Apparently the raft is designed to carry 100% extra 'passengers' to the stated number and will float with the extra passengers even if 50% of the tubes are deflated.

To meet the certification they have to b e manufactured with double redundancy.

I assume this would apply to lesiure rafts too...

On my recent survival course we had 18 in an 8 man raft! It was 'cosy' but it was no where close to sinking.

W.

Thanks for that clarification Wolfie, there is always a huge margin built into safety measures, be it lifting appliances or liferafts. Sophies original question was a little bit ambiguous perhaps, but I'm sure she will have had enough answers to sort that out, particularly with a response from someone involved with safety aspects at sea.