Life Vests/jackets

[marshman]

It is indeed BUT I can guarantee you only a small proportion will be fitted correctly AND the daily checks necessary are rarely carried out, let alone the servicing!

As PW says and John confirms, life jackets must fit properly for them to be effective and they must also be the top garment worn, necessitating much fiddling with the adjustment when you put on / take off coats, jumpers etc. This not always as easy as some propound.

Chris kindly posts "the simple explanation" - not simple to me, as reading that it confirms that vests may be most appropriate in the Broads. It says clearly "...if you are going to be out of the water more than you'll be in the water, and still manage to see the shoreline, then the buoyancy aid is the most appropriate piece of safety kit" .  Sounds pretty clear to me!

There is a real danger on a thread like this, individuals will think an auto inflate will automatically save your life and that is NOT the case - you still must take care on a boat, fit a jacket correctly and tight, carry out regular checks on the bottle and get them serviced by a competent person. Think very carefully before choosing either system though and if you want to consider the benefits propounded  by an old sea dog like Mr Waller of a fitted buoyancy aid, then don't just discard that idea and the idea of a modern vest.

(All comments made with the aim of providing balance in any discussion!!!)

[grendel]

my personal choice is a manual inflate lifejacket, I then have a choice to inflate or not, I am a strong swimmer (though not as fit as I was) and on the occasion I did find myself in the water this year, I did not feel it necessary to inflate the life jacket I was wearing, extracting myself from the water wasnt easy and an inflated lifejacket would have made that less easy, I was glad I had it on as I could always have inflated it should the need have arisen, but its a case of you make your own informed choices and then live with any consequences.

worse case in my particular circumstances would have been inflate the lifejacket and float down to Marthams slipway which was only a short way downstream.

[Regulo]

Can't inflate it yourself if you're knocked unconcious on the way in, Gren. That's my biggest worry. Anyway, being a non-swimmer, I'm happy to rely on a good auto-inflate jacket, at least I'll be floating the right way up!

[grendel]

Regulo, I accept that, if I was on a flappy thing with a boom that could knock me overboard and senseless, then i would reconsider my options, otherwise, I will take my chances, while I have had many knocks to the head in my likfe, none yet have rendered me unconcious, so I will live with the consequences of my choice,

we all make decisions and take chances, whether it be crossing the road, driving the car, or cruising in a boat, as long as we have weighed the consequences, then we must be prepared to live with them.

[Regulo]

Ah, yes, personal responsibility for our own decisions. In short supply nowadays, it seems it's always someone else's fault when things go wrong.

[JennyMorgan]

Someone has mentioned frail folk, ummm, tin hat time but perhaps us  'frail' folk should be asking if boating is for them/us. Someone else mentioned straps being too short, that suggests to me that someone is perhaps too big, at least for safe boating. As passengers, maybe, but deckwork & mooring might be risky. I've asked this one before but how will you get back aboard should you have the great misfortune to fall in? There was a recent newspaper report where the casualty was so large that the air-ambulance had to be used as a crane!  I certainly would have problems if I were to fall in now, sobering thought! Best I could do is to rely on being towed to a slipway and be dragged out, a vest would be ample for that. We have Sailability on Oulton Broad, many of their folk are acutely disabled, they wear vests and buoyancy aids!. 

[Matt]

Just this year at Ranworth a young lady tipped out of a dinghy right next the quay. Wearing an auto inflate life jacket which did its job.

2 men on each arm and she still could not get out.

Fortunately on Thunder we have a rope ladder which I hooked over a mooring post and with help she was able to clamber out. Of course not having paid any attention to said rope ladder previously (I mean how difficult can it be?) I had it upside down which meant the grippers were on the underside of the steps and I suspect the steps were floating around a bit more than they were supposed to........


Sent from my iPhone using Norfolk Broads Network

[marshman]

Oh dear - the peace of the afternoon has now been despoiled.

I have a picture in my brain of a large gentleman falling overboard from a pretty sailboat - but unable to reboard and the boat sailing away into the sunset. I see a couple of fellers rushing down a short slip and into a small pram dinghy and starting with some difficulty an old Century Plus outboard ( well it wouldn't start first time! ) and then "racing " across Oulton to save this floundering gentleman, and then towing him gently back to the slip - well like all Seagulls it only went flat out!

They then staggered down the slip to drag this beached old chap up the slip - but unable to do this the more elderly one rushed back up the slip to grab the hawser of an old wherry winch to hook it onto his life vest and then, oh the ignomimy of it, seeing him winched back up and helping him to his feet, standing shaking like an old mutt.

Oh dear how will I rid myself  of this vision in front of me.....!!!

[Smoggy]

There's a book about that, Moby Dick I think. 😃

[JennyMorgan]

2 hours ago, marshman said:

Oh dear - the peace of the afternoon has now been despoiled.

I have a picture in my brain of a large gentleman falling overboard from a pretty sailboat - but unable to reboard and the boat sailing away into the sunset. I see a couple of fellers rushing down a short slip and into a small pram dinghy and starting with some difficulty an old Century Plus outboard ( well it wouldn't start first time! ) and then "racing " across Oulton to save this floundering gentleman, and then towing him gently back to the slip - well like all Seagulls it only went flat out!

They then staggered down the slip to drag this beached old chap up the slip - but unable to do this the more elderly one rushed back up the slip to grab the hawser of an old wherry winch to hook it onto his life vest and then, oh the ignomimy of it, seeing him winched back up and helping him to his feet, standing shaking like an old mutt.

Oh dear how will I rid myself  of this vision in front of me.....!!!

How easily it could be a certain other old buffer, this time on Womack!  It behooves us all to look at our limitations. 

[FairTmiddlin]

2 hours ago, Smoggy said:

There's a book about that, Moby Dick I think. 😃

More like Dozy Mick

[JennyMorgan]

2 hours ago, FairTmiddlin said:

More like Dozy Mick

I know a few jokes about Dozy Micks! 

[marshman]

Pete - I no longer sail boats I can easily fall off. If I sail at all, its in half deckers with proper seats onto which I can relax!!

As you say its important one knows ones own limitations!

[RumPunch]

18 hours ago, grendel said:

Regulo, I accept that, if I was on a flappy thing with a boom that could knock me overboard and senseless, then i would reconsider my options, otherwise, I will take my chances, while I have had many knocks to the head in my likfe, none yet have rendered me unconcious, so I will live with the consequences of my choice,

 

Yep - that's why I bought an auto for the yacht. Normal procedure is mudweight up, hoist sails, then back up front to pull the mudweight in before sailing away. One day ( maybe ) the wind will change as I walk back and the boom collect me on the way across.

On the other hand, when sailing the performance dinghy, with a fair chance of going swimming, I wear a buoyancy aid.

Then there are times when I'm just motoring - and MY decision I tend not to wear one

 

[grendel]

at the end of the day, if its too much bother to go to to put on a lifejacket, then its down to personal choice, in my opinion, if you have an easy option to wear one, then it will be worn more often than having to spend an age getting it just right - then it becomes an active decision to wear one. If its easy then it will become a matter of habit.

[vanessan]

I have got into the habit of donning my LJ regularly now when I go to moor up. I work on the basis that if I don’t s***’s law says I will have a mishap!

 

[Timbo]

For me and mine the choice has always been simple...although getting 'the crew' to follow instruction meant doing some 'practical teaching' with the use of field trips and finally using 'immersion therapy'. I have to say that the biggest obstruction to getting 'the crew' to wear their jackets came from the various 'old hands' and 'experts' spouting various forms of 'do what I say not what I do' and thinking up exemptions for them not wearing a life jacket. Let me explain?

Uncle Albert was as close to an 'expert' in boating and sailing activities as you could get. He went to work on a Humber Keel at the age of 14, joined the RN at 16 and spent 18 years sailing and piloting every kind of dinghy, boat, barge and ship imaginable. He could swim like a fish and always insisted I wear a life jacket as a kid and everyone around him wear a life jacket. But could I get the old duffer to wear a life jacket himself? No chance. Even when his mobility was so poor he'd trip and stumble, even when he knew he was a dead weight taking two people to lift him on dry land he would not wear a life jacket. Until I took him to visit our local RNLI station to get some first hand advice on life jackets. It was the Coxswain of the station that took me off to one side and suggested a means to get Uncle Albert into a life jacket for both his and my safety. I followed his advice and two weeks later I took delivery of a custom life jacket for Uncle Albert. Extra wide groin straps, the whole thing in Royal Navy blue with the Royal Navy Logo embroidered on the outer cover along with his name and rank. The old boy couldn't put it on fast enough. The problem was now getting him to take it off!

Fast forward to our youngest son. Sixteen years old and a victim of fashion 'I look stupid' he would not put on his life jacket, until the fateful day he fell off the boat. Cruising out of Ranworth Dyke I thought I heard the lad shout 'Dylan' and thinking the dog had fallen overboard I looked over the cockpit to see Dylan the beagle, in his life jacket, giving a nod of his head in the 'little Jimmy fell in the well' fashion. It was then that I spotted it was the lad who had fallen in. Noting that although he was scared he was swimming but swimming towards the stern of the boat. Shouting to him to stay away from the back of the boat I turned off the engine and deployed the mudweight. A passing privateer paused to offer assistance.
"We are OK thanks. I'm teaching!" I replied to the chap at the helm who was now chuckling.
Deploying the life belt I hauled the lad in and onto the boat then sent him for a hot shower while I made him a cup of hot sweet tea. Out of the shower and the lesson had been learned. Drinking his tea, dressed in warm dry clothes and wrapped in a blanket I looked down to see the lad writing his name on the bag for his life jacket. He's never gone on deck without his jacket since then.

The shock of falling in, the depth, temperature and how black the water was six inches below even in summer was a complete shock to him. When it came to getting the next generation to wearing a life jacket, the youngest lad played his part and encouraged and supported the grandkids in wearing theirs.

So, getting Gracie to wear her life jacket was a simple thing. As the official 'Best Mate' on board Royal Tudor before she even set eyes on the boat we visited the chandler where Gracie was measured and fitted for her life jacket. She was allowed to pick the colour and her first duty as 'Best Mate' is to make sure everyone from the Skipper to the Chief Cook and Bottle Washer and the Beagle Brothers are wearing their life jackets should they go on deck. It's a job she takes very seriously and can be as devious as me in encouraging others to wear a life jacket. Playing with kids she had befriended from another boat, the older children had taken off their life jackets and were making fun of their younger sibling who was still wearing theirs.
"You must be the captain?" said Gracie to the boy wearing his life jacket. "Only people good enough to be the Captain wear life jackets!"
It was amazing how quickly the lads brothers and sisters were soon wearing life jackets too.

As for me? I have to admit that recently I was seen on deck without a life jacket. When best Mate Gracie saw the pictures of RT crossing Breydon and I was not wearing my life jacket at the helm I was on the end of the cruelest punishment my seven year old Granddaughter could deliver.
"That was a stupid thing to do Timbo!"
And, of course, she was right. I mean, can you imagine the grief you guys would give me if the Chairman fell in without his life jacket? If I lived, I'd never live it down!

[TheLaird]

"Deploying the life belt I hauled the lad in and onto the boat then sent him for a hot shower while I made him a cup of hot sweet tea. Out of the shower and the lesson had been learned".

That reminds me. A few yeas ago Rosie my wife and I did a training session with Beds Fire and Rescue.

We were training to rescue people in water, the river Great Ouse, We  had people in the water and we used 'heaving lines'.

These are a bag wth a length of rope and enough weight to be able to throw it about 30 yards. I had a life ring on my boat but it took up space and kept getting in the way. At the training session it was pointed out that a life ring MAY rescue someone but it could also hit them and knock them out sorting the problem permanently.

The heaving line takes up so little space and if you do hit someone it won't hurt them. 

If you decide to replace a ring with one make sure the line is a floating type.  A fireman died a while back when a non floating one was used and the line sank and got hooked under something and he was pulled under.

[TheLaird]

There you go!      

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/150N-ADULT-AUTOMATIC-MANUAL-INFLATABLE-LIFE-JACKET-SAILING-BOATING-AID-VEST-/132997997167?var=&hash=item1ef74c626f

[Smoggy]

5 minutes ago, TheLaird said:

There you go!      

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/150N-ADULT-AUTOMATIC-MANUAL-INFLATABLE-LIFE-JACKET-SAILING-BOATING-AID-VEST-/132997997167?var=&hash=item1ef74c626f

Yikes! Wouldn't touch it with a barge pole!

Of all the things to buy a cheap chinese version of a lifejacket is not on the list.

 

[annv]

How can they make so cheap,  they ship it here#,  profit for retailer#,  and make a manufacturer's# profit,cant believe they are subsidized by Chinese government or don't pay their workers. John

[grendel]

how do you think they get rid of the rejects failed by quality control, for the ones they make for reputable manufacturers. rather than scrap them - sell them on for cost

[Tempest]

We have purchased 2 lifejackets from Brian Ward and we have had our fitting and marked with our names so we know which is which and we have completed the 5 year guarantee with Seago

https://www.brianwards.co.uk/product/automatic-lifejacket-navy-165n/

Thanks for all the advice and we are determined to wear our jackets and ensure they are regularly serviced and maintained

We went for the Seaguard 165 https://www.seagoyachting.co.uk/products/seaguard/ which we believe is good value for money but offers the safety and security we require

Only time will tell, but Brian Ward were brilliant and can highly recommend them to others. There was no additional discount for being an NBN member, but as they were already heavily discounted.

 

[BroadsAuthority]

Hi all,

It's great to see lots of discussion here on water safety and advocacy of lifejackets/buoyancy aids.

It seems most of you are experienced boaters but if anyone is new to the boating scene a glance over our safety and boating tips pages could be helpful (enjoy the old videos too!)

https://www.broads-authority.gov.uk/boating/navigating-the-broads/safety

https://www.broads-authority.gov.uk/boating/navigating-the-broads/boating-beginners

Tom

[Mouldy]

1 hour ago, Tempest said:

 . . . . . . Only time will tell, but Brian Ward were brilliant and can highly recommend them to others. . . . . . 

Glad you managed to wade through all of the comments and advice offered by fellow members and arrive at your decision.  We also opted for Seago self inflating life jackets when we bought into the Moonlight Shadow syndicate last year and they are now stored on Norfolk Lady, ready for use when onboard.

As for Brian Wards, I have to agree that they are extremely helpful and carry a good stock.  I just wish that I didn’t have to go past their door on the way to our boat.  There is a certain draw that seems to pull you in to find something else to buy every time we arrive in Brundall.