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Winslow Liferafts - Offshore & Coastal Rafts
Offshore & Coastal Winslow Life rafts
The name WINSLOW liferafts® has been synonymous with high quality life rafts for sixty years. Founded in 1941 as the New York Rubber Company in upstate New York, the company constructed life rafts for the Allied Forces. After World War II, the company moved its operation to Sarasota, Florida, and was acquired by John C. WINSLOW, who then produced the first marine and aviation life rafts available to the private sector. In the 1970s, during the last years of John WINSLOW's life and after his death, the company and its products suffered from benign neglect.
In 1989
WINSLOW® was acquired by Fred Shoaff, a serious one design and offshore racer and a Bertram enthusiast. Shoaff's goal was to resurrect the company to its former glory as an industry leader by building a better life raft.
The extraordinary result was the innovative WINSLOW® Super-Light™, a superior design engineered for survival in extremes, but so light that almost anyone, including women and children, can lift and deploy it at the most optimal launching point, thereby improving the odds if it's needed to save lives. The only resemblance between the state-of-the-art rafts of today and those of the 1970s is the name.
By the early 1990s their extraordinary Super-Light™ marine life rafts were attracting the attention of pilots who were also sailors. These life rafts were far superior to anything available to the general aviation community. Pilots approached Shoaff about using
their life rafts in their corporate jets. In 1994 WINSLOW's aviation version of its offshore marine life raft received top honors in an independent review of aviation liferafts conducted by The Aviation Consumer. Resulting demand encouraged Shoaff to secure FAA TSO approval for the life raft and to expand the aviation line.
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