Dan buoy, and safety kit generally

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Mirelle

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Which make do people reckon is the best?

(Not interested in inflatable or retractable kind - just the simple ones)

I've been looking at a few, in the swindleries, and like a lot of modern safety gear for yots, the ones that I have seen seem a bit rubbishy and not the sort of thing that I would be inclined to trust my life, or anyone else's, to.

Likewise one sees a lot of horseshoe lifebuoys which don't sem very substantial, usually with a baffling selection of lifebuoy lights which somehow don't inspire faith either.

I may have a very heretical attitude, here, but if I cannot satisfy myself that something, partilcularly in the safety line, is really good, reliable, kit, I'd rather do without it.

<hr width=100% size=1>Que scais-je?
 
The recent magazine test of horseshoe bouys was quite illuminating. Many of them won't actually fit around a real human - too small at the opening, and too stiff to twist open. Hence pretty much useless

<hr width=100% size=1>Me transmitte sursum, caledoni
 
i reckon that at night the worst thing is finding the target. So, i bought £20 quid arm-strap flashing light viz severl miles.

thinking about this, in the fog it'd be no good, and one mite have to find by radar. Roll of bac foil wd do the job....

havin used throwlines and horsehoe lines for real, i can say that it's better to have more than one, as the first one gets flung badly in blind panic, the second with better aim.

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YM reckoned the Lazilas Horseshoe was the best buy because it was flexible; the open end of the U could be opened out to fit around you and then pushed back to make a snug fit. It was (of course!) the most expensive of those tested, but looked like a classic case of you get what you pay for, to me.

<hr width=100% size=1>Je suis Marxiste - tendance Groucho
 
Many of the cheaper e.g. Baltic horseshoe's have a cut Polystyrene block - so if you unzip the cover you can cut this into two sections and create a hinge with bodge/gaffer tape, this then allows it to open for the larger sailor

can't tell i was a fan of Blue Peter...

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That's interesting. Baltic was one of those that fared badly in the YM review. When I read it, I got my (slim!) wife to try on the Baltic we inherited with the 'new' boat this year. She couldn't get into it at first, tried to open it wider, and the foam inside audibly snapped!

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The lights that upright themselves in the water are generally useless - the only one I have found to consistently work is the Jotron.

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Talking of Blue Peter, didn't PBO do an article once about making a dahn buoy from a lemonade bottle filled with expanding foam and a big stick shoved through the middle? If you don't like the design of the commercial jobbies you can try and do it better yourself!

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Best dan buoy I have seen was one of thosen

Home made (not by me) a la PBO, using a fibreglass fishing rod, lead, and a big sort of Squeezy bottle full of rigid foam. Just about bomb proof, and floated well upright, even in a strong wind, with a nice big flag.

Reckon I may end up copying that, but will look at Jimmy Green's

<hr width=100% size=1>Que scais-je?
 
Thanks for that.

Jotron are type approved for merchant ships, and almost every ship in the world that trades internationally (c.26,000) has a few of them. Attached to solid, "Perry buoy" type, round liferings!

<hr width=100% size=1>Que scais-je?
 
I need to make a correction

The same would go for the other type approved makes of course, such as McMurdo.

<hr width=100% size=1>Que scais-je?
 
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