A realistic safety outfit for a 40–50 ft cruising yacht costs about $11,000–18,000 to buy in 2026, and roughly $1,500–4,000 a year to keep in date. A coastal boat that never sleeps offshore can work with $4,000–6,000 and no liferaft. The number that catches owners is not the purchase price, it is the service cycle: EPIRB battery at five years, hydrostatic release at two, liferaft every three, flares every three to four.
What a full safety kit costs in 2026
Prices are retail for mid-range brands, excluding fitting labour.
| Item | What to specify | 2026 price | Service or replace |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inflatable PFD, automatic | 150 N, ISO 12402-3, integral harness, crotch strap | $120–250 each | Re-arm kit every 2–3 yrs or after firing; jacket 10 yrs |
| Child PFD | Child-specific by body weight, not an adult jacket | $90–180 | Replace as the child grows; 10 yrs max |
| Harness tethers (2) | One 1 m working, one 2 m travel, double clip | $110–200 per set | Inspect webbing yearly, replace at 5 yrs |
| Jacklines | Flat webbing, two runs of about boat length | $80–200 | Retire at 5 yrs of UV exposure |
| EPIRB, 406 MHz + GPS | Float-free bracket with hydrostatic release | $450–550 manual, $900–2,000 float-free with AIS | Battery 5 yrs, HRU 2 yrs |
| PLB | Pocket unit, 406 MHz + GPS, registered to a person | $400–550 | Battery per maker, usually 5–7 yrs |
| Liferaft, 6 person | ISO 9650-1, canister for deck stowage | $4,000–10,000 offshore, $2,000–5,000 coastal | Service every 3 yrs in canister |
| Flares | 4 parachute, 4 hand, 2 smoke | $150–300 per set | Expires 3–4 yrs from manufacture |
| Fire extinguishers | 2 kg ABC dry powder, one per hazard space | $60–150 each | Annual check, internal service 6 yrs, pressure test 12 yrs |
| Engine room suppression | Automatic clean agent plus manual pull outside the space | $2,000–6,000 | Annual test and certificate |
| High-water bilge alarm | Audible at the helm, not only below | $60–200 | Test monthly with a wet finger on the sensor |
Two rows decide whether a survey goes smoothly: the EPIRB and the liferaft. Both carry hard expiry dates stamped on the unit, and both are the items owners buy once and forget for eight years.
Where the rules stop and your judgement starts
SOLAS and the Large Yacht Code govern commercially operated yachts. A privately registered 45-footer falls under its flag state's pleasure craft rules, which are thinner than most owners assume: a lifejacket per person, some fire-fighting equipment, navigation lights. The EU's Recreational Craft Directive adds a manual with a recommended list, but that list is guidance, not law.
What gets enforced in practice is the insurance survey. Underwriters work from a checklist agreed with the insurer, and an EPIRB two years past its battery date turns into an endorsement, a premium loading, or an argument after a claim. That checklist, not the statute book, is the document worth reading before you buy anything.
Two situations pull you back under a formal regime. Charter or coding: the MCA's categories 0 to 6 fix the distance from a safe haven and the equipment list; Category 2 covers up to 60 miles and needs an annual inspection. Offshore racing: the World Sailing Offshore Special Regulations for 2026–2027 require rafts serviced at maker intervals — annually for SOLAS, every three years for ISO 9650 canisters — plus specified flares, jackstays and grab bag contents.
Lifejackets, harnesses and jacklines
A 150 N automatic inflatable is the working minimum for an adult. The 275 N jackets are for offshore work in heavy foul-weather gear: the extra buoyancy floats the clothing you are wearing, not you. Buy the jacket that fits over the kit you actually sail in.
Then buy the crotch strap, which most budget jackets leave out for $15–25. Without it the jacket rides up under the arms and pushes your face down; with it, the buoyancy stays where it was designed to sit. Children need a jacket rated to body weight — an adult jacket will not hold a child's head clear of the water.
Once a season, inflate each jacket orally and leave it 24 hours. If it holds, deflate, check the indicator, weigh the CO2 cylinder against the maker's figure and test the light. Anything that has fired needs a re-arm kit. Ten years is the usual replacement point, sooner if the bladder is tacky or the webbing has UV bloom.
Harnesses belong inside the jacket, not over it. Carry two tethers — a short one for working at the mast, a long one for moving along the deck — and run jacklines so that at no point on deck can you go over the side while clipped on. The line is rarely the weak link; the pad eye or cleat it ends on usually is (our deck hardware and winch guide covers what to look at).
Beacons: EPIRB, PLB and AIS MOB
These are three different jobs and owners routinely buy one and assume they have all three. An EPIRB stays with the vessel, transmits for at least 48 hours, and on a float-free bracket is released by a hydrostatic unit at roughly 1.5–4 m of depth, so it survives the boat going down. A PLB is registered to a person, transmits for around 24 hours, and works when you and the boat are separated. An AIS MOB beacon on each jacket puts the casualty on every nearby chartplotter, which is what gets a crewmember recovered in the first ten minutes.
Register the beacon with your national authority and keep the record current — owner, vessel, MMSI, cruising area, two shore contacts. An unregistered beacon still raises an alert, but the centre spends its first minutes working out who it is looking for; skip the update after a sale and the alert arrives attributed to the previous owner, in the wrong sea area.
The maintenance calendar is short and unforgiving. Battery: five years, or at the shore-based service interval for a commercial unit. Hydrostatic release unit in a float-free bracket: two years from date of manufacture, with the date stamped on the part. Owners remember the battery and forget the HRU, which is the cheap component that decides whether the beacon leaves the sinking boat at all. Test monthly in self-test mode only, never live: a false alert launches a real response. Our EPIRB and PLB guide covers model-by-model battery behaviour.
Fire and flooding: the two that actually sink boats
Fire extinguishers go where the hazard is, not where the bracket fits: one in the galley, one in each sleeping cabin, one at the helm, and a Class B unit or a fixed system in the engine space. A clean-agent system with a manual pull outside the compartment buys the minutes that matter, because nobody opens an engine hatch on a fire to use a handheld. Add smoke detectors in cabins and a CO detector wherever a generator or heater exhausts into a sleeping space.
Portable dry-powder units are usually an annual visual check and weigh, an internal service around year six, and a pressure test around year twelve under NFPA 10; coded and charter boats are held to shorter intervals by their flag state. Whatever the cycle, the gauge tells you almost nothing about whether the powder has caked — shake the unit, and replace any extinguisher that has been discharged or left in a damp locker.
Flooding is the quieter one. Most of it starts at a hose clamp, a cracked strainer or a seacock that has not been moved in three years, not at a holed hull. Exercise every seacock each season so you know it closes, check the double clamps on below-waterline fittings, and confirm the pump discharge loops above the waterline on rated hose. Put a high-water alarm where the helm can hear it, and test the float switch by hand rather than trusting the panel light. Our bilge pump systems guide walks through pump capacity against realistic leak rates.
Steering, deck gear, and a four-step inspection route
Steering failure offshore turns a passage into a salvage negotiation, and it announces itself ashore: a stiff helm, a click in the quadrant, cable tension that changed over the winter. Check the cables or ram, quadrant and sheaves, autopilot clutch and belt, and confirm the emergency tiller is aboard — and that you know which locker key fits it.
Deck gear fails in a way that is easy to see and easy to skip: stanchion bases lifting from the toe rail, a lifeline gate that no longer latches, a cleat with a hairline crack, pad eyes bolted through damp core. Service the winches at the start of the season, not when they sound like gravel.
Four steps cover the boat in an afternoon:
- Bow to stern, both sides. Anchor locker and windlass, chain stopper, stanchions, lifelines, cleats, pad eyes. Photograph anything marginal, because next season you will not remember whether that crack was there.
- Below the waterline fittings. Exercise every seacock, check both clamps on each hose, look at the shaft seal or bellows, and lift the bilge float switch by hand.
- Engine space. Fuel lines and filters, exhaust lagging, suppression cylinder pressure, battery terminals, and the bilge for oil or salt water that should not be there.
- Helm and nav station. Steering stops, autopilot in standby and engaged, VHF with the MMSI programmed and GPS fed in, then every expiry label: EPIRB battery, HRU, raft service, flare dates, extinguisher tag. Write the dates onto one page and keep it with the boat's papers.
Mooring lines and fenders belong in the same pass: a loaded line is unforgiving of hands and ankles, and chafed warps part during the tightest berth. Our docking and maneuvering guide has the crew brief.
FAQ: the four questions owners ask
Do I legally need a liferaft on a private yacht? Usually not for coastal cruising, almost always in practice for offshore. Carriage rules come from the flag state and, for coded boats, from the coding authority. Beyond that, most bluewater insurers ask for a raft past a stated distance from shelter, and a survey will note its absence.
How long do pyrotechnic flares last? Three to four years from manufacture, depending on the maker and the approval they are sold under; the date is printed on each cartridge. Electronic distress lights avoid the expiry cycle, but confirm your flag state and racing category accept them first.
Can I replace an EPIRB battery myself? Some makers allow owner replacement on non-SOLAS recreational units, but the unit must be retested and the new battery label fitted. Most owners use an authorised agent, which also produces the paperwork an insurer wants. The battery is a five-year item; the HRU in a float-free bracket is a separate two-year item.
What does a full kit cost on a 45 ft coastal boat? Roughly $4,000–6,000 for six people: lifejackets, harnesses, tethers, jacklines, an EPIRB, flares, extinguishers, a high-water alarm and a ditch bag. Add a six-person offshore raft and the total moves to $10,000–16,000, with about $1,500–4,000 a year in service.
Next step: if you are buying rather than refitting, put these dates in the survey request — a pre-purchase survey that checks beacon expiry and raft service history saves a negotiation later. What the surveyor looks at first is in our pre-purchase survey guide, and the paperwork side in the financing and insurance guide.