Fat, with high freeboard to keep the water out, enough lateral plane to sail after a fashion, a canvas cover to cower beneath and catch rain with, a low simple rig with no standing rigging and one boomless sail that simply flies out if you release the sheet, relieving the boat.
In a survival craft this would best be a lug sail as it comes down so very fast.
That's what I'd want.

 

Try this thread:
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/boat-design/inflatable-collar-survival-dinghy-20757-2.html
And here's how Joshua Slocum got his family home after a shipwreck.
Not 12' long.

 

You don't mention capsize and exposure/shade/rain issues. This thread has a lot of ideas which maybe could be altered to fit your situation.

http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/boat-design/tiny-ocean-sail-boats-41344.html

It would be almost impossible to run a Torquedo full speed on the solar surface area alone and allow for battery storage, especially with no solar input at night. Some of these tiny record boats allow for 3 power inputs: sail/kite propulsion, solar/wind turbine for electric charging.

Hope this helps.

Porta

 

Here's a 15' boat that sort of does what you want, built by Kees Prins of Port Townsend WA.
http://www.smpdigitaledition.com/publication/?i=76829&p=3

 

I am building Tad Roberts' passagemaker www.passagemaker.co.za I don't thrust liferafts and I need a dinghy anyhow to go ashore plus I want to be able to sail for fun when in port

 

this is absolutely right but the idea would be to have some speed if no wind and of course at night it would not help but at least it would give us a couple of miles during daytime

 

http://thegreatsea.homestead.com/FastB.html if only Bolger's Fast Brik was good looking

 

11' "semi-survival" dinghy built in 95 for BERTIE as a tender. Flotation tanks fore and aft plus two 3-gallon beer kegs as water tanks/flotation that are fastened in securely. Rig fits in boat. Rows, motors well with 2 hp, sails. If I had to do it again I'd make it 1.5" deeper and use lighter materials as it is a heavy boat. This is slightly enlarged and changed but closely based on the "Auray Dinghy" from Claud Worth's books and was originally designed as a tender for luggers moored offshore of surfy French beaches before 1880. Garvey-type bow keeps the spray out of the boat when motoring quite well, and I've never swamped her landing on a beach. Tows extremely well though we rarely tow her. Very very good in rough water with up to two people, better conditions with three, flat calm for a short ride, four. I tried six in a calm once and swamped it totally when someone moved and a corner went under.

 

That is an ugly ugly boat, and I bet it does the job it's designed to do quite well.

 

Honestly if the question is one of survival, a duplicate EPIRB is probably a better investment than a survival craft that is mobile. My thoughts would be a unsinkable, boat capable of 360 rolls thats completely watertight. In my mind any of these small boats are unlikely to survive the conditions that sank the mothership, and thus are a band-aid on a broken leg.

The conditions one of these boats might survive where the mother ship didn't is most likely a grounding of some sort, in which case you are headed to the nearest land in your dingy anyway.

 

I have good friends and neighbors who survived the sinking of the PRIDE OF BALTIMORE only because of a raft, even though it had faults. The idea of a raft is it has a chance even in conditions that can sink the mothership. But abandonment can be caused by fire or other causes than being overwhelmed by weather. A catastrophic hull failure can quickly flood and sink a boat even in calm weather by hitting a log or other floating nasties. A raft makes sense as a back up to a tank-like dinghy.
Personally I cannot afford a raft and its maintenance so I've relied on a bulletproof mothership and the above dinghy for thousands of miles of blue water cruising.

 

Bataan,

I guess to me there are a small number of reasons I would step into a life raft, or life boat.

1) adverse conditions that fatally damaged the mother ship.
2) critical failure of the mother ship (fire, or flood are the most likely)
3) grounding

In my eyes 1 is going to likely destroy the dingy too, unless it is a true life boat. And 2, and 3 don't really demand much out of the life boat except a place to survive in until help arrives. With modern EPIRBS the likely responce time is so short pretty much any where in the world, that an upgraded dingy, but still short of a life boat is not likely to matter. The real trick is to ensure that help in on the way as fast as possible.

What that means to me is that a duplicate manual EPIRB is worth more than a better dingy, and so is a hand held VHF and handheld gps.

 

Yes, duplicate EPIRB like the usual backup everything on a long cruise away from instant help. If the backup EPIRB is in the dinghy/liferaft and the main one is a float-off on the main vessel, you're pretty covered.
Now, why have you screwed up enough to be in this situation and demanding the CG or whatever SAR unit is involved risk their lives and spend the national treasury to attempt to save you?
Because you did very poorly in estimating the weather or your own and your boat's capability, probably from inexperience.
The evidence is the emergency and that is the fact of it.
Stay away from the beach and shallow water, don't go out when it's a bad idea, really outfit and plan everything to death, always know exactly where you are, the usual things from old boaters with boring, undramatic lives who do lots of cruising.
3 rules from river rafters but apply to all boating.
I try to follow them, usually successfully.
1. Don't be stupid.
2. S**t happens, especially if we violate rule #1 above.
3. Bring beer. How we use it is up to us. Don't violate rule #1 or rule #2 will promptly embarrass and/or kill us and/or someone we care about. Rule #3 is the prime way to violate rule #1, and make rule #2 dominates our brief fame on 1,000 Ways To Die, so always follow rule #1 and we'll be OK. Making any assumptions about our position without other proof violates rule #1. Not having our many fire extinguishers serviced on time violates rule #1. Not wearing a PFD when appropriate (which is almost all the time) violates etc etc. Alllowing our passengers to violate rule #1 violates rule #1.
You get the idea.
Be cautious and you won't need your raft or survival skiff.
Having been in many gales in a stout traditional boat I realize that the rocks and the beach are the real danger, next comes blind 100,000 ton traffic doing 23 knots, then fire at sea, lightning strikes, hit by a whale etc.
In a real seaworthy boat the sea itself is the last danger. It's more of an annoyance and hindrance most of the time with contrary tides, strong adverse winds and such.
A bad river bar on an ebb is also a very dangerous place in an onshore wind, but your skiff won't help if you are aground on a breaking bar, the raft might, maybe.

 

By all means have all the emergency signalling EPIRBS and radios and what-not, but be self-reliant to the max. I can't see any real alternative to a deluxe self-inflating life raft. Doing a Captain Bligh in an open skiff is only for the hairy-chested brigade.