Life jacket

A life jacket also called life jacket is a device which makes it possible a person in the event of fall in water to more easily float. According to the type, the waistcoat makes it possible to preserve the head out of water, and ensures the reversal for an inanimate person.

Current standards

Called individual Equipment of floating (EFI)

European standards:

The European standards are of the type IN followed by a ex number: 393. They make references inter alia things to buoyancy which is expressed in Newton (Newton is a unit of force which is equivalent roughly to 0,102 kgf), plus this number is important plus the additional buoyancy brought by the waistcoat is important.

EN393 (50 NR) calm Water, does not ensure the reversal of a person, requires an active participation of the user.
EN395 (100N) Ensures the reversal under conditions (calm water - light clothing) at sea
EN396 (150N) Assurent the reversal by bad weather.
EN399 (275N) Ensures the reversal in open sea with strong conditions (Exclusively inflatable)
Gilets OMI/SOLAS Equipements of rescue.

The waistcoat (or the life jacket) must be adapted in the face (adult/child).

This device can be inflatable or not.

The life jackets standard marinades of color orange, red or yellow, are provided with systems reflecting, a whistle and a lamp whose battery is activated by sea water.

History

If the origins of the life jackets such as we know them date from the Second world war, those of the individual means of floating (E.I.F) are lost in the mists of time.

the old traces most important date from the time of Alexandre the Large one - 300 years front JC. Military manuscripts of the XIV° century give a report on inflatable floating leather belts or bladder of pig, being used to cross the rivers, with hunting or the war, in particular to reduce the knights in armor of François 1st at the time of the campaigns of Italy. Some inventions make their appearance with the XVII° century the such machine of this Gascon gentleman, Lanquer, which in 1675 defines itself its invention like " the shipwreck without danger, or the invention of a machine that one carries in his pocket and which makes you cross the rivières."

But the assistances with the floating are especially developed from a very military point of view, namely to make cross the fords by the foot soldiers without wetting the so invaluable powder to fight in Flandres and on the Rhine. The most important work on the matter is that of the abbot of the Vault in 1775, with the development of its diving-suit, or man boat. It will be the first with speaking about " to save shipwrecks without never running with the fond".

May it is necessary to await the XIX century old middle to see really appearing equipment of rescue, simultaneously with the development of swimming which is done at the beginning with floating costumes and assistances with the floating.

The idea that one can assist from the shipwrecked men is long to be binding to the sailor, whereas on ground farmers and workers seek to secure dangers of the risings. In 1827 the Mandy Captain is the first French sailor to recommend measures in addition to the traditional cord of to and from: " How much it would be important for the conservation of the life in the shipwrecks which each captain of building regarded as a duty towards humanity to make prepare on his board a hammock and stuffed cousins of chips or cork clippings, being able to be added around the body of the person so as to make him a floating belt, and to put it safe from any danger to drown ".

The first life jackets aboard ship appear under the term of “armor of rescue” in 1846. Because the concern of the sailors on the sailing boats is to protect itself from the falls of gréements during the shipwrecks and the drossages on the rocks. Very little practical and occupying much place aboard ships, these life jackets failed to disappear with the profit from the mattresses from rescue which filled dual employment and were considered to be more practical especially at the time of the transporting shipwreck of the ships of the passengers.

In France it is necessary to await the shipwreck of BRIGHT so that the Eugenie empress makes gift of life belts at the national marine.

It is not that in 1903 qu' a decree imposes the presence of the machines of rescue aboard passenger ships. The media shipwreck of steamer TITANIC in 1912 will push the great maritime nations with this equipping with an International convention on the Safeguard of the life at sea in 1929. Until the beginning of the Second world war the individual equipment is the life belts promoted mainly by the heroism of the rescuers such as the Wide Captain in the United Kingdom and the Commander Boytone in the U.S.A.

On another side develop in Provence, thanks to the trade with the Middle East, and thanks to the Company of Lièges Ouvrés of Provence, the life belts and the assistances to the floating conceived not to obstruct work or to be easily within reach farmers who undergo angers of rivers in believed like the Rhone and the Durance. By north of Europe, and because of the laws on the protection of workers taken in the German empire, arrive to France of the floating and tight working clotheses developed by the farmers in the salt meadow lambs.

It is finally sky, during the Second world war, that the modern concept of the individual equipment comes from floating. Indeed the aviation of Third Reich and that of allied are in front of the pressing obligation to save at all costs their pilots fallen to the sea, too rare and too expensive to form.

The Americans develop famous “Mae West”, the products anti-sharks, and especially the specialized teams of recovery, which will have like direct consequence the development of the helicopter.

The Germans develop combinations of survival and especially the inflatable life jackets out of synthetic fabric.

the International Maritime Organization, O.M.I, shapes in 1948 and defines by convention SOLAS of the distinctions between several kinds of machine of rescue:

collective machines: life rafts, machines floating, rafts, inflatable dinghies, individual machines: buoys and life jackets. The waistcoat inflatable however in service in the civil aviation since its beginnings are authorized in the merchant navy only in 1960.

It is at the time of the revision of Convention SOLAS in 1968, after the approval of the study on the reversal of the life jackets undertaken by the German Jost Bernhardt in 1959, that the life jackets take the form which we currently know.

The life jackets then have a power of floating of 7,5 kg and are supposed to turn over and maintain a person inanimate in a position of safety.

However the combinations of survival are adopted only more tardily still, after several catastrophes occurred at the time of the campaigns of the great fishing in 1977-78 and in industries offshore oil rig. A decree of March 1981 makes finally obligation to embark combinations of immersion aboard French ships.

In 1982, following a certain number of industrial accidents, the national technical committees of the Construction trades and Public works on the one hand, Stones with Fire on the other hand, request a study on the life jackets usable from work. From this study on 18 waistcoats of the time will be elaborate in 1986, French standard NF S 71-050 inflatable Waistcoats of safety and with permanent buoyancy for industry . It will be followed by technical recommendations on behalf of the organizations of prevention. This standard itself was replaced in 1995 by the new European standards on the life jackets, which for as much did not specify their use in situation of work, leaving an ambiguity between the E.P.I and the equipment of rescue.

In 1999 an European directive 96/98/EC comes to supplant the homologations SOLAS main roads of the type “marinades commercial” on the marine equipment, thus answering a desire of homogenization of the materials of rescue within Europe.

The Working clothes to integrated buoyancy

In certain situations (work with the fishing, the towing, the piloting, etc), the improvement of the safety of the people to work passes by a permanent personal protection. Working clotheses are currently available to integrated buoyancy (VFI) of various types:

the bolero
the girdle-buoy
the waistcoat inflating
the inflating waistcoat integrated

The IMP (maritime Institute of prevention) diffuses a plate concerning the assistance with the choice of this clothing.

A decree published in France with the official journal on August 22nd, 2007 now regulates by article 9 the port of VFI

At the time of the operations of fishing;
In the event of night-work, in the absence of visibility or in the event of unfavourable weather circumstances;
At the time of ways in appendices or the other light boats.

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