Many boat owners have asked me to advise them on which liferaft they should buy.

Size will not be difficult to decide but I am often torn between valise or container, bearing in mind the former must be stowed out of the weather and the latter must be stowed in the correct aspect and never, ever stepped on. If crew do put their weight on the canister, it could break the seals and the next thing you know water is inside and you may have a failure in an emergency.

I always remember seeing a liferaft being inflated for inspection in Gibraltar after I had carried it 3,000 miles.

It failed to inflate on pulling the umbilical and so the container was opened up. I wish I had had a camera because the rubber was perished and in tatters, the flares were well out of date, the first aid kit was missing and a host of other things were wrong.

This was a raft which had been serviced in England two years before and since then the firm that carried out the service had ceased to exist.

OK, I had the liferaft stowed on deck for those two years in the hot Moroccan sun but I blanch at the thought of what would have happened if we had had to deploy it in an emergency.