Steve Callahans FRIB ready for production
In our book, Cost Conscious Cruiser, we have a complete discussion of why we are not comfortable with currently available life rafts. Steve Callahan is definitely someone who supports our view that a tender that is rigged out to work as a sailing life raft not only saves money, but presents a safer alternative since daily use means you know the thing will work when you need it in an emergency. In other words, you get two boats for the price of one and eliminate the need to pay someone else to inspect and repack your life raft every year. He learned this the hard way after being forced to spend 74 days in a sub-standard raft after loosing his boat in the mini-transat race several years back. That is why he spent a lot of time and thought coming up with what he calls the FRIB, folding rib. Steve holds two patents on this folding boat. Light weight, easy to store. Definitely worth a look. Steve can be contacted at steve@stevencallahan.net.
These photos are provided by Steve as is this diagram, reproduced from Cost Conscious Cruiser. The FRIB is 10 feet long, excluding inflations tubes and weighs about 100 pounds. These photos show her folded, with her lifeboat canopy, sailing and being rowed with four on board. You can see more photos and details by going to Steven’s website – www.stevencallahan.net. The exact link for the FRIB is – http://stevencallahan.net/designconsult.html
Steven has spent the past few months working as a survival-at-sea advisor in Taiwan where the movie version of The Story of Pi is being shot. On his return he will be working with the folks who plan on putting version 2 of the FRIB into commercial production soon.