We have been wearing the same inflatable lifejackets for about 7 years. And as every winter, I serviced and tested it. The key word being TESTED.
Everything looked fine, but once immersed in the bathtub and inflated, it would retain its gas for about 15 minutes before deflating. Wear or UV rays had deteriorated it to the point of uselessness. I had an identical one stored away since 7 years which upon test worked perfectly and retained its floatation capability for over a month. Nevertheless, why taking chances? This is the cheapest life insurance, after all.
What would be a good replacement? We have considered infallible PFDs with integrated harness. However, disregarded it quickly when we could not find a model capable of turning a body around without a huge and fastidious collar.
Our requirements:
- Light and comfortable. A good lifejacket is one you want to wear.
- Modular. We want a lifejacket that can be stripped to its basic function of floatation as well as equipped with anything to enter a OSR Cat 3 race.
- Integrated harness
- Capable of turning around. I had the unpleasant experience to get a boom across my face once and passing out, sailing alone under autopilot. Had I fell overboard, I would not be writing this.
- Does not break the bank
Spinlock Lifejacket Deckvest Lite Plus
A new release by Spinlock, Deckvest Lite Plus upgrades the popular Deckvest Lite model with a harness loop and ticks all the boxes.
At 860 grams, it is ridiculously light. In fact lighter than my offshore jacket! The U shaped collar helps it rest on the shoulders rather than neck, making it very comfortable.
For club racing, any PFD does the job, however, at 170N, this little friend keeps us safer during solo coastal cruises or short double-headed offshore races.
The Spinlock Lifejacket Deckvest Lite Plus comes with very little extra kit (in fact only the flashing LumeOn light is included), but it is compatible with EPIRB, hood, various pockets and so on (here all compatible accessories)
All specs here
In general, the quality seems very high and all details carefully thought through – a typical feature across Spinlock range.
Below some close-ups.
The Quick Burst Zip helps expanding with minimal resistance.
The Spinlock LumeOn lights, lightening up the whole bladder, for additional visibility.
And the manual activation handle, in case of automatic activation failure.
Looking forward to wear it and never need it!