Survival at Sea: How to Survive Your First Day in a Life Raft

If you’re getting into a life raft, you’re having a bad day.

That’s the cold, hard truth. But the difference between a bad day and your last day often comes down to preparation, knowledge, and mental fortitude. 

Survival at sea isn’t just about having the right gear — it’s about having the right mindset, resources, and plan for when the worst happens. After years on the water, I’ve seen firsthand that preparation and training can be the difference between life and death.

Whether you’re out for a dinner cruise or crossing an ocean, understanding how to survive at sea in a crisis could literally save your life.

The 7 Steps for Survival at Sea

If you break down many stories of survival at sea, you’ll notice certain recurring elements nestled among the dramatic details. I’ve distilled and collected these elements into seven essential steps mariners can take if faced with a potential life-raft situation.

1. Recognition

First, you have to recognize that you’re in real danger. 

It sounds simple, but you’d be surprised how many people don’t take emergencies seriously until it’s too late. Many boaters waste precious minutes in denial or ignorance. “This can’t be happening” or “It’s not that bad” are natural reactions but dangerous ones.

Recognizing a genuine threat shifts your mindset into survival mode — a shift that’s critical for surviving a life-raft situation. 

2. Inventory

Next, take stock of what’s around you:

• What’s the source of danger?
• What’s the condition of your crew or passengers?
• What emergency equipment is available?

Identifying the exact source of danger — fire, collision, taking on water — means you can respond appropriately. Assessing the physical and mental condition of those around you lets you give crucial instructions to reliable helpers.

Knowing in seconds what resources you have to help you, where they are, and that they work saves precious time and gives you a huge advantage as you navigate the next steps.

3. Shelter

Cold is a killer. Hypothermia is your top concern for surviving an emergency at sea.

Your vessel is always your best shelter from the water’s cold as long as you can safely remain onboard. Only when the boat is no longer safe should you switch to personal flotation devices, immersion suits, or — ideally — your life raft. Your raft is the next best shelter option if you have to abandon your boat.

One principle I learned in the Navy: Always step down into a life raft, never up. In other words, manage the situation as much as possible so that you never enter the water, but board your life raft from your boat.

4. Signals

Rescue at sea depends entirely on alerting someone who can help you. And making a distress call early provides your best hope.

Don’t wait until you’re climbing into a life raft to alert authorities. In fact, there’s nothing wrong with calling the Coast Guard to let them know when you first notice signs of trouble. They’d much rather hear from you before a life-or-death situation develops.

Besides your distress call, you need to focus on making yourself bigger, brighter, and easier to find. A floating life jacket offers only two to four square feet of surface area for search craft to spot in the water. Unless you can draw attention to your position, your chances of rescue diminish dramatically.

Use bright colors, mirrors, flares, and your EPIRB to help authorities zero in on your location.

5. Water

Fresh water is survival. You need fresh water to stay alive and maintain physical and mental strength.

Take as much fresh water as you can when abandoning ship. Nothing — absolutely nothing — is more important than securing water for you and any others on your life raft.

Important note: Do not drink seawater, alcohol, or urine. These accelerate dehydration and can lead to kidney failure, delirium, and/or death.

6. Food

You can survive a lot longer without food than you can without water. So, if you have to choose one, choose water.

That said, food is still important in maintaining your strength and morale. Have energy-dense food supplies ready in your ditch bag in case you encounter a life-raft situation.

7. Play

This last step might surprise you, but emergency gear won’t keep you alive if you don’t have the will to live.

“Play” might mean a game, a joke, or anything that helps sustain willpower and morale. I’ve heard plenty of survival stories where the mental aspect made all the difference — people who should have died survived because of sheer determination, while others who seemingly should have survived perished.

How to Survive at Sea in a Life Raft

With the 7 Steps for Survival at Sea in mind, let’s walk through the logistics of getting into a life raft and what to do once you’re there.

Evacuation: Moving From Boat to Life Raft

Once you make the difficult decision to abandon ship, the following tips help ensure a safe transfer to your life raft:

• If possible, launch the life raft over the lee side — the side opposite the wind. It’ll give you a little shelter from waves and wind while you board.
  
  
• Wait until the raft fully inflates and the canopy rises before climbing in. You’ll likely hear CO₂ hissing out of relief valves, but don’t panic. It’s not a leak, but part of the life raft design.
  
  
• If you have time, throw anything that floats overboard. Debris fields help search and rescue teams track you down more easily.
  
  
• Above all, stay dry. If you must go into the water, get out as quickly as possible. If you can’t get completely out, keep your head, armpits, sides, and groin as dry or protected as you can — those are the areas where you lose heat fastest.
  
  
• Again, always step down into the life raft, not up — because boarding from the water is very difficult. If you’re forced to, then use the swim step and boarding ladder to help. You may need to bob up and down to use your buoyancy to help you climb.
  
  
• Avoid cutting the painter (the life-raft line attached to the boat) if possible. Stay tethered to your vessel as long as it’s safe; you’ll provide a bigger target for search and rescue to locate.

Structure: Managing Resources in the Life Raft

Once you’re in the life raft, your survival depends on structure.

First, appoint a leader. It doesn’t have to be the captain, especially if the captain is injured or worse. Everyone responds differently in a crisis, so look for someone calm and clear-headed.

Next, assign roles among the rest of the passengers. At minimum, these will include:

• Lookout: One or more people to keep watch in scheduled shifts.
• Inventory Manager: Someone to oversee the rationing of water, food, and gear.

When you establish these roles and a clear leadership path, the structure brings a sense of normalcy into a very tense situation.

Water is your absolute priority — which is why you need an inventory manager — but don’t drink immediately unless there’s a medical reason. The general rule is to avoid drinking water for the first 24 hours while you assess your situation. After that, ration carefully based on where you are (open ocean or busy shipping lanes) and how long you expect rescue to take.

Similarly, don’t eat during the first 24 hours, as food consumption increases your need for water. And, again, NEVER drink seawater, alcohol, or urine.

When it comes to signaling for help:

• Call for help early.
• Activate your EPIRB immediately.
• Only use flares when you see a ship or plane nearby; otherwise, you’ll waste them.
• Create visibility with bright materials and movement — like waving your arms — to stand out from the water.

Environment: Fighting Off the Elements

The elements are brutal — and they don’t care how tough you are.

All life rafts are required to have seasickness pills onboard. Take one when you’re in the raft — even if you feel fine. Everyone gets sick on a pitching raft eventually, and vomiting dehydrates you dangerously fast.

Shade is critical in any climate. If your raft has a canopy, use it. If not, rig up something with clothes, sails, or whatever debris you have access to.

Regulate your body temperature. Hypothermia and overheating can both kill. Stay dry when you can, stay shaded, and monitor yourself and your passengers carefully.

Morale: Psychological Survival at Sea

Surviving on a life raft is as much a mental challenge as a physical one.

Confidence from proper training enables quick, decisive responses when every second counts.

As mentioned, routines bring normalcy to a chaotic situation. Daily tasks and watch schedules provide structure and purpose when everything else seems overwhelming.

Remember: Stay calm, focused, and optimistic. Morale is a survival multiplier, and belief in rescue can sustain you through incredibly difficult circumstances.

My Top Tip for Survival at Sea

If I could impart just one piece of survival knowledge to boaters, it would be this: Know how to choose the correct personal flotation device (PFD) for your specific activities.

This may sound basic. After all, the Coast Guard requires one PFD for every person onboard a vessel. But I’m talking about so much more than meeting a minimum requirement.

You can get bargain-basement packs of PFDs easily enough. But will you be happy with the money you saved when you’re bobbing in the water without your boat wrapped around you?

You want a good-quality PFD that fits snugly and keeps your face above water, even if you’re unconscious. Every person floats differently, so the same model may not work for everyone. Test your PFD in the water before you trust it with your life — doubly so for your kids.

How to Survive at Sea: Final Thoughts

Whether you’re crossing an ocean or cruising a lake, preparation, quick thinking, and the right know-how can turn a potential disaster into a survival story.

I hope you never need to know how to survive on a life raft, but it’s better for you to have the knowledge and not need it than to need it and not have it. 

To learn more about survival at sea and other essential maritime skills, check out our Mariners Learning System courses, where we turn knowledge into confidence for boaters who value skill and safety.