How to self-service an inflatable life jacket

A life jacket can spend most of its working lives stuffed away in a dark, damp hole somewhere on the boat, only seeing the light of day when crossing the occasional bar, navigating at night or hitting a patch of weather.

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Nothing thrives on neglect, and that’s the same with life jackets. That’s why regularly maintaining them is important – and more so when you consider that if your boat sinks, the life jacket will be the only thing helping you keep your head above water.

Each manufacturer has a different servicing schedule for the life jackets they make, so it’s an important check to make when buying one.

Some recommend servicing every 12 months (although we’d recommend a visual once-over of the jacket at least every six months), some let owners service them via a checklist, while yet others – particularly the high-end offshore life jackets – will need to go back to the manufacturer for a thorough check-over.

Have a look at the servicing documents that come with the life jacket to make sure that if you’d like to do it, you can.

The idea behind a self-service is that you inspect the life jacket for its overall health, looking for signs of wear and tear that may lead to failure when the jacket is deployed.

This includes all the stitching around the jacket, all the surfaces where rubbing or chafing are evident, and even inflating it to ensure the inflatable bladder holds air. This is usually overnight – important when you consider that’s how long you could be in the water before being rescued.

Maintenance is also needed on the compressed carbon dioxide cylinder used to inflate the jacket. That includes a visual inspection to check for signs of corrosion and weighing it on a small food scale to ensure it has not lost any of the gas charge.

And here’s a point – have you ever inspected a life jacket immediately after you’ve bought it? More often than not, the gas cylinder will be inserted loosely in its collar and could do with a tighten.

Boatsales.com.au uses automatically inflating life jackets donated by the Boating Industry Association of Australia. Everyone out on a boat test wears them, including photographers and videographers, as a precaution.

It’s always better to be wearing a life jacket in an emergency than to have to hunt around to put one on.