Great price, and every boat should have life vests readily available. The only drawback I could see is the color. I think it should be brighter in case you need to be located.
“should have”?
How about it’s a coast guard requirement?
Limit is six and at these prices, I maxed out. Adult is 9.99, others are 7.99.
Great deal woot! Sellout is likely unless they have a ton to sell.
Get these before you go to adventure park and you won’t have to wait in line for the sweaty used ones.
[QUOTE=maurakid, post:3, topic:356513]
“should have”?
How about it’s a coast guard requirement?
[/quote]
There is no Coast Guard color requirement for recreational boating. That being said, I would not use use a Level III life jacket on open waters: simply not enough buoyancy for an extended stay in choppy waters, especially if there is weather or injury involved - or if someone has been drinking alcohol.
Friendly reminder: if you have a dog on your boat and are more than about 100’ from shore, dog needs a life jacket too.
The only useful life jacket is one that you will wear.
Are these Coast Guard approved?? Oklahoma Law says that anyone being towed by boat, must be wearing a Coast Guard approved personal flotation device.
I’ve done a bit more reading about these specific life vests (RAVE Sports Universal Life Jacket). Technically, these are not “life jackets” at all: they’re vest-type floatation-aids. That difference is not semantics; these are intended to help you float, not to save lives. I don’t know anything about maritime law in either Texas or Washington, but these could not be marketing as “life jackets” in the state in which I grew up (at least without an additional disclaimer that woot is not displaying; woot, I assume you ran this write-up by Legal, yes?)
Someone mentioned a water park and maybe these would be okay for that, but I’m having a hard time justifying these life jackets in any situation, with one exception: if you live on the water, regularly have guests, but do not regularly have guests with infants, the infant life jacket is an affordable option to keep in the shed for the one or two infants that might stop by a year.
As far as I can tell, these life jackets do not turn an unconscious swimmer face-up (except for the infant life jacket). That’s a key feature of any life jacket, even one used in calm waters within visual sight of shore. It doesn’t matter how strong of a swimmer you are under normal circumstances: if you end up in the water, your circumstances have deviated from “normal.” If a canoe flips, for example, the chances of getting bonked in the head are high enough that you’d want a life jacket that would keep you face-up: it doesn’t matter if your body is floating if your face is in the water. Might be faster to locate your corpse instead of waiting for it to re-float in a few days, but that’s not really the primary goal. Remember too: if you are an adult on the water with children, if you are injured in whatever circumstances landed you in the water, the children need to be forced face-up, possibly for an extended period of time, possibly while panicking. And if you’re not injured, you might still have an injured child, a non-swimming child, a child not capable of swimming to shore, or a panicking child that you are responsible for protecting. In other words, if you think you’re okay in a boat without a life jacket as long as the children are wearing life jackets, picture what happens after you all end up in the water: you need to be wearing a life jacket so you can help others in the boat.
To borrow a picture from amazon of an infant life vest, you really want something like this:
188x250
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61RmOT8sd9L.jpg[/img]
See how the “pillow” in the back forces the face up? That’s what you want for recreational boating on closed-systems (i.e., if you’re in open ocean, you need something better). I grew up withvest-style life jackets that look like these:
280x280
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41v2PACpphL._SS360_.jpg[/img]
One additional advantage of these life jackets is that they adjust more accurately than the style woot is offering today: you simply tighten the strap around the middle of the abdomen. This is especially important for children: the style woot is offering does not adjust enough for the typical child: you need to be able to pull the life jacket up from the shoulders and have the part that wraps around the neck (vest-style) or the “collar” (inflation aids) stay below the chin, or the life jacket will merely keep your child floating eyes-to-forehead above water. Again, the wait to pull dead bodies out of the water is indescribably awful and anything that aids retrieval isn’t bad, but that’s not the primary purpose of a LIFE jacket. (Growing up, we had small-kid, big-kid, small-adult, large-adult: they really need to fit properly in order to be useful.)
And yes, all our life jackets are that lovely orange; we all have brown hair and at a distance, hair blends into the water. Orange life jackets don’t blend into anything (except a pile of orange life jackets when Grandma says the hamburgers are done cooking). Oh, and we have a few of these as seat cushions; in retrospect, I’m not sure what good they would do, but they’re nicely sized for the average canoe seat, which is usually rock-hard anyway. Ours were neon blue, but these are sufficiently bright, IMHO. 
When I mentioned the wait to pull a dead body out of the water, I’m not kidding. My family has never lost someone (pray God - and wear life jackets) but I’ve lived through five separate occasions when the police divers closed the water for 24-36- once 72 excruciating hours (a high school senior who drowned the night before graduation: the ceremony was postponed until they finally found his body and pulled it out; no, he was not wearing a life jacket; yes, it was dark out; yes, he was drunk and so was everyone he was with, which likely impaired their efforts to save him). Wear life jackets. But not these “life jackets.” And make sure your life jackets fit and are properly adjusted (loosen completely, pull overhead, tighten chin strip/ties if there is one, then adjust abdomen strap; children and teenagers should have the fit checked by an adult) every time that you put them on.
[QUOTE=Skidi, post:7, topic:356513]
Are these Coast Guard approved?? Oklahoma Law says that anyone being towed by boat, must be wearing a Coast Guard approved personal flotation device.
[/quote]
No, these are not Coast Guard approved, as far as I can tell, and calling them “life vests” is a stretch: I believe they’re technically vest-style flotation-aids. Give me a minute and I’ll see what I can turn up about the legally of these; in my previous post, I was concentrating on their uselessness and legality never occurred to me.
Woot, I wasn’t kidding: you did run this past your Legal Department, right?
ETA: the only list that I was able to find that included flotation-device laws for all 50 states was five years out of date; I spot-checked five states and the laws had changed in four of them since 2007; I’m not going to search for the laws in all 50 states one-by-one.
This flotation device was only approved for use by children in ONE of the five states whose laws I checked; I didn’t check laws for adults.
At the moment, the sport.woot.com page claims these are “RAVE Sports Life Vests” and the static picture is of the infant’s life vest, the only one that would force the wearer face-up (Level II). I believe both the title and the picture are misleading.
The item page claims these are “RAVE Sports Personal Flotation Device,” which seems accurate, and the main picture is of an Level III PFD, which also seems more accurate. However, there’s no mention to check state laws to make sure they’re sufficient to fulfill legal requirements. Woot, I don’t actually care about your legal liability, but I care deeply that someone might be misled by false advertising/description and use these in inappropriate circumstances.
While the Coast Guard explicitly says that it’s better to wear a Level III PFD than no flotation device at all, for the average family/average user, there’s no excuse NOT to wear a Level II: they’re available in the same price range and are far superior for most types of recreational boating. Personally, I would never allow anyone - adult or child - onto the water from my house while wearing one of these “flotation devices” and I’d never allow my children to go onto the water from someone else’s place while wearing one.
If you’re a position that warrants owning your own life jacket instead of borrowing from the Coast Guard, Army Corp of Engineers, or friends/family when you’re visiting them, do the research to understand what these are and to determine what types of PFDs your family needs.
Wow, I think Woot might want to do some due diligence on this one. What is really being sold here??? There is nothing under Specs or Features that give me an indication of what this device is intended to do other than have big bold logos to look kewl. I’m awaiting some further comments to ferret out what this item really is. I’m sure well get to a consensus. Before I buy, I’d like to know what I’m getting. I’ll defer to the experts before I dive into this deal.
You posted after my second comment in this thread, but before I edited my third comment to include a little more information about this item.
I think it’s fairly clear woot didn’t do due diligence on this item. As I said before, woot, I’m not picking on you because I don’t particularly care about woot’s liability: I’m honestly, genuinely concerned that this item is being misrepresented in a way that could put someone’s life at risk if someone buys it thinking that it’s a “life vest,” as it is still titled on the main sport.woot.com page, and confusing “life vest” with “life jacket” with “hey, this is what I need when we go out on the water next weekend.” As I said, it might be appropriate for some uses, but the way it’s being presenting is not compatible with what it’s actually safe for. If this item were a “car chair,” you’d never market it as a car seat. This is essentially the maritime equivalent - but even more dangerous, because just about everyone is familiar with basic car seat safety while maritime safety is something most people don’t know that much about.
Here is the Coast Guard guide on RECREATIONAL BOATING PFD SELECTION. (Second section)
PDF = Personal Flotation Device
Per the Features:
Child, Youth, Adult = Type III PFD
Infant = Type II PFD
These are standard identifiers for PFD.
A type III PFD is good for calm waters with a good chance of a fast rescue. So for a 4th of July backyard party with family and friends enjoying the pool, I might be able to wear this vest discretely without having to use a blow up duck flotation device. I might be in for this after all.
Can I get a variety of sizes
Indeed, you may. Select the Quantity and you will be given a box to select the size for each one.
Looks like Adult size has sold out.
In for 4. My own kids have some nicer life vests for puttering around in the water near shore and taking the rowboat a few yards out from shore. But when we go camping with friends there never seems to be enough vests. These will be great for making sure there’s enough to go around.
[QUOTE=ThunderThighs, post:12, topic:356513]
Here is the Coast Guard guide on RECREATIONAL BOATING PFD SELECTION. (Second section)
PDF = Personal Flotation Device
Per the Features:
Child, Youth, Adult = Type III PFD
Infant = Type II PFD
These are standard identifiers for PFD.
[/quote]
Thanks. It’s always best to go the the experts, in this case, the Coast Guard, for this kind of information.
These PFD’s are appropriate for use, IMO, for typical boating in good weather, where fast rescue of a person overboard can be assumed. They are not appropriate in any situation where fast rescue cannot be counted on, such as single handed or short handed boating, where a person overboard could be in the water for more than a few minutes.
I live on the shores of Lake Erie. Have grown up here and used to sail a small boat. This is an excellent review. Excellent. Pay attention to it.
[QUOTE=ThunderThighs, post:12, topic:356513]
Here is the Coast Guard guide on RECREATIONAL BOATING PFD SELECTION. (Second section)
PDF = Personal Flotation Device
Per the Features:
Child, Youth, Adult = Type III PFD
Infant = Type II PFD
These are standard identifiers for PFD.
[/quote]
ThunderThighs, this is an incredibly disingenuous response. I do not think that you are deliberately misleading people - I assume woot is telling you what to say - but it is incredibly irresponsible for woot to make your post.
These flotation devices are not Coast Guard approved. They are not legal for use in states that require Coast Guard approved flotation devices or life jackets. Rave is marketing these “flotation devices” as Type III PFDs, but they are not Coast Guard approved Type III PFDs. This is like saying, “This item is a car seat” without the car seat having been tested/rated by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration.
How can you tell that these flotation devices are NOT Coast Guard approved? Go to RAVE Sports “life vests/PFD” website: they offer seven different types, including this one. Every type of PFD offered by RAVE Sports - except this one - notes that it is USCG-approved on its individual web page. The web page for this item is SILENT on its USCG status, which means it is not approved by the Coast Guard.