Life vest testing

This is the first used boat that I've bought that did not come with life vests. Before we left Florida we purchased the minimum find the body West Marine orange life vests to ensure we meet the minimum safty requirements before crossing over to the Bahamas. Knowing that the World ARC folks have some specific requirements for life vests I planned to figure out what they were and order them when I got home, then bring them back before bringing the boat back to the US. This was all well and good except for the fact that one cannot fly with self inflating life vests :(. Luckily we met a boat that was for sale and attempting to sell off all their stuff. Rummaging through their various items we found three very basic self inflating vests that looked like new and snagged them so we would at least have something more comfortable to wear on deck if needed. Fortunately I didn't need it but I did have it on while out on deck during the small storm we went through. Anyway I'm getting ahead of myself...

Life vests we purchased

When we came home from the Bahamas I spent a couple nights reading and watching YouTube videos about the various merits of different life vest systems. There is a lot of information out there but the one that came up as number one or two over and over again was the SpinLock vest here. There are a few versions one can get but I decided when it came to safety and having the best chance of being found at night having the additional lights and releasable harness system was the way to go. According to the marketing the vests had two lights in them. One is inside of the part that inflates and the other is on a stick that pops up to blink adding additional visibility. While I could imagine how this might work unfortunately I have not seen any videos showing the lights in action. I also purchased a set of three point safety lines (also an ARC requirement) ensuring we can be well attached to the boat should we need to go forward on deck in bad weather. Additionally we will eventually add personal locater devices to each of our vests. Hopefully we will find them on sale at the boat show this year. Either way it was easier to spread the costs out a bit as these vests were not cheap.

Personal locator

As I started to mention earlier I had purchased these thinking we would take them back to the Bahamas with us only to find out we could not fly with them due to the CO2 cartridges. I supposed we could have pulled them out and simply planned to manually inflate the vests if needed but that would not due much good if one of us were knocked out or otherwise hurt. Luckily we stumbled across the other vests so we hopefully had something better than the basic orange vests for the return trip home.

While we were out there during my night shifts it really hit me how hard it would be to find someone that went overboard. In the past doing overnight trips on the Great Lakes we could generally see shore even if it was five miles off there was still a certain amount of ambient light. This was not the case in the ocean and with the much larger swells one would be lucky to just keep an eye on someone if they watched them go over but I'm guessing after the first or second swell they would be quickly out of sight. Once the crew could get folks on deck to get the sails down and the boat turned around it might be 5-20 minutes. I would guess the person would be out of sight then they would have to locate the person in the dark probably during bad conditions. I can't imagine the changes are great they would be found easily. With all that said I think I want to be well lighted and as easy to find as possible. Additionally I think the personal locator beacon may help as supposedly as soon as it hits the water it sends out a radio signal that will create an alert on any nearby chart plotters that someone is in the water and needs help. Additionally it will show roughly where they are. While not cheap it seems well worth the money if ever needed and I have seen videos of several folks trying them out showing how effective they are with the chart plotter alarms and integration.

After experiencing dark nights at sea I wanted to see if I had purchased what I hoped I had. Spinlock has what appears to be a number of part numbers and options one can get for their vests. I thought I got the one with all the lights but was not sure. I also wanted to see what it felt like when the vest inflated and how visible the lights would be while also having an idea what I might be looking for if one of us happened to fall overboard. Fortunately my sister in law has a pool and was up for letting me test it out one evening. I also got to test out our new dog's swimming abilities but that's the subject of a different post. The video here shows me testing what the vest looks like in the water and the neat thing is there is a dongle that hangs down so the vest knows when it's in the water. When I got out of the pool it immediately turned the lights out. Pretty impressive as I even jumped back in again to ensure they would turn back on and once again everything worked as it should. This quick video shows the vest in use with the spray hood up. The hood seemed to do what it should. I'm sure it will fog up with heavy breathing but it would defiantly help keep the waves and water out of your mouth making it easier to breathe should one fall off in bad weather.

Three point safety lines

Over all the vest felt like one of the orange vests above and easily kept me afloat in fresh water. It should work even better in salt water. When deployed it was snug around my neck. The strap between my legs was not uncomfortable and the lights appeared to do their job. Hopefully the harness system works as they say it does should I or another crew member not be able to get in the boat the crew could attach a line to the vest using a halliard and electric wench to pull the person out of the water. The only item I was not really impressed with was the included whistle. It took a bit to blow the water out of it and did not seem very loud while in the water but my wife and her sister claimed they could hear it clearly.

Next step learning to repack the vest, replacing the CO2 cartridge, and water deployment sensor. While not an inexpensive test to do I'm glad I tried it out. I now have trust in these fancy new life vests and just hope that it will still deploy correctly after I replace the spent items and get everything zipped back together. After trying it I'm guessing with the addition of a whistle and a light the basic orange vest would work just as well but time will tell if this one is more comfortable to wear during life at sea.