check your lifejackets!

[Birdseye]

Last year two out of 6 failed on my boat - blown up by mouth, they deflated pretty quickly. This yar one of those that passed last year failed this year with a leak from where the mouth blow tube sealed to the bladder. All had cylinders over the minimum tare weight.

last year the two that failed were fairly new Seago - maybe 4 years old, maybe 5. This year the one that failed was a 25 year old Crewsaver. I guess you get what you pay for.

 

[capnsensible]

Thats why coded boats have to have theirs tested by an approved examiner every year. :encouragement:

 

[jwilson]

Coded boats certainly need them checked annually and records kept, plus two spare extra ones. However my coding surveyor is happy that I do this myself: inflate 24 hours, any that go soft replaced, otherwise gas canisters checked and weighed, and repacked. My two spares are always brand new ones, with new lights, that cycle into use as existing ones fail.

Mostly the failure is going very slightly soft after 24 hours, rather than deflating quickly. I also add "looking grubby" as a failure even if they work. So average maybe 3 years life. Hasn't happened for a few years, but I had a string of finding "fired gas canister" ones a few years back - charterers had fired and repacked without changing the canister and telltale. And there's even spare canisters on board. I try and do a mid-season check as well as the annual one, but there is a limit to how much you can do between a string of charters.

Repacking a fired lifejacket for the next charterer is one of the two things that should reserve a specially hot place in hell for the perpetrator. The other is altering the depth offset in the menus of the echo sounder. Just gentle tickling with a red-hot poker is for those who program the Eberspacher to come on every morning, and leave it that way when they get off the boat. But that's only because I find the Eberspacher menu system horribly complex.....

 

[Amulet]

Service them every year and replace the firing bobbins on expiry. In truth, my impression with the soluble type is that aged ones, rather than failing when needed, are a bit too keen to go off, and do so in the locker.

 

[James_Calvert]

The other is altering the depth offset in the menus of the echo sounder.

I don't understand depth offsets. Should they be set so they are zero when you hit the ground, or at waterline level so they'll agree with charted plus rise of tide depth?

My echosounder only remembers offsets if I put batteries in it, so I don't. Can't you likewise force modern ones to just register transducer depth as a default?

 

[jwilson]

I don't understand depth offsets. Should they be set so they are zero when you hit the ground, or at waterline level so they'll agree with charted plus rise of tide depth?

My echosounder only remembers offsets if I put batteries in it, so I don't. Can't you likewise force modern ones to just register transducer depth as a default?

It's the boat owners choice.

I always used to set depth offsets as "below keel" so you didn't go aground till it said zero. Easy enogh to add 2 metres to get actual depth. One day using the boat myself I was creeping inshore under tickover power avoiding a gaggle of near becalmed racing boats in the main channel, and trying not to make wash for them, when I thought "... is there really 2 metres of water here still?". A few seconds later we stopped. No problem, only very slow, reversed out and went deeper. Later found my depth offset had been changed to show actual depth. On Raymarine it requires multiple button presses in a precise sequence, not anything you could do accidentally. Once set it sticks til you reset through the menus.

 

[Gin]

I use depth under keel for fixed keel boats and depth of water for lifting keel

 

[capnsensible]

Coded boats certainly need them checked annually and records kept, plus two spare extra ones. However my coding surveyor is happy that I do this myself: inflate 24 hours, any that go soft replaced, otherwise gas canisters checked and weighed, and repacked. My two spares are always brand new ones, with new lights, that cycle into use as existing ones fail.

Mmm.

13.2 Inflatable liferafts, hydrostatic release units (other than the types which have a date limited
life and are test “fired” prior to disposal) and gas inflatable lifejackets should be serviced
annually at a service station approved by the manufacturer.

Go careful out there.

As a slight drift. I used to keep an old life jacket and some old cylinders on my school yacht. During YM prep courses, I would use it to demonstrate a few things. Whats it like when a gas LJ inflates. What the problem is with rusty cylinders i.e. nothing with the integrity of the cylinder, but that the rusty bits can rub the jacket material and cause weak spots. And finally deflating repacking and rearming. Never had anyone complain it wasnt useful!