This is a bit of a tangent, but I wanted to get some feedback on a recent event in our marina that has a lot of us talking.
We have some friends that own a cruising boat. The wife has been a little hesitant about sailing in part because of poor swimming ability causing a general fear of water. She decided to confront her fears head on by volunteering to do a live person overboard drill. We got a bunch of people on board their boat and enlisted a smaller boat as a chase boat. She put on an inflatable life jacket with an expiring sensor and jumped in the water in the harbor. It was at the end of a stretch of hot weather so there were fewer fears about hypothermia and the waves were negligible, which is as good as it gets for Lake Michigan. The PFD inflated immediately and brought her to the surface just fine, but she found that the inflated bladder pretty much immobilized her. She could not lift her head properly or move her arms to maneuver to the throwables in the water. One of the people in the chase boat ultimately jumped in to get her over to her boat and we got her back up on deck, but it was a more tense process than any of us expected. Our friend confronting her fears was actually satisfied with the result, she was able to remain calm and ultimately got back on the boat without injury, but it raised some doubts about inflatable PFD’s with the rest of us. Anyone have experience with actually deploying an inflatable PFD? Were you able to maneuver? Did you need to partially deflate the bladder? As a side note, we have gone looking for a good quality non-inflatable PFD with a harness and crotch strap, which is becoming a requirement for some races now and pretty much came up empty at this point. Thanks, Jim Reinardy C&C 30-2 “Firewater” Milwaukee, WI Sent from Mail for Windows 10 From: Kevin Driscoll via CnC-List Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2015 5:08 PM To: [email protected] Cc: Kevin Driscoll Subject: Re: Stus-List - Inflable life jacket with harness recommendation My Kong tether has snap shackle for self eject. On Wed, Sep 16, 2015 at 11:53 AM Danny Haughey via CnC-List <[email protected]> wrote: don't forget to sign up for the PYacht email list before you place your order and they'll give a 5% off code on a purchase over $100 five bucks is five bucks! ---------- Original Message ---------- From: Indigo via CnC-List <[email protected]> To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Cc: Indigo <[email protected]> Subject: Re: Stus-List - Inflable life jacket with harness recommendation Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2015 08:28:37 -0400 I don't recall - one of the early posts on the subject. At the price of these at pyacht I might be tempted to replace my "spare" old style tethers. -- Jonathan Indigo C&C 35III SOUTHPORT CT On Sep 16, 2015, at 08:03, Frederick G Street via CnC-List <[email protected]> wrote: Mine does. Which one are you looking at? I’ve got the “Y” tether with one six-foot leg and one three-foot leg; both of those have the positive-action carabiners. The harness end has a snap shackle with a pull-lanyard. Like this: http://www.pyacht.com/cgi-bin/pagegen.pl?pr+kng283sete.htm — Fred Fred Street -- Minneapolis S/V Oceanis (1979 C&C Landfall 38) -- Bayfield, WI On Sep 15, 2015, at 10:29 PM, Indigo via CnC-List <[email protected]> wrote: I am surprised to see that the Kong tether as illustrated does not have a snap-shackle for use at the harness end to enable quick disconnect if needed. With any tension, you'd need to cut the tether in order to get free if you were, say, trapped under water. _______________________________________________ Email address: [email protected] To change your list preferences, including unsubscribing -- go to the bottom of page at: http://cnc-list.com/mailman/listinfo/cnc-list_cnc-list.com _______________________________________________ Email address: [email protected] To change your list preferences, including unsubscribing -- go to the bottom of page at: http://cnc-list.com/mailman/listinfo/cnc-list_cnc-list.com
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