🔍 Key Concepts

• Painter (liferaft) – what it is used for during launching and automatic inflation • Typical freeboard (distance from the waterline to where the raft is stowed) on seagoing vessels • Why the painter must be long enough to reach the water and still allow the raft to move clear of the ship

💭 Think About

• First, imagine the raft is stowed on the embarkation deck: how far is that above the water, roughly, on an oceangoing vessel? • After the raft inflates, how much extra painter length is needed for the raft to drift safely clear of the ship’s side? • Looking at the choices, which lengths would clearly be too short to reliably reach the water and too long to be practical to handle and pack in the container?

✅ Before You Answer

• Compare each answer choice to a realistic freeboard height (in feet or meters) for an ocean‑going ship’s boat deck • Ask whether the painter must be only just to the waterline or to the waterline plus extra distance for safety and maneuvering • Eliminate any choice that would be obviously unmanageable to stow in a compact raft canister or clearly too short to reach the water from normal stowage heights