What is your lifejacket policy?

[rafiki_]

That only happens in movies, a mans head is rarely on the end of his feet as he's jumping off the bathing platform.

It’s only got to happen once.

 

[Hot Property]

My brother fell off a pontoon from his Thames riverboat as he was fastening the canopy. Luckily he was wearing an auto inflate lifejacket.

He was stuck in the Thames mud and, whilst someone saw him fall in, they couldn't get to him as there was a high metal fence and locked gate.

Fortunately he managed to extricate himself from the mud by using the buoyancy of the lifejacket and wade to the riverbank.

He ( and I) always wear them when afloat.

It's not a hard concept to grasp...

 

[ylop]

I have a friend with small children, they all wear life jackets apart from him. He says in one of them falls in (his youngest is 5 ish) he'll forget his PW2 man overboard, and simply dive in, no life jacket means he'll swim faster.

He might swim faster, but unless he’s an unusually good swimmer and/or in very sheltered waters he’s risks - cold shock, not getting to them anyway (seeing the casualty when you are both at water level is very hard), not being able to get the casualty back to the boat, not being able to climb back on board, etc.

 

[Boathook]

I have a friend with small children, they all wear life jackets apart from him. He says in one of them falls in (his youngest is 5 ish) he'll forget his PW2 man overboard, and simply dive in, no life jacket means he'll swim faster.

So who is in charge of the boat after he dives in ?

Years ago had a discussion with brother inlaw who said he would dive in if his children went overboard. I told him that it meant 2 people to be rescued rather than one and that normally the person diving in was the one who didn't survive. Not to sure on the survival bit but it made him think about the consequences.
The kids (my niece & nephew) always wore LJ when underway and could swim reasonably well in seawater, and they had been taught to always hold on to the boat when moving around.