The thought of folks suffering from extreme dehydration whilst stranded in a life raft at sea got industrial designer Kim Hoffman thinking of a way to turn all that sea water into safe, drinkable, life-saving refreshment. She took inspiration from portable desalination tools and created the Sea Kettle concept, a colorful life raft that uses heat from the sun to evaporate salty water and collect condensed run off in containers within the raft’s structure.
According to Hoffman, a product design graduate of San Francisco’s Academy of Art University, the Sea Kettle “is a life raft that combines safety, accessibility, and a desalination process. In an emergency at sea, you may not be able to obtain fresh drinking water before being forced to abandon ship. Passengers could easily die of thirst or from extreme temperatures before they are rescued or reach land.”
As well as providing both insulation and shelter from the elements, the Sea Kettle would feature a number of hand pumps within the cabin. With these, the lucky survivors would draw up sea water into a Gortex covered plastic reservoir. Both the reservoir and the cover would be black to help concentrate the sun’s heat onto the water contained therein.
