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LIFEJACKETS
(THROUGHOUT THE AGES)

Safety & Survival

Library Catalogue

     Throughout the years devices to keep the human afloat have been given different titles – life belt, lifejacket, life preserver, Mae West, life vest, buoyant vest, personal flotation device, flotation aid. The concept of inflatable devices is not new, dating back to at least 870BC when inflated animal skins were used by attacking armies to cross a stretch of water, e.g. moat, to attack a battlement. Nor is the idea of an inherently buoyant personal flotation device new.
      A Frenchman, Colonel de Gelacy, is reputed to have devised a cork lifejacket as far back as 1757. At the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 personal life-saving equipment was non-existent. Both English and French sailors spent hours in the water clinging to flotsam and jetsam until rescued.
      During this period drowning of sailors and fisherman was considered to be an occupational hazard and was not alarmist to the general public. In fact the Admiralty at the time gave little official acceptance as a lifejacket was considered an aid that a ‘pressed’ sailor might use to jump ship.

EARLY CORK LIFE PRESERVER

     It took a disaster the magnitude of the SS Titanic in 1912 to shake the international community into a simple agreement on the requirement to stow a lifejacket with 15lbs buoyancy for every person including children on passenger and merchant vessels. 673 crew and 817 passengers perished in the Titanic disaster. Many countries did not manage to implement this until after the first World War.
      Other horrific tragedies included the sinking of the Empress of Ireland in May 1914 when the ship sank in 14 minutes in the Gulf of St Lawrence with the loss of 1,102 lives. A great many of the bodies were found slumped in their lifejackets with their heads under water. Little heed was given to the mechanism of how they died.
     It is little known that between 30,000 and 40,000 officers and men of the Royal Navy lost their lives through drowning in the Second World War, principally because a personal issue lifejacket did not exist.
In 1957 the German sailing ship Pamir, one of the famous flying P-Line ships, a four-masted barque with steel hull, sank. She carried a crew of 86 - 52 of whom were merchant seamen cadets. The search for survivors lasted for nine days. However, only six crewmen of whom two were cadets were rescued alive. The shipwreck was perceived as a tragedy around the world.
      Two recent tragedies are the sinking of the channel ferry the Herald of the Free Enterprise in 1987 at Zeebrugee, Belgium, with the lost of 188 lives and the MV Estonia in 1994 in the Baltic Sea when 912 lives were lost. The introduction of iron ships meant that ships sank rapidly when holed, giving little time for those below deck to make their escape and because they were iron there was less flotsam to use for flotation.

The use of cork for lifejackets was the first choice as balsa and bamboo were too expensive. Narrow strips of cork fitted together so that the lifejacket moved with the crew member’s body. It was bulky and hard to stow but provided good buoyancy.

At the start of the century a new material, kapok, was introduced. Kapok had the properties which made it ideal for lifejackets. Its follicles have a natural oil which made them entirely non-absorbent of water while the air contained in these follicles gave a very high buoyancy. The brown canvas-covered kapok jacket remained in use until the late 1940s. These jackets had a buoyancy rating of 3.5 times that of the previous cork jackets.
Until the end of the Second World War the cover of the lifejacket had been constructed from fabrics dyed in the traditional Navy, Army or Air Force colours. These colours provided excellent camouflage from the enemy but made detection by rescuers difficult.

KAPOK JACKETS USED BY THE US NAVY

     In 1956 it was noted during the Andrea Doria accident that those survivors wearing lifejackets made of yellow fabric were much easier to spot in the water. The trend has been to use fabrics dyed with a colour spectrum ranging from canary yellow, international orange to scarlet.
      By the end of the 1960s kapok was being phased out and replaced by closed cell foam. This material is still used today in recreational personal flotation devices 1, 2 and 3 and coastal and SOLAS lifejackets used commercially.
      With the advent of aircraft, early aviators developed many novel ideas including modifying kapok lifejackets to suit their own need. The US Navy had pneumatic lifejackets in service in the 1920s and introduced their B-series of pneumatic lifejacket in the 1930s. Nicknamed the ‘Mae West’ this lifejacket remained in service with the Navy and the Army Air Service until well after hostilities ended in 1945.
      The Royal Air Force introduced their own inflatable Mae West in 1932. Initially puffed up orally, it was later inflated using CO2.

WW II MAE WEST

     German fighter pilots also used an inflatable lifejacket which used compressed air rather than CO2. It was generally superior to the one used by the Allies because it had greater buoyancy and, later, more head support. There were many development problems although, after WWII, it was confirmed by US aviators that the fit of the lifejacket was critical as was good training in its operation and maintenance. The most important conclusion of all was that the inflatable lifejacket was the most useful single piece of over-water equipment issued to aircrew during WWII and the Korean War.
      As a result of the Pamir sinking the late Jost Bernhardt was inspired to develop and produce the first inflatable lifejacket for commercial and recreational use. These lifejackets are marketed under the name SECUMAR, an abbreviation for ‘securitas in mare’ meaning safety at sea.
      There are many inflatable lifejacket manufacturers other than SECUMAR, for example International Safety Products, Mullion, XM Quickfit, Sospender, Mustang, Crewsaver, Cosalt, Kadematic, Remploy, Viking and Baltic to name just a few. These lifejackets have various buoyancy ratings depending on the size of the CO2 cylinder. These manufacturers use a variety of inflation devices both manual and automatic being Secumatic, Kadematic, Halkey Roberts and United Moulders.

NEWTONS & BUOYANCY

     Newtons are a measure of force – in this case the upward force achieved by the buoyancy of an inflated lifejacket.
      Ten Newtons are roughly equivalent to 1kg (2.2lb) which means that 150N equates to 15kg of lift, enough to support a person not fully capable of helping himself.
• The British Standard/European Standard exists for a range of four types of buoyancy garment:
      a. 50N buoyancy aids (EN393)
      b. 100N lifejackets – sheltered waters (EN395)
      c. 150N lifejackets – offshore with foul weather clothing (EN396)
      d. 275N lifejacket – offshore in extreme conditions with heavy                        protective clothing/tool belts (EN399).
• PFD Type 1 (AS 1512-1996) requires only 87N buoyancy for a person 60kg and over.
• PFD Type 2 (AS1499-1996/AS2260-1996) requires only 53N buoyancy for a person 60kg and over.

PFD 2

PFD 3

PFD 1

   With increased popularity of recreational boating, drowning has become a major cause of death in young males from 18-24 years of age. Drowning is often associated with alcohol consumption. The majority of victims have not been wearing a lifejacket. Efforts to reduce this tragic loss of life should he directed to a jacket design suitable to the macho-image high-risk group. Novel methods of marketing and education should be developed to persuade this latter group to wear and correctly maintain a lifejacket at all times. The overall rate of drowning worldwide has been reduced substantially to an estimated four per 100,000 population per year.
      Time and time again investigators find that the victim of a drowning accident did not wear a lifejacket. Time and time again we hear the same story … it was too hot, too bulky, too uncomfortable, got in the way, the wrong colour, did not feel good … and so on.

      Today lifejackets and personal flotation devices are categorized as:
                  • Recreational PFDs;
                  • Coastal and SOLAS inherently buoyant lifejackets;
                  • Inflatable lifejackets for offshore yachting, commercial and PPE equipment, and
                  • Aviation use for passenger and operational dressed pilots and crew.
      Many lifejackets are now fitted with additional items for rescue such as personal rescue light; strobe light; EPIRB; sea-marker dye; heliograph; mini flare kit; crutch strap and integrated yachtsman safety harness.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

This article was researched & written by Graham Murray. He served with the Dept of Defence for 27 years. For the past 17 years he and his wife Beth have run Marine Occupation Safety Service (M.O.S.S) - a business specializing in inflatable lifejackets and liferafts for marine, aviation and OH&S. Their company has a CASA Certificate of Approval.

INFLATED LIFE JACKET

INFLATABLE LIFE JACKET

Safety & Survival

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