Selecting your automatic lifejacket

There are many reputable lifejacket manufacturers supplying the UK leisure marine market. The Marine Warehouse supply 'Marinepool' lifejackets.

Marinepool GMBH are Europes largest manufacturer of life jackets. Their range is synomymous with quality and value and the lifejackets are made in the EU.

Marinepool lifejackets were reviewed in Sailing Today Magazine in September 2003, as part of a long term test the Vario automatic life jacket scored 4 out of 5 stars!

Lifejackets are uncomfortable..

Many would agree its because they are uncomfortable and cumbersome to wear. Not true A properly selected lifejacket should be comfortable and you should hardly notice you are wearing it.

For example a 275N life jacket weighs in at nearly twice as much as our lightest 150N lifejacket, so we wouldn't use one for canoeing on our local lake!

This needs to be considered, there can be as much as 1 kilogram of extra weight between automatic lifejackets.

As part of our product descriptions in our store, each of our automatic lifejackets has a description of its typical use, and its weight, to help you decide which lifejacket is right for you.

Its essential that you wear the right lifejacket for the job at hand.

The cheaper models tend to be less comfortable and not have full safety harnesses. High specification 275N lifejackets have their uses, indeed we wouldn't be strapped into anything else in rough sea, offshore on a night passage, but arent necessary for general boating.

Lifejacket Comfort

We once made a long ocean passage and one of our crew spent all of his helm watch getting annoyed by a flapping lifejacket collar (not supplied by us!). Poor design resulted in a slapped neck every few seconds in force 4-5 wind!

There are subtle comfort differences between automatic lifejackets, generally the more you spend the better the comfort.

Manual or automatic lifejackets?

Many chandlers will happily sell you a manual only lifejacket. Why? - Because they are cheaper, they dont have the automatic inflator, so they are slightly cheaper to produce.

Believe us the last thing you need to worry about in a survival situation is manually activating your life jacket inflator!

Imagine getting knocked unconcious on the way into the water, not uncommon on a yacht, if you were unconcious a manual life jacket will do nothing for you.

Pay the extra few pounds and get an automatic lifejacket.