Re: PFD

Posted by Laszlo on Jul 28, 2007

Jim,

Absolutely not. All the kayak re-entries I've done have been with this PFD (uninflated) and it has never been an issue. The bottle is pretty small (somewhat larger than a seltzer charge) and it's completely contained inside the uninflated PFD.

The PFD is a nylon harness with a heavy nylon shell. The shell is folded around the uninflated bladder, CO2 bottle and inflation mechanism and secured with heavy duty velcro. The whole thing is actually thinner than many standard kayak PFDs I've seen.

The shell contains & streamlines everything so that the only thing sticking out is the inflation tab, which hangs out the bottom of the right side. Pulling the tab allows the CO2 to flow from the bottle into the bladder. As the heavy nylon bladder inflates, it pops open the velcro closures on the shell and expands to a substantially larger size than kayak PFDs, providing more buoyancy than they do. This also exposes the manual inflation tubes, whistle and the reflective tape, as well as changing the predominant color to bright yellow. The buoyancy distribution is such that an unconscious user will float face up.

I hope I'm not sounding like a PFD salesman here. I'm just trying to give anyone who's interested an accurate description based on my own experiences so that they can make an intelligent decision about which type of PFD works best for them.

Have fun all,

Laszlo

http://stores.implex.net/sailboats/images/products/MD3003large5.jpg

In Response to: Re: PFD by Jim E on Jul 28, 2007

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