In the process of setting up my new to me pilothouse and I'm curious how others have placed their various safety gear. I have mounted my cat II EPIRB and spare handheld VHF just inside the cabin door. I'm thinking I will probably throw the handheld in a ditch bag when underway but just mounted it there because it's close to the charging station. The item I'm having the hardest time placing is the 6 man Viking life raft in a valise. It's fairly bulky and heavy. I don't really want it in the main cabin as space is somewhat limited but I also don't want it in the front bow area because it may be difficult to quickly crawl in the front acecess and wrestle the bulky raft back to the deck. Would placing it on top the cabin be an option? At the same time I want it close to my ditch bag as I don't want to be running all over the boat getting safety gear. Maybe a way to alleviate that would be to assign crew a specific item to grab i.e. One gets EPIRB, one gets life raft etc. This is my first boat and while I am doing my fair share of learning the hard way I'm not interested in the school of hard knocks when my crew and myself may be in danger. Any feedback is appreciated. Thanks.