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.

"otnmbrd" wrote in message

I use a full "Float Coat" which probably uses the same or similar system.
On one occasion when I was about to jump into the pool to test, prior to
cleaning, I checked the system visually (it's covered under a flap) and
was surprised to see that the CO2 cylinder had become unscrewed from the
release ..... how, is beyond me, and I can think of all sorts of reasons
including "operator error".
Since I use this unit (wear, not immerse) almost on a daily basis,
checking the CO2 has become a much more frequent exercise.
Except for this one time, whenever I jump in for a "test", the unit has
worked as advertised.

otn

I can relate. I was inflating our inflatable lifejacket/harnesses manually
to test them. They kept pressure for a week and that was fine. I then
noticed that my wife's didn't have ANY CO2 cylinder. She had left it behind
on a boat after a delivery trip she did (because she couldn't fly with it on
the plane) and we forgot to replace it. Big ooops.

I
--
Evan Gatehouse

you'll have to rewrite my email address to get to me
ceilydh AT 3web dot net
(fools the spammers)

"otnmbrd" wrote in message

I use a full "Float Coat" which probably uses the same or similar system.
On one occasion when I was about to jump into the pool to test, prior to
cleaning, I checked the system visually (it's covered under a flap) and
was surprised to see that the CO2 cylinder had become unscrewed from the
release ..... how, is beyond me, and I can think of all sorts of reasons
including "operator error".
Since I use this unit (wear, not immerse) almost on a daily basis,
checking the CO2 has become a much more frequent exercise.
Except for this one time, whenever I jump in for a "test", the unit has
worked as advertised.

otn

I can relate. I was inflating our inflatable lifejacket/harnesses manually
to test them. They kept pressure for a week and that was fine. I then
noticed that my wife's didn't have ANY CO2 cylinder. She had left it behind
on a boat after a delivery trip she did (because she couldn't fly with it on
the plane) and we forgot to replace it. Big ooops.

I
--
Evan Gatehouse

you'll have to rewrite my email address to get to me
ceilydh AT 3web dot net
(fools the spammers)

(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?

We have tested ours by jumping in and they inflated as advertised.
Sometimes they inflate during use without our jumping in (possibly due
to humidity). We periodically renew that.

Although we only have one SOSpender and the other auto inflate PFDs
(which seem to erroneously auto inflate the most often) are another
brand.

grandma Rosalie

(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?

We have tested ours by jumping in and they inflated as advertised.
Sometimes they inflate during use without our jumping in (possibly due
to humidity). We periodically renew that.

Although we only have one SOSpender and the other auto inflate PFDs
(which seem to erroneously auto inflate the most often) are another
brand.

grandma Rosalie

I had a funny incident with a SOSpender auto-inflate. I wore it while
riding out a hurricane at a dock in North Carolina. As you can
imagine, the rain was pretty intense at times. I was concerned that
the vest would inflate while I was working on the deck and get in my
way. That never occurred. But after the hurricane passed over, I
took off the vest and laid it on a piece of plastic on a bunk.
Apparently I inadvertently laid it somewhat upside down. Within a few
minutes the water still on the cloth cover of the unit ran down and
under the flap protecting the activator and POOF, fully inflated. :-)

The only other experience was when my brother was sailing with me and
fell overboard (he swears that I was trying to drown him).
Fortunately, the vest automatically inflated very quickly.

Does anyone know of any advisory or instructions that recommend that
the dissolvable bobbin (that makes the auto-inflator work) be replaced
after a period of time? Or should the CO2 bottle be removed and the
mechanism be exercised to be sure it will work smoothly? The cost of
rearming makes it too expensive to actually try out the units and
waste the bobbin and the CO2 bottle.

The SOSpenders are so comfortable, I often wear them when I am just
working on the boat at the dock. Especially when there is no one else
around. When I am sailing I require everyone on board to wear them
whenever they are on deck. I sure would not want to discover even a
10 percent failure rate the hard way.

Lee Huddleston
s/v Truelove
lying Sea Gate Marina
Beaufort, NC

On Mon, 03 May 2004 19:04:10 GMT, (Lee
Huddleston) wrote:

I had a funny incident with a SOSpender auto-inflate. I wore it while
riding out a hurricane at a dock in North Carolina. As you can
imagine, the rain was pretty intense at times. I was concerned that
the vest would inflate while I was working on the deck and get in my
way. That never occurred. But after the hurricane passed over, I
took off the vest and laid it on a piece of plastic on a bunk.
Apparently I inadvertently laid it somewhat upside down. Within a few
minutes the water still on the cloth cover of the unit ran down and
under the flap protecting the activator and POOF, fully inflated. :-)

The only other experience was when my brother was sailing with me and
fell overboard (he swears that I was trying to drown him).
Fortunately, the vest automatically inflated very quickly.

Does anyone know of any advisory or instructions that recommend that
the dissolvable bobbin (that makes the auto-inflator work) be replaced
after a period of time? Or should the CO2 bottle be removed and the
mechanism be exercised to be sure it will work smoothly? The cost of
rearming makes it too expensive to actually try out the units and
waste the bobbin and the CO2 bottle.
IIRC, the instructions that come with the harness say the bobbin
should be relaced yearly. I don't have it right here to check.

I know I tested a pair of them last year that had not been tested
since the year I bought them, about 5 (hiss, boo). One of them had a
hole in it as I discovered after I used the manual inflator. It
gradually softened and was deflated the next day.



Rodney Myrvaagnes Opinionated old geezer

Brutal dictators are routinely reelected by 90+%
margins. Only in a truly advanced democracy can
one win an election by a negative 600,000 votes.