Sherwin Dubren wrote in message ...
What you have not told us is what is the condition of the activator
bobbins in the vests. How old are they? Where were they stored before
using them? If you are not sure, I suggest getting some new activators,
and retesting. Then tell us what you find.

Sherwin D.

Parallax wrote:

Occassionally I have tested our autoinflate SOSpenders and have found
them to be unreliable. In about 30% of the time, I have had to
manually activate them. Anybody else have experience with this?

The activator bobbins are two yrs old when I test them by jumping in
the water with it on. I have done this three times. Twice mine
failed, and once my sons failed to inflate. However, recently, my 7
yr old daughter (who does swim was wearing hers and was playing at the
water edge (she was told not to go in the water) while I worked on the
boat deck a few feet away. Suddenly, I hear, "DADDY, DADDY" I looked
up to see that she had gone in the water on purpose and it inflated.
I guess she didn't remember seeing them inflate and was terrified.