During Sunday 18th July the Royal National Lifeboat Institution brought a mobile demonstration unit to Bangor Marina to host a free lifejacket clinic.

The modern lifejacket, unlike its foam filled predecessor, is inflated by a gas cylinder, which is activated either manually or automatically. The mechanism used to initiate the inflation process requires inspection on a regular basis and, if it is found to be corroded, damaged or out of date, it should be replaced immediately. Unfortunately many lifejacket owners seem to be unaware of how to look after their lifejackets to ensure they function properly.

The free RNLI lifejacket clinic was manned by trained volunteers who not only under took lifejacket safety checks but also gave advice on what action to take.

During the afternoon 102 lifejackets were checked for safety and of those only 3 were considered not to have any potential problems. Over half of those checked had no crotch straps fitted. For a lifejacket to work properly it must be a snug fit and not ride over the wearer’s shoulders on entry into the water and In most lifejacket designs, a crotch strap is the only way to ensure this does not happen. Therefore, it is possible that without a crotch strap the lifejacket may not perform its function properly.

In addition, almost half of the lifejackets had rusty, loose or already fired gas bottles. Rusty bottles may have leaked gas already and therefore not inflate the lifejacket fully, and certainly loose bottles will leak gas when fired.

Peter Bullick the RNLI Sea Safety Officer for Bangor and Donaghadee said “This has truly been a very successful clinic as we have helped numerous lifejacket owners identify defective parts and have offered them advice on what remedial action to take. Disappointingly a high proportion of those checked had one or more potential problems, but we were very happy to have this opportunity to offer potential life saving advice to those owners.” Peter went on to say “We would like to thank Quay Marinas for their support and help in facilitating this event”.