Your lifejacket...  

...lifesaver or wreath?

It’s true to say that I don’t wear a lifejacket all the time. But as age and mortality creep up, I find myself wearing one more often than before.

It’s my choice and if it’s windy, lumpy, dark, or foggy, I’m the first to put one on. I’m also a great fan of using a harness and clip too. Being a pragmatist I know my chances; I could fall in but I also like my freedom.

Lifejacket awareness

The last three years have seen an increase in lifejacket awareness, with the RYA joining forces with the RNLI and MCA to champion the message ‘your lifejacket, useless unless worn’, supported by demos at boat shows, marina and clubs.

I’m all for lifejackets. But what I’d like to see is lifejackets worn correctly, rather than their carte blanche use. In the water, a correctly fitted lifejacket should provide sufficient freeboard between your airway and the water to allow you to breathe.

If the jacket is too loose then it rides up in the water, the freeboard disappears and your mouth drops to water height. Not good.

Wrongly fitted lifejackets

A friend and ex lifeboat man used to call wrongly fitted lifejackets, ‘wreaths’, as they marked the spot of the body in the water that he’d been sent to find. A description that’s kept my lifejacket correctly fitted ever since.

To check your lifejacket’s fitted correctly, adjust the lifejacket until you can just get a fist between the lifejackets waist belt and your chest. It should then be a snug fit.

Crotch straps help keep a lifejacket in place, but once again you may not want to wear them, day in day out, especially in hot weather.

More information on lifejacket wear, fitting and levels of buoyancy.

 

When I jump on a boat I see most people wearing lifejackets, however many of them will not be fitted correctly. To be honest, I’d rather have someone not wearing a jacket and hanging on to the boat, than someone putting trust in something to work when required and that’s not been fitted correctly.

Risk assessment

RNLI research has found that 98% of the people they surveyed carry a lifejacket. They also state that the amount of people that wear their lifejacket all the time has risen from 41% to 49% over the last three years. This is commendable and shows that a common message makes sense and works.

But remember many people who do fall in, do so from a pontoon. I lost a good friend that way, but I would still not wear one every time I walked down the gangplank. It’d be like wearing a lifejacket every time you took the dog out for a walk down the canal bank.

Being on the water is all about assessing the risk. You can never eliminate the risk, but accept it and when necessary take steps to minimise its effects.

So ‘wear a lifejacket unless it is safe not to do so’... but wear it well... it’ll only work when correctly fitted.

Lifesaver or wreath? Your choice.

Simon Jinks, RYA Instructor and marine journalist