I was running in Long Island Sound on September 20th and stuffed my 25 OL pretty bad. My wife was severly injured and two of my friends were thrown out of the boat at 60mph. If my wife ever goes boating with me again I'd like to buy some life jackets with solid rib protectors in them (she broke 7 ribs and shattered her spleen, had massive internal bleeding and was taken by helicopter to the hospital). Do they make life jackets with hard inserts around the ribs and chest? Thanks for the help.

WOW,MY GUESS IS SHE IS NOT GOING ON THE BOAT WITH YOU AGAIN,JUST A GUESS.SORRY TO HEAR ,HOPE EVERYONE INVOLVED COMES OUT ALLRIGHT.HOW DID THIS HAPPEN,AND WHY DID IT HAPPEN?

I hope your wife and everybody comes out ok.

I don't know of any life jackets with 'inserts'...

Sounds like you were running too fast for water conditions. Instead of trying to find life jackets to prevent injuries, next time the best idea would probably be to just back out of the sticks and run 40 instead of 60.

60mph in a 25 Outlaw in how big of water???? If it was big enough water to stuff it then that was entirely too fast. Be happy that you, your wife and passengers are still breathing.

I wouldn't blame her one bit if she never went boating with you again. You don't need a PFD with a hard insert, you need to learn how drive more safely.

like others mentioned, probably the wrong trim setting and speed for the water conditions, but to anwser your question, Lifeline makes a open cockpit impact jacket, very bulky in front...but impact rated....

something tells me this guy didnt lay his terrible enough already story on the table to get trim and speed scolded?? I'm willing to bet he knows what happened and feels terrible enough already without the professional a$$ lashing from the OSO safety commitee

I have to agree with Boomer. Sure it was apparently unsafe; however, it's done, no one died, and he's going to hopefully learn fromthe experience. "Life coaching" can be a muthaf*****

Bro, sorry about your mishap. Hope your wife and all involved recover fully.

If your lucky, your wife will again boats with you.

Forget the boat, if you're real lucky, she won't cut you off for life (lol).

I was rummaging around on the net looking for Otterbox gerar, and found this site:

http://www.altrec.com/nrs/anti-gravity-shirt

Tht link is to an under the PFD shirt desigend to add bouyancy, warmth, and apparently, some degree of impact protection.

I know nothing at all about it personally, but hopefully, it will aid in your search.

Stay safe.

...Skipper

I'm a good friend of Jason's (JBOUTLAW) and we were together at Claudios when we heard what happened. Glad to hear everyone is going to be ok.... Like others have said, I'm sure a very hard lesson was learned from this..... See ya on the water in 2010....with your wife (hopefully!).
Jay

Dude, lesson hard learned, I stuffed a 27 Fountain before, it was no fun, bent the steering wheel and thrtottle, and got the biggest hit of water in the face I couldn't imagine I learned to take it easy after that.

X3