Lifejacket CE Approval

Since July 1995, it has been illegal to sell Lifejackets or Buoyancy Aids that have not been tested to European specifications.

Every Lifejacket and Buoyancy aid sold by The Marine Warehouse is fully approved and carries the relevant CE mark.

Testing is carried out at the Fleetwood Testing Laboratory in Lancashire who are accredited by The United Kingdom Accredtation Service (UKAS) to the ISO 17025 standard.

There are several classifications for CE Approval.

CE standards deal with various categories of buoyancy performance, the big four are shown below. The rating is for an adult size so smaller sizes have proportionally less buoyancy:

EN393, covers 50N buoyancy aids, providing a minimum of 5kg of buoyancy. Products that carry this approval include our specialist range which includes anglers vests, waterski vests, pwc vests, wakeboarding vests, and the various dinghy and canoe vests.

EN395, covers 100N lifejackets, providing a minimum of 10kg of buoyancy. Products that carry this approval include our orange foam range of lifejackets for both adults and children.

EN396, covers 150N lifejackets, providing a minimum of 15kg of buoyancy. Products that carry this approval include the majority of our Manual and automatic lifejackets for both adults and children.

EN399, covers 275N lifejackets, providing a minimum of 27.5kg of buoyancy. Products that carry this approval include our specialist range of lifejackets for offshore use.

Buoyancy explained

Newtons, are a measure of force. 10 Newtons (or 10N in lifejacket speak) is equivalent to 1 kilogram of buoyancy. So a 150 Newton lifejacket (or 150N) provides 15kg of bouyancy. Remember these are the minimum buoyancy requirements for the European standard, so the actual vest or lifejacket may provide more.

Kids life jackets are commonly rated as 100N or 150N but they dont actually have that much buoyancy. For example a kids foam lifejacket size 10-20kg has 30N of buoyancy.