If I may add a little bit in on this subject. Automatic inflation on life vest suspenders or otherwise, do have a place in the boat arena, but go fast performance boating is not one of these area. Whether you’re racing or running in Poker Runs, you need an adequate protection from impact and flotation. In an automatic inflation system, you have several things to consider;
1. If you high performance boat that flips and you’re pinned under the boat and your vest “automatically” inflates, it will have to be cut off of you before you are pulled down, to get out from underneath the boat. An air inflatable vest carries up to about 75 lbs of flotation, of which if you are awake, you will never be able to swim against it back to the surface without removing it. 2. If you have a manual inflation device, you control when it’s deployed. A manual system has one and sometimes two (as a backup) Co2 cartridges that are used for inflation, they also should have a manual inflation tube to blow into for inflation, if the Co2 fails. 3. In racing a Swit-Lik airvest or SRP’s AirVest are ONLY used for a canopy boat. This is because they are strapped into a cockpit. The vest are only inflated after, either they release them self or a rescue diver comes and gets them out. These vest are not designed for impact protection. A suspender type vest carries no impact protection either. It will floats you great, if you didn’t go flying out of the boat at 80 mph. If this is this case, don’t worry about it inflating, because chances are, it got ripped off of you as you tumbled across the water. As I know you (we) have all heard, water at high speed is as hard as concrete… Well, it’s harder, or more so, it’s worse. Water does not compress. If you were to be ejected from your boat at high speed, once you impact the water, you start skipping, and as you skip, an arm or a leg or part of you lifejacket penetrates the water. As your body continues, travel at speed, what ever penetrated the water surface, now stops or slows down, thus causing separation. This is why racing jackets or even high speed lifejackets are built so strong and built from ballistic material. They are designed not to, come apart on impact. They are also designed not to blow over your head (which is what the leg straps are for), for this can cause head trauma, broken arms and worse. Zippers are made not to come apart when water is forced through them and they shaped to prevent hydraulicing (which is water being forced through an opening, with no way to escape). Again, water does not compress, there for it destroys the weakest link. Anybody going fast, needs proper protection, whether it’s from; Lifeline, Security Race Products, Deist, or even some of the higher performance jet ski vest, such as HO, Connelly, O’Brien, Body Glove, etc. Listen, I know this I’ve seen this. You don’t want me to explain this in more detail; it’s not a pretty subject. If anybody has any question or would care to discuss this more, please feel free to contact me. I’m Ben Hedrick with Security Race Product, Offshore Racing Division. Email me and I’ll get you all my contact information. Sorry to have drawn this out so long.
Ben Hedrick
www.BenHedrick.com www.SecurityRace.com