I have circumnavigated about 7 times or so as a cruiser, depending on how you measure it plus twice crewing on racing boats. I carried a life raft for about half of that sailing and I've run into cruisers with every attitude imaginable about them. I'm not for or against. Like anything, if you have the space and budget, you're better off with than without.
That's true of just about anything you might carry though. The problem I see with life rafts is that people place too much faith in that single point of failure and they are too quick to use it when it isn't the best option available to them. And, they carry them at the cost of not carrying other important supplies and equipment. It almost seems like they figure, "I paid good money for this raft and, by God, I'm going to get my money's worth."
My attitude about them is simple. It is the very last piece of equipment I will need on my boat. It comes behind a long list of items that I will want or need BEFORE needing that raft. If, after all of that gear I still have room for the raft, I will carry it. Why not? I would be foolish to be standing on the deck of my sinking boat staring at the empty spot I could have secured the life raft. That would be a fitting end for me but I would rather not be my own punchline.
Unless space and budget are both in surplus, you are better off focusing on repair. Boats don't usually sink off-shore. They sink when they encounter land or sea monsters and the life raft won't do you much good in either case. People abandon boats because they can't fix them and they somehow figure they'll have better odds in the raft, which is rarely the case.
Fire that you can't extinguish or leaking you can't stop - those are about the only good reasons to get in a life raft and those events are rare off-shore. They do happen and, if they do, you're better off with a raft than without one. But, if I had to choose between a life raft and extra fuel or between a life raft and taking a rigging course or between a life raft and just about anything - well, a life raft just isn't likely to save the life of my crew and I can think of a long list of things that are more likely.
We picked up a couple in a life raft a few hundred miles from Hawai'i and came across their boat adrift the next day. We fixed their motor in about 2 hours because we had the skills, parts, and tools they lacked. By the way, it was just a bad fuel filter initially but then the ran their batteries down trying to start it so lost their VHF and SSB. Weather was fair throughout the whole incident.
They beat us to Honolulu and bought us dinner when we arrived. If that was an isolated incident, I might have a different attitude, but the proof is in the pudding. Sure there are cases where a crew abandons a vessel that is no longer seaworthy, and are later rescued. That happens. But it is so rare that it hardly bears strong consideration.
