Hafa Adai from Guam!
Does anyone have recommendations for choosing an offshore PVD with safety harness? What do you use and what would you definitely NOT use?
Cheers,
Dave
SV Faith
Dave,
We use our PFD's both for racing and cruising. All of them are made by Mustang Survival. All of them are automatic inflation models, all of them are hydrostatic models, two out of four have the built in harness.
That being said here is why...
A self-inflating PFD is fantastic as long as it inflates. If you own a manual inflation model (pull the cord style) and you get hit in the head as the reason for heading over the side, or as a result of exiting the vessel and loose your wits, who is going to pull the cord for you? A guest, a young person, or an elderly person may not have the wear withal in the event of an emergency, to find and pull the cord. Automatic inflation is the only way to go.
Automatic inflating PFD's are fantastic as long as they inflate only when you need them to. What I understand, typical auto inflating PFD's have a tablet that dissolves when wet. The dissolved tablet releases a pin that fires the valve assembly to fill the vest. I know of one such vest that self inflated in a locker due to high humidity. Go figure, high humidity aboard a boat! The inflation was so complete it blew the latched door off of the compartment. Broken door and non-usable vest, not good. The hydrostatic units must get wet and must have a minimum amount of pressure on the hydrostatic mechanism before they will inflate. Just getting wet from spray, rain or a boarding wave will not inflate the vest. In order to inflate, it must be submerged to a minimum depth. The vest will still have the manual inflation handle. This feature I suppose would come in handy in the event you are stepping up into your waiting life raft, and you just wanted to be sure you or your crew was ready to float. Hydrostatic auto inflation is the only way to go.
We carry many high quality safety harnesses aboard. Two of our PFD's also have the built in safety harness. It is just double protection. I will continue to wear just a harness when I go below. I will often remove my PFD when below. If something were to happen I could still snap on when entering the cockpit in an emergency. Doesn't hurt to have the harness built in the PFD.
The Mustang units are very comfortable. I never thought I would wear it as often as I do when cruising. You can't even tell you have it on. When we race our J-22 we all wear our PFD's always, in any type of weather, hot, cold, drifting, howling. J-22's don't have lifelines or rails as they get in the way. The only time we have had a unit deploy was when the manual pull handle got caught in the spinnaker guy while the pole went to the moon. The handle got sandwiched between the taught guy and the ribcage. My son thought the rig was coming down when he heard the pop and covered his head however it was the vest. The inflated vest was comfortable and had the head cushion. It was easy to repack however somewhat expensive. We now wear our pull cords tucked in to prevent inadvertent inflation.
I do miss my old fashion lifejacket if it is cool out as it provided some warmth. A conventional life jacket also provides some physical protection such as an inadvertent elbow from the sheet trimmer while tacking or having the tiller jamb you in the ribs (again while tacking). J-22's are a small platform when things go bananas.
One last bit of advice. We have a friend that went over the side while racing and his vest auto deployed. That was the good news. The problem was that the vest was underneath his zipped up foul weather jacket, and the inflated vest made it very difficult for him to breath pressing against the inside of the jacket. It was even difficult to get the zipper down to release the pressure. We do wear ours under our oilskins however.
We love our Mustangs. My oldest daughter even has a rare and coveted pink model. We talked to the Mustang people at the Annapolis show and they said that they were from a special limited run for an all women fishing trawler, and because they had to buy a minimum amount of pink material, made the rest available to the general public. I also notice that the boys that burn our taxpayer funded gasoline in the many patrol boats on the water also wear Mustangs. If we can afford to buy'em for them, we can afford to buy them first for ourselves.
Safe Sailing... Dale Tanski
Dale,
Thanks for the wealth of information in your response to my post. Based on your recommendation I will purchase a Mustang MD3154 and rationalize the price tag somehow.
Cheers,
Dave Morgan
SV Faith, Guam
If your going for an auto inflate of either type me sure and get into the habit of removing it when going below. Roger Stone safety officer aboard the Cynhtia Woods was lost when his jacked inflated as the boat violently took on water after loosing her keel, Roger was trapped below by his jacket.
Just get into the habit of removing it when below!
Ed