Originally Posted by
Tartiflette Fan
Some newspapers have reported - likely nonsensically - seamen jumping into life-boats. This prompted me to think about raft-stowage on warships: I am not sure if I have ever noticed this. It is well-known that passenger-ships have to have one place per person, but what is the norm on warships ?
I don't have a link to hand but I'm sure someone can Google it: SOLAS requires 125% Of the maximum capacity of the vessel in terms of lifeboat capacity (obviously for redundancy). Dredging my memory that is split with 25% pax capacity on each side of the vessel allowed to be inflatable and 37.5% some kind of rigid lifeboat.
I can't speak to current naval practice but I'd imagine no worse than SOLAS (i.e. 125%) would be a starting point, though I've an inkling that warships tend more towards use of inflatables than rigid lifeboats for operational reasons.