Dangers of the ocean are well documented: sharks, storms with gargantuan waves, seasickness and, if one’s boat has sunk, swimming for shore through a mine field of stinging jellyfish or spending days if not weeks in a flimsy life raft without water, usually under the scorching sun. Before you know it, you’re making friends with a volleyball named Wilson (Castaway) or worse. In a short time, starvation, thirst and sunburn make life barely worth living and people start to look like bait to hungry seagulls.
Let’s face it, the life-saving capability of a raft is pretty poor. Until now.
Designer Kim Hoffman entered “Sea Kettle” in the James Dyson Awards to give hope to people who find that their boat has capsized in a squall. Lucky for them, if they have a “Sea Kettle” aboard, they are able to climb inside and wait in relative luxury for a rescue ship. According to Hoffman, the life raft provides safety, accessibility and fresh water from a built in “desalination plant.”
A Luxury Life Raft for Dire Circumstances
Hoffman has been thinking about “Sea Kettle” since her days at the San Francisco Academy of Art University. Along the way, she adopted ideas from the Water Cone manufactured by Mage Water Management. In her system, salt water and sunlight, two plentiful resources in the ocean, are combined to evaporate water. The water then condenses in overhead collectors and flows, with the help of a pump mechanism, into four Goretex drinking containers inside the raft’s structure.
With a final artistic touch, Hoffman designed the Sea Kettle with bright colors to make it easy for the Coast Guard to spot and perhaps to lighten the spirits of those huddled inside.
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References and related content:
- Concept: A Life Raft that Makes Drinking Water from Seawater
- Sea Kettle life raft turns sea water into drinking water | The Red Ferret Journal
