It failed on the yellow/blue seam shown in the pic in this post. Right below the guys butt. It failed on the inboard aspect of the boat.
I spoke with him today and apparently he was fidgeting around quite a bit with legs/hips, and he feels he put too much outward pressure on that seam. The guy paddling in this photo is light, it didn’t fail in this pic. It failed with the other guy sitting on the stern and I guess he sort of wiggled in deeper and it blew about 8cm.
I feel like the failure was our fault and we exceeded the limits of the packraft. Like I said, I’ve had my 8 year old in this for countless hours. We used it so much. Whenever we were in cold water though, I always had a back up packraft with someone in it for this very reason. In 60 degree summer ocean temps you can survive quite a while, not so much in 39, as you know.
In almost all drownings in AK either alcohol or no life vest is a factor. I always wear my life vest whether on a packraft or our 22′ boat. Always……..
If the packraft had failed in this pic, neither had life vests, we were just leaving the boat. I’m sure they would have both died. No way they’d get back on the boat freezing. We were very lucky.
Hopefully people learn from this. I’m sad about my packraft, but whatever…….
Also went back this morning and retrieved our lost rifle at low tide, so we got all our gear back!