Rowing Life Jacket Capsize Review
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Life jackets in rowing are becoming more prevalent as rowers and legislators focus on water safety. In this video, Lachlan test drives a Sea to Summit Resolve Waist Belt Inflatable PFD by putting it through its paces with a series of capsize drills.
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Video Transcript
all right let's go
so today i'm going to be doing a bit of a review and testing out this uh little sea to
summit life jacket that i've got these things have uh sort of grown in popularity over the last few years as people become a bit more safety conscious and it's something that you wear around your waist so this isn't a self-inflating life jacket the idea is it's got a little toggle inside that you pull but only once you've put the life jacket on so i want to unroll this you can you wear it around your waist i did try this once before so at least i know what i'm doing i'd recommend anyone else who's uh doing it the same do the same you can pull it out unrolls put it over your head pull the inflator and and that's that's your life jacket and you've still got the waist strap around your waist to sort of hold it down and you can tighten that quite easily on land but i'm pretty keen to see what happens when we hit the water so another thing is when they when they're sold they come with this little toggle hanging out and that can easily get caught on something if you actually check the instructions it says to have the toggle enclosed when you repack the life jacket so just a little trap for young players there you can quite comfortably have it all in the one area it'll provide roughly 15 kilos of buoyancy which is more than enough to float the average human this one's rated at 40 kilos and above and it says it can be worn up to 5xl which i don't really doubt because i'm not exactly small and you know i've still got tons of room here like if i was to open it all the way up like like that's massive like so yeah i think um yeah i think one of the things i might like about this life jacket we'll see is that it's sort of it can sit behind there
and so i'm hoping that i'll be able to row along quite comfortably like that but as you can see i've got bow mounted rigger so it might end up hitting on that but i've got the gopro max so we can head out and see what it's like and i'm going to do a roll over i intentionally tip myself out of the boat see if i can get back in with the life jacket firstly um it's been a while since i've done one of these so hopefully i can still get back in the boat easy enough but also uh if i do that i'll tip myself out again and then i'll use the life jacket to put on and see if i can one put it on while i'm in the water uh without too much difficulty and two be able to either take it off or get back into the boat after having inflated it might happen so it's not automatic have to pull the toggle so it's going to be a little bit interesting to see how useful this is in like an emergency roll-in situation where you're not going to be prepared for it um yeah so that's a benefit with the harness life jackets like they're already in the right spot all you have to do is either let it inflate um if it's an auto inflating one or pull the toggle so this one might be a little bit harder to use therefore a little less safe but as you can see it's really compact and if the choice is wear a life jacket or don't wear a life jacket and this is the only life jacket you'll wear then i'd recommend it um some places have new regulations like here in tasmania and i'm asured that this one meets its standard it's got the right right numbers in the life jacket although i don't know it seems like a bit of a a grey area where you have to put all over your head um so yeah we'll we'll see how it goes
all right so i'm just going to leave this rolling hopefully i'll just make sure i'm out there somewhere where i fall in it's kind of shallow near the pontoon so i'll head out a little bit um so make sure i can roll it over without getting my oars caught or anything
so it just has a final check here to make sure my heel tires are tied down uh absolutely essential if you're gonna fall out of a boat and you know as fate would have it one of my heel ties would come undone so it just reiterates the importance of checking your heel tires every time you get in the boat um it's something that could save your life if you fall out and when the heel ties are in as you see when I go and do the exercise uh it's my feet just came straight out of my shoes didn't need to undo them at all as I was falling out the boat it's it's basically essential
so there's no real difference getting into the boat um you wouldn't really know you had a life jacket on you can feel a little bit of a a waist waist strap you know around you around your midsection just low be a lot more comfortable if i didn't have as much gut to get around but definitely not something that you'd think about has been an issue too much and i could see how rowing with it for a long period of time you just completely forget it was there um you know even after doing a few strokes i didn't really notice it anymore i'll have to try some of the the ones that go around you go around your shoulders some of those traditional sort of inflating ones uh just to see what it's like but um yeah this is this one's definitely doesn't get in the way i thought it hit on my bow rigger but as you can see i've got heaps of space there it might not be the same for everyone but yeah for me i've got heaps of room it just sits quite nicely there um behind me and it doesn't really worry me at all there's something very unnatural about tipping yourself intentionally out of a boat but uh yeah not too bad i guess
so as i was rolling over here you can see my feet came out really easily i still have my shoes done up so i hadn't undone them just to make the exercise a bit easier but yeah the life jacket didn't seem to provide uh much buoyancy if any um when it wasn't inflated i think it probably would float for a while if it was uh separated from you but um but yeah it's you really don't notice it's on there not doing much at this stage but it's not getting in the way either
whenever you fall out of a boat you want to be nice and calm with the way you get things together the moment you start to panic you start wasting time and the oars get away from you so just trying to lock the oars down here with one hand trying to get the blades flat on the water as well um or like slightly under the water doesn't really matter too much as long as they're in that flat position if they're in the squared position they won't provide any balance for you when you put any weight on them
so i think getting into the single with the life this life jacket on was no more difficult than if I didn't have the life jacket at all
well that wasn't too bad
really if you hadn't it reminded me
I reminded me i had a life jacket on i probably wouldn't have wouldn't have thought that it was there at all which i guess is useful if you control the situation but if you're not uh hard work so
heart rate's still up we'll uh tip it again um this time i'm gonna try and inflate the life jacket
so i'm just guessing suggesting holding on to the boats a good plan let me see if I can get this life jacket out
the boat still wants to float away from me very quickly it's not even that much wind today so i'm just conscious trying to get this life jacket out without activating it
okay
so that's around the right way now
all right let's go
not too bad i can adjust the uh still adjust the strap around my waist give me a bit more support but that's uh that's quite buoyant and i don't know if you notice my head only just fits through
we're getting a bit shallow, just have to swim it out a bit, the wind is blowing me onto the pontoon
But I tell you what even just having this life jacket on just around my waist the strap here that connects the two um it's quite almost quite relaxing just sitting here um yeah definitely takes a lot of stress out of the situation
so assuming we're going all right let's try to get back in the boat with this on I've got a feeling it's not going to get in the way but we'll find out
oh that was a bit more difficult
all right
try and get yours so they're flat or we'll be flat, just going to swim it out from the pontoon a little bit try to give myself a bit more room time to get in
okay
all right I'll come back and do it again
I'll try not to lose it this time
okay flat on the waterish let's try it again
you know there's a little lip to get it up over into the boat
apart from that not too bad you have to be pretty well versed in how to get into a single i mean it's not that I practice a lot but as you can see I'm still a little rusty trying to get in
okay now we're back in the single i guess we try and get this thing off and
okay so you could probably almost row but I reckon unless you are absolutely certain you're going to end up with a drink again i'd try taking it off
it does fit over my head just
Looks like I can just leave it out the side there you can deflate it by taking the mouthpiece out and turning it the other way around but like i think the chance to be doing that out here while trying to hold on to two oar um it's pretty unwise. I reckon there is a good chance that I'd lose it
i think interestingly enough getting into the boat the second time around worked better i just had a better idea of how hard I had to launch myself um out of the water but again something you have to practice to try and get right it's a beautiful warm day here you know i'd hate to think what it'd be like during winter or uh yeah
all right let me see if I can get this undo do this
all right
one life jacket all right so as you can see it blows up really tight i mean the pressure of the co2 canister seems to be more than enough for it you can sort of see the mechanism a bit here this goes down to the waist strap which is already on your waist so it was actually really quite easy once i got it out of the bag put it over my head it's really distracting though if you want to try and hold on to the boat and here i mean the wind just got up when i went out then it was you know not much it's still not that much but it doesn't take a lot to drag a single away from me my head only just fits over this and so i could imagine trying to to fit it when you were rowing along uh i was thinking maybe before i got here you could have it like just strapped to your rigger or something like that and while that's better than nothing like having on your waist at least you've got one part of the step secure and you know you're probably compliant if it's a requirement where you're from
so yeah I'm pretty sure all right this is pretty simple here so you just just take it out there
it looks like i wouldn't have lost it despite what i thought earlier
you know it's one of those things it's not much of a panic but it is a little bit
I guess you just have to be mindful of that when you capsize yeah so this is a really good bit of kit um i'd highly recommend people who don't have life jackets to get one i'm gonna have to try one of the yoke ones that come over the shoulder i'm pretty sure you can get it to sit relatively high on the chest might be a bit more restrictive while rowing but you know it might not be either so i'm going to give one of them go on another video but um as far as a good product goes i think the sea to summit is really um really quite a quite a good innovation when it comes to safety and rowing
so today i'm going to be doing a bit of a review and testing out this uh little sea to
summit life jacket that i've got these things have uh sort of grown in popularity over the last few years as people become a bit more safety conscious and it's something that you wear around your waist so this isn't a self-inflating life jacket the idea is it's got a little toggle inside that you pull but only once you've put the life jacket on so i want to unroll this you can you wear it around your waist i did try this once before so at least i know what i'm doing i'd recommend anyone else who's uh doing it the same do the same you can pull it out unrolls put it over your head pull the inflator and and that's that's your life jacket and you've still got the waist strap around your waist to sort of hold it down and you can tighten that quite easily on land but i'm pretty keen to see what happens when we hit the water so another thing is when they when they're sold they come with this little toggle hanging out and that can easily get caught on something if you actually check the instructions it says to have the toggle enclosed when you repack the life jacket so just a little trap for young players there you can quite comfortably have it all in the one area it'll provide roughly 15 kilos of buoyancy which is more than enough to float the average human this one's rated at 40 kilos and above and it says it can be worn up to 5xl which i don't really doubt because i'm not exactly small and you know i've still got tons of room here like if i was to open it all the way up like like that's massive like so yeah i think um yeah i think one of the things i might like about this life jacket we'll see is that it's sort of it can sit behind there
and so i'm hoping that i'll be able to row along quite comfortably like that but as you can see i've got bow mounted rigger so it might end up hitting on that but i've got the gopro max so we can head out and see what it's like and i'm going to do a roll over i intentionally tip myself out of the boat see if i can get back in with the life jacket firstly um it's been a while since i've done one of these so hopefully i can still get back in the boat easy enough but also uh if i do that i'll tip myself out again and then i'll use the life jacket to put on and see if i can one put it on while i'm in the water uh without too much difficulty and two be able to either take it off or get back into the boat after having inflated it might happen so it's not automatic have to pull the toggle so it's going to be a little bit interesting to see how useful this is in like an emergency roll-in situation where you're not going to be prepared for it um yeah so that's a benefit with the harness life jackets like they're already in the right spot all you have to do is either let it inflate um if it's an auto inflating one or pull the toggle so this one might be a little bit harder to use therefore a little less safe but as you can see it's really compact and if the choice is wear a life jacket or don't wear a life jacket and this is the only life jacket you'll wear then i'd recommend it um some places have new regulations like here in tasmania and i'm asured that this one meets its standard it's got the right right numbers in the life jacket although i don't know it seems like a bit of a a grey area where you have to put all over your head um so yeah we'll we'll see how it goes
all right so i'm just going to leave this rolling hopefully i'll just make sure i'm out there somewhere where i fall in it's kind of shallow near the pontoon so i'll head out a little bit um so make sure i can roll it over without getting my oars caught or anything
so it just has a final check here to make sure my heel tires are tied down uh absolutely essential if you're gonna fall out of a boat and you know as fate would have it one of my heel ties would come undone so it just reiterates the importance of checking your heel tires every time you get in the boat um it's something that could save your life if you fall out and when the heel ties are in as you see when I go and do the exercise uh it's my feet just came straight out of my shoes didn't need to undo them at all as I was falling out the boat it's it's basically essential
so there's no real difference getting into the boat um you wouldn't really know you had a life jacket on you can feel a little bit of a a waist waist strap you know around you around your midsection just low be a lot more comfortable if i didn't have as much gut to get around but definitely not something that you'd think about has been an issue too much and i could see how rowing with it for a long period of time you just completely forget it was there um you know even after doing a few strokes i didn't really notice it anymore i'll have to try some of the the ones that go around you go around your shoulders some of those traditional sort of inflating ones uh just to see what it's like but um yeah this is this one's definitely doesn't get in the way i thought it hit on my bow rigger but as you can see i've got heaps of space there it might not be the same for everyone but yeah for me i've got heaps of room it just sits quite nicely there um behind me and it doesn't really worry me at all there's something very unnatural about tipping yourself intentionally out of a boat but uh yeah not too bad i guess
so as i was rolling over here you can see my feet came out really easily i still have my shoes done up so i hadn't undone them just to make the exercise a bit easier but yeah the life jacket didn't seem to provide uh much buoyancy if any um when it wasn't inflated i think it probably would float for a while if it was uh separated from you but um but yeah it's you really don't notice it's on there not doing much at this stage but it's not getting in the way either
whenever you fall out of a boat you want to be nice and calm with the way you get things together the moment you start to panic you start wasting time and the oars get away from you so just trying to lock the oars down here with one hand trying to get the blades flat on the water as well um or like slightly under the water doesn't really matter too much as long as they're in that flat position if they're in the squared position they won't provide any balance for you when you put any weight on them
so i think getting into the single with the life this life jacket on was no more difficult than if I didn't have the life jacket at all
well that wasn't too bad
really if you hadn't it reminded me
I reminded me i had a life jacket on i probably wouldn't have wouldn't have thought that it was there at all which i guess is useful if you control the situation but if you're not uh hard work so
heart rate's still up we'll uh tip it again um this time i'm gonna try and inflate the life jacket
so i'm just guessing suggesting holding on to the boats a good plan let me see if I can get this life jacket out
the boat still wants to float away from me very quickly it's not even that much wind today so i'm just conscious trying to get this life jacket out without activating it
okay
so that's around the right way now
all right let's go
not too bad i can adjust the uh still adjust the strap around my waist give me a bit more support but that's uh that's quite buoyant and i don't know if you notice my head only just fits through
we're getting a bit shallow, just have to swim it out a bit, the wind is blowing me onto the pontoon
But I tell you what even just having this life jacket on just around my waist the strap here that connects the two um it's quite almost quite relaxing just sitting here um yeah definitely takes a lot of stress out of the situation
so assuming we're going all right let's try to get back in the boat with this on I've got a feeling it's not going to get in the way but we'll find out
oh that was a bit more difficult
all right
try and get yours so they're flat or we'll be flat, just going to swim it out from the pontoon a little bit try to give myself a bit more room time to get in
okay
all right I'll come back and do it again
I'll try not to lose it this time
okay flat on the waterish let's try it again
you know there's a little lip to get it up over into the boat
apart from that not too bad you have to be pretty well versed in how to get into a single i mean it's not that I practice a lot but as you can see I'm still a little rusty trying to get in
okay now we're back in the single i guess we try and get this thing off and
okay so you could probably almost row but I reckon unless you are absolutely certain you're going to end up with a drink again i'd try taking it off
it does fit over my head just
Looks like I can just leave it out the side there you can deflate it by taking the mouthpiece out and turning it the other way around but like i think the chance to be doing that out here while trying to hold on to two oar um it's pretty unwise. I reckon there is a good chance that I'd lose it
i think interestingly enough getting into the boat the second time around worked better i just had a better idea of how hard I had to launch myself um out of the water but again something you have to practice to try and get right it's a beautiful warm day here you know i'd hate to think what it'd be like during winter or uh yeah
all right let me see if I can get this undo do this
all right
one life jacket all right so as you can see it blows up really tight i mean the pressure of the co2 canister seems to be more than enough for it you can sort of see the mechanism a bit here this goes down to the waist strap which is already on your waist so it was actually really quite easy once i got it out of the bag put it over my head it's really distracting though if you want to try and hold on to the boat and here i mean the wind just got up when i went out then it was you know not much it's still not that much but it doesn't take a lot to drag a single away from me my head only just fits over this and so i could imagine trying to to fit it when you were rowing along uh i was thinking maybe before i got here you could have it like just strapped to your rigger or something like that and while that's better than nothing like having on your waist at least you've got one part of the step secure and you know you're probably compliant if it's a requirement where you're from
so yeah I'm pretty sure all right this is pretty simple here so you just just take it out there
it looks like i wouldn't have lost it despite what i thought earlier
you know it's one of those things it's not much of a panic but it is a little bit
I guess you just have to be mindful of that when you capsize yeah so this is a really good bit of kit um i'd highly recommend people who don't have life jackets to get one i'm gonna have to try one of the yoke ones that come over the shoulder i'm pretty sure you can get it to sit relatively high on the chest might be a bit more restrictive while rowing but you know it might not be either so i'm going to give one of them go on another video but um as far as a good product goes i think the sea to summit is really um really quite a quite a good innovation when it comes to safety and rowing