Inflatable life raft on sport fish

I've generally seen them on the forward deck or the roof of the bridge. But let me ask if you wouldn't be better off with something that could do double-duty like a dink. From what you write I don't see you needing to wait days for a rescue. I can see you having a desire to drop the hook and dink into shore, and then in the unlikely event that you do have to abandon ship one day you'll have your escape vessel right there without the expense for something you'll hopefully never use.

You're talking about an expensive item, that has to be serviced every year to 3 years, that almost assuredly will never be used. Odds are that if you must get off you're going to put on your PFD and step off into those warm Florida waters where one of the 100 nearby boats will pick you up.

Speaking of doing double duty, not sure I'd put a handheld VHF in the go bag. Odds are if you need it the battery will be drained. Better to keep it in a specific place where it'll stay charged and can be readily grabbed when you grab the go bag. In the mean time you'll use it with your dink, etc. Now an emergency locator beacon might not be bad thoughhttps://www.westmarine.com/buy/acr-...personal-locator-beacon--19496165?recordNum=1.

Get a soft 6 man life raft. It will fit almost anywhere and can be deployed quickly. I keep mine in the brow(60 ft sf). NO TENDER. A tender bow mounted will not be there in rough weather and will be vary hard to launch safely. I rescued 6 people from the water east of marsh harbor about 10 yrs ago. 90 ft vessel fully engulfed in fire in under 10 minutes. Owner got his wallet, captain got a vhf. That's it. Didn't have time to launch tender or hard mount raft before fire burned them. Good crew and experienced owners. I learned alot from that experience and totally changed ditch bag location and contents. Will never forget look on owner's wife's face when we pulled her aboard. She was asleep in master stateroom 10 minutes prior and now was looking back at her 90' yacht fully engulfed in fire. Keep your raft and ditch bag very accessible and get them on deck at first sign of trouble NOT after you've lost the fight with the fire.

First, if Fire is your concern, I'd make sure your automatic fire system is inspected and automatic shutdowns tested annually as required by USCG. Generally if you're underway and have a fire 9 times out of 10, it will be from the engine room. So right inside the salon door (which is where I carry a soft sided raft when doing a trip) probably wouldn't be accessible, because the salon floor will have melted and flames/heat/smoke belching out of the engine room door. Sinking is more common than fire. The Hardtop is the most common mounting location on a SF, but hard to deploy manually if you want to launch it early, but one could do it, or just relying on the hydrostatic release, BUT it has to go underwater quite a ways before releasing. But at least if the boat rolled over, it'd deploy. I prefer to tie off the painter and launch it early if there's any indication that it really looks like we're sinking or on fire. A 6 man raft is VERY small for 5-6 adults to fit into, but I sure as heck would rather be in one than the tender if it's super rough. The idea of the tender is to cut the lashings and if the boat sinks, the tender will float off of it. Revere makes a good raft with a 3 year recertification (a lot of rafts are every year), I'd definately want an offshore raft.

I highly recommend you take a STCW class from MPT or other school. Because prevention of flooding or fire is by far, your best prevention and with a fire, the first 60 seconds are absolutely critical.

From your experience what % of owners do that?

there is some good sound advice on this thread.

I like the idea of something accessible that you can easily store and self deploy.

I have a Post with a hard case hydrostatic release mounted on the bow forward of the house.
I also have a soft bottom inflatable mounted on the boat.

Nowadays a lot more than in the past. About half of the yachts I manage require an insurance survey every 3 years. But most of the owners of the yachts I manage, do them annually.