LifeJackets - is everyone a pansy these days?

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Don't let the voice of one contributor put you off ... can I ask ... off the top of your head .. what is the % of SAR that involve a person in the water (or recovered from the water) ... ?

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I suggest that the MCA would have those statistics. My experience is limited to a small corner of Britain with few pleasure sailors. Thankfully MOBs are rare and of the jobs I attended, the percentage where people were actually in the water was perhaps around 5%. Strangely most were in benign conditions. All of them were fatal. Over half of the bodies were never found.

That is why I wear a lifejacket and also clip on where possible.
 
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I would agree a harness has equal importance .......

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That is a great example of the concern that several here have been trying to raise. Under most circumstances on a yacht, a properly used harness is MASSIVELY more important than a lifejacket. Wear a LJ or don't, that is your call, but understand its limitations and real value.

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Well said!
 
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I would agree a harness has equal importance .......

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That is a great example of the concern that several here have been trying to raise. Under most circumstances on a yacht, a properly used harness is MASSIVELY more important than a lifejacket. Wear a LJ or don't, that is your call, but understand its limitations and real value.

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Well said!

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I'll second that, VERY LOUDLY!!! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
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Seems to me ( and I advocate being clipped on) that the harness and life jacket combination could be the best solution all round?

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Since inflatable LJ's came along there seems no reason not to have an LJ incorporated in your harness.
 
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Seems to me ( and I advocate being clipped on) that the harness and life jacket combination could be the best solution all round?

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Since inflatable LJ's came along there seems no reason not to have an LJ incorporated in your harness.

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Well like I said, I have both, harness equipped LJs, and just harnesses, I use both, but if truth be told, I prefer to just use a harness, I don't really know why? It could just be a comfort thing?

Then again, could just be that I am a brain dead old fart that doesn't like being told what I ought or ought not be doing! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

OK, hands up, I just prefer not to wear a life jacket, unless I deem it sensible to do so, but I am coming at this question from the point of view of the single hander, which as I already said, is somewhat different to the young couple or the family out sailing.
 
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My message has never been to say that the lifejacket is one stop fix all.

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Re-read your original post!

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But what I do believe is that a simple lifejacket is the most cost effective way of dramatically increasing your chances should you end up swimming.

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If we chucked two healthy guys mid channel right now, one with LJ and one with GPS EPIRB and effective protection from the cold I know which one I think would be overwhelmingly more likely to come out alive.
 
Yes - but the LJ wasn't really at fault there - it was the mistake in head count that was the final error resulting in the loss of life.
 
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Yes - but the LJ wasn't really at fault there - it was the mistake in head count that was the final error resulting in the loss of life.

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Did you actually read the report? As I understand it, and the pertinent part to this thread, had she been wearing a normal lifejacket, or none at all, she may well have survived. The litany of other failures beggars belief but she inflated her supplied lifejacket and drowned.
 
TBH no, I didn't have time - I read the first bit about she was wearing the wrong type of LJ and came up under the hull ... it's a bit of bad luck there ... any flotation device will bring you to the surface, yes she should've been wearing the "proper" one ... what was the proper one? I assume the right one for her size ...
Have you been under an upturned hull? I have, quite a number of times although all dinghies ... the wayfarer was best - loads of room ... Laser2k was horrible - no headroom at all ... wouldn't even contemplate on an RS800 .. doubt there is an airpocket - can't be much on an RS400 either ... not something I would wish on anyone ... but it was down to bad luck in the end ... unless all of them except the girl were wearing the right LJ ... which I doubt ...

But it does restate the message that a LJ is not 100% guarentee that you will survive ...
 
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Perhaps he can also tell us how many of those he has personally attended?

[/ QUOTE ] Surely that is irrelevant!

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If it is irrelevant it could only be because you know the chances of any particular SAR person having attended a man overboard from a boat over 30 foot is practically zero.

Why? because the risk for a particular individual of going overboard and drowning off vessels longer than 7m (eg the length in the Irish rules) is practically zilch. If you fish drowning figures out for almost any western country you will see that is so.

The amusing thing about threads like this is it is clear that there are quite a number who have no idea what the risk really is, so over react just in case, and who also do not seem to understand how to assess risk. Frankly they would be better off looking to more important things.

For example, how silly can people get when they say because someone drowned from a dinghy that makes them think it wise to wear lifejackets all the time no matter what they are on and no matter what the conditions /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif.
 
So what is the number of people who fall off boats, LJ go off and they are recovered without recourse to the Emergency Services?

Your figures are saying that virtually no-one who fell off a boat drowned. How many fell off? How many were wearing LJs? To get to the benefit of LJs you need to know how many they helped/saved rather than the number of people they didn't.
 
from : http://www.rospa.com/waterandleisuresafety/drownings/2002statistics.htm

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The drowning problem

RoSPA’s compilation of annual UK drowning statistics since 1983, has shown that the pattern of the drowning problem has remained essentially the same.

A drowning prevention strategy relies on a knowledge and understanding of the problem, and identification of trends and ‘target’ areas. The figures help to identify who drowns, where they drown, and why.

The risk of drowning is small, with a death rate due to drowning of 0.8 per 100,000 in the UK each year. However, wherever someone is in, on or near water, the potential for drowning exists. It is essential therefore, that prevention measures are targeted towards the people and situations identified as ‘at risk’.

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22 out of 427 where involved in boating when they drowned (in 2002).

It doesn't give how many were saved or wearing LJs ...
 
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If it is irrelevant it could only be because you know the chances of any particular SAR person having attended a man overboard from a boat over 30 foot is practically zero.

Why? because the risk for a particular individual of going overboard and drowning off vessels longer than 7m (eg the length in the Irish rules) is practically zilch. If you fish drowning figures out for almost any western country you will see that is so.

The amusing thing about threads like this is it is clear that there are quite a number who have no idea what the risk really is, so over react just in case, and who also do not seem to understand how to assess risk. Frankly they would be better off looking to more important things.

For example, how silly can people get when they say because someone drowned from a dinghy that makes them think it wise to wear lifejackets all the time no matter what they are on and no matter what the conditions /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif.

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What statistics are you reading?

From the paper I posted a few days ago...

"According to The Canadian Red Cross Society (2003), drowning is the leading cause of death for recreational and sporting activities in Canada. In addition to the incommensurable suffering and personal losses, the economic cost associated with those incidents is estimated to be over CAD $10 billion in Canada alone (The Canadian Red Cross Society 2003). Cold water is reported in 36% of recreational boating drownings and is the principal cause of death in 34% of non-drowning boating deaths (The Canadian Red Cross Society 2006). Between 1991 and 2000, 2007 persons died of cold-water immersion in Canada (The Canadian Red Cross Society 2006). For the British Columbia fishing industry alone, 95% of drownings occurred in water with a temperature below 15 °C (Brooks et al. 2005). These statistics clearly indicate that prevention of cold-water immersion fatalities is a significant public health issue for Canadians." (Ducharme, 2007).
Although this is Canadian, it has significant parralels to that of the UK.

http://www.mcga.gov.uk/c4mca/mcga-safety...ap-statdata.htm
This shows goverment statistics of industry. It points out that marine and quarrying industries are the most common cause of work related death.

And from the RNLI fishing stats (I couldnt find any for leasure on their site)
http://www.rnli.org.uk/assets/downloads/17889%20lifejackets%20trawling-LR.pdf
This points out that 96% of fishing deaths end up with the crew in the sea. It also points out that fatalities occur at 27% from MOB, 27% from capsize, 33% from leaks/swamping. Their other brochures also discuss many of the points we have and statistics show a 900% uptake in LJ wearing as a result.

Obviously none of these statistics are directly for sailing and nor do they indicate the actual likelyhood of falling in however, there are still significant parralels and does make you think.
 
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22 out of 427 where involved in boating when they drowned (in 2002).

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And the pattern in western countries is that the vast majority of those drownings involving boating will have been from smaller open boats (again, the reason why countries like Ireland make 7m the breakpoint for their legislation). Also, the majority of the few from larger boats are typically from sinkings.

Far more drownings occur away from boats than on them, as Fireball's quote shows. In fact in most western countries there are more drownings of people while not undertaking any water sport at all eg falling in while going for a walk, motor accidents, taking a bath, than those who drown while they are taking part in a water sport eg swimming, fishing, boating, etc.

And to satisfy Sailing86, who quotes percentages and not numbers, locations and causes, I will quite happily concede that of the 22 who drowned in the above quote while boating, 100% of them drowned in water and I would expect that for 100% of them the water was cold, not warm.
 
What complete and meaningless statistics ... 100% of ppl reading this screen believe that that was complete drivel ...

96% of fishing deaths end up with the crew in the sea ... what is the total NUMBER of deaths ... is it 100 ? is it 1000? it was taken over a 10 year period, that is the only hard and fast figure in the report ... what a complete and utter WASTE of bandwidth!
 
Thats what the RNLI says anyway!

However, if you look at the MCGA statistics, it says for sea fishing there are 83 deaths in the 4 year period (20 and 3/4 of a person per year!) and 22,400 people employed in one year. That then gives each individual a risk of 1.2 x 10-3 per year.

If you then consider these figures with the RNLI precentages (slightly bending the statistics), 5.6 people die/y from MOB (27%), 5.6 people die/y Capsize (27%) and 6.8 people die/y leaks/swamping (33%). ALso 19.9 (96%) of fatalities/y end up in the water.

The values are not high when compaired to other causes of death, but are still significant.
 
What the RNLI says is completely useless information ..... as they give you no hard figures on what they are basing their stats on. As I said - 100% of the ppl reading this screen believe that information to be useless ... (sample size 1 ... ie me!)

Sorry ... less than 0.1% of the ppl employed in fishing die each year ... and 0.08% of the working fishermen end up in the water ...

It doesn't have stats for those that died wearing lifejackets or not and takes no account of the way in which these ppl lost their lives.

Throw stats at me as much as you like, they are not proof of anything ... but I still consider (for myself) that drowning at sea is an exceedingly low risk and only slightly increased during inclement weather which is then reduced again by clipping on (with the LJs harness!)
 
The number of drownings is largely irrelevant as what we are really interested in is the number of savings.

It would be like saying that workers in factories don't need steel toecaps because there are very few toe crush injuries.

P.S. It is upto the individual if he doesn't wears a LJ just as it is for those who do. If you want to persuade people not to, find the evidence that they don't save people.
 
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