Lifejackets

Since it’s winter and we can’t do much else yet regarding Linde, I’m mostly gathering a lot of information about all sorts of things. An important to-do on our list of preparations is to buy good life jackets.

But what is a good life jacket? On the Internet, opinions on this are diverse. In many videos you see various Spinlock vests. These will undoubtedly be good. But I came across a video by Uma. They show why they think the TeamO vest is a good choice. Watching that one, I understand it very well.

If you have the life jacket on and you are outside the cockpit, then it is very wise to secure yourself to a treadmill on deck using a safety line. If you fall overboard, you are attached to the boat. With normal life jackets/ harnesses, you are then expected to detach yourself from the boat if the rescue takes just too long. If you are attached to the boat for too long, you end up with your head in the water, which is not a pleasant situation… So if you cut yourself loose, it does mean that you then immediately drift away from the boat. At TeamO they have thought of something else for this. The system is called Backtow and is actually a line that you can activate when you are in the water. Once activated, you are not dragged from your belly, but from your neck. Your head turns upward and you can “quietly” wait for rediing while hanging from the boat. To make it even clearer, I recommend you go see Uma’s video.

In the vest of TeamO, later when we go to sea, a MOB AIS can be placed. This is possible with much more expensive vests and ensures that if you fall overboard boats in the vicinity receive a ManOverBoord signal on the VHF with a location. Also your own VHF will sound the alarm and other crew members will know immediately that there is a MOB situation.

In addition, the vest also contains a hood that you can pull over your head. So you get no salt water in your lungs because you can safely continue to breathe freely

All in all, we think we made a good choice with these TeamO vests. We have purchased 2 vests with all the options that will be mainly for me and Carla. The others can be worn by other crew members. We don’t expect these sailors to have to take care of things on deck, so the need for the Backtow is less present.

We found a great deal online and the unboxing could begin 😊

So, another item that can be ticked off our to-do list.