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Comment by wil421 | Hacker News Reader

There’s some fishing guys on YouTube I watch and some of them have an app on their phone to shut the motor off. If they fall overboard the motor shuts off when the phone isn’t close enough. Some also wear automatically inflated life jackets but as a kayaker I don’t trust them.

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IMHO aUrooj inflated life jackets generally make no sense for kayaking. It’s too easy to end up in the drink casually and it’s like $60+ per re-arming kit.

Are those fishing kayaks so stable that they have very little expectation of going overboard comparable to being on a powerboat or sail boat? I use touring and whitewater kayaks myself.

I kayak and sail so I have life jackets for both use cases (two type V rescue jackets for kayaking and 4 type V inflatables for sailing to accommodate friends and better the much safer European spinlock deckvests, which are not USCG approved, so I keep USCG approved inflatables on board too)

> an app on their phone to shut the motor off.

The failure risk here is the phone doesn't go with you and it keeps chugging along.

This is doubled by the fact that lots of boaters will try to keep their phone as far from the water as possible for safety's sake. In practice, using your phone is better than using nothing at all, but a dedicated waterproof device that you can clip onto your clothes and forget about is by far the better option.

Most phones these days are pretty water resistant, so you could just keep it in your pocket.

More importantly, if you fall overboard, the value of your phone is probably the least of your worries.

I don't know about that. If the boat is moving and you're left stranded then yes, of course. If you fall off a stationary boat in warm weather and climb back on though, your destroyed phone might be at the top of the list of concerns. I can see why someone wouldn't want to carry around a non-waterproof phone on a boat. Even if the phone is waterproof (resistant), a zip-up pocket is probably a good idea. Water resistance wouldn't help you much if it's at the bottom of the ocean.

Shouldn’t a kayaker already be wearing a PFD? In my state they are mandatory. They make PFDs that work specifically with kayaks and their lowered seating.

In many states it’s mandatory to have one at all times but not mandatory to be actually worn at all times.

As long as the item that could have saved your life is in the trunk of your car, you're fine?

> Some also wear automatically inflated life jackets but as a kayaker I don’t trust them.

Do you trust them as an adult? Or in some other context? What about kayaking makes you distrust them? Should I, a non-kayaker, trust them?

I'm a sailor (yachts, not dinghys), not a kayaker.

> Do you trust them as an adult?

Yes. The alternative (ignoring the solid foam type of life jacket that you see kids wear) is a manually inflating one. They use the same CO2 cylinder with a bladder, but you have to pull a cord to inflate them. You can buy the exact same model of life jacket as auto or manual inflating. The auto inflating ones also have a cord you can pull if you need to.

There is some debate in the sailing community as to whether the auto or manual jackets are a better idea but most people go auto-inflating. With the manual ones you can manoeuvre better in the water if you don't inflate the jacket so you have a chance to swim to safety, perhaps climbing back on your boat, but if you get knocked unconscious or you're in shock (or the boats still sailing) then that's going to be harder/impossible to do.

Personally me and my immediate family have auto inflating ones, this model specifically: https://crewsaver.com/uk/products/16708/ErgoFit190N. We have some more basic models for guests. I figure I'm unlikely to be sailing single handed and the best chance of survival offshore is getting picked up by the crew of the boat you were just in. Plus, I'm in NW UK, cold water shock is a real thing. Staying afloat in the middle of the sea is going to be the main thing you're going to want to be concentrating on.

> Or in some other context? What about kayaking makes you distrust them?

I wouldn't wear an auto-inflating jacket anywhere that I'm likely to get dunked in the water as a matter of course. You'll just inflate the jacket when you don't want to, it will be completely in the way and you will have to deflate it and it's then mostly useless until it's repacked with a new gas cylinder. Plus, you're unlikely to be in the big seas that would make an auto-inflater safer.

That said, it can get wet enough on a sailing yacht that jackets can get wet enough to be inflated, but that's very uncommon. Pretty funny though :)

> Should I, a non-kayaker, trust them?

It depends what you're doing. Sailing, going out on a pleasure boat, day trips, weeks at sea, then sure. Stick one on each of your family and guests, show them the pull cord and tell them not to pull it unless they need to, and you can pretty much rest assured that if they fall in they're going to float until you can get to them. You can also get beacons you can add to them, I've added them to mine.

*edit* Here's someone testing the lifejacket I have https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09y_AM36v0M

I did approximately no research on them when I was buying a life jacket recently. My thinking is that you're probably only going to need it to work once and at that point, you really, REALLY, need it to work. If they deploy with no issues 999 times out of a thousand, I don't want to play the odds of the one time being the aforementioned 1 time out of a thousand it doesn't deploy. On the other hand, a conventional life jacket floats on a count of the way it floats. There's plenty of comfortable conventional life jackets out there and they're much cheaper than the less-bulky ones that deploy in the water.

What you're likely talking about I (and everyone I know in the sailing community) would call a buoyancy aid not a life jacket. They'll help you stay afloat but you'll have to put effort in. Not something you can do for hours, or if you're unconscious or in cold water shock.

In the sailing community a life jacket would tend to be either a much bulkier statically buoyant thing (picture the large orange things kids wear on sailing holidays or boat rides) or more commonly an inflating one. Of that last category auto-inflating is more popular. Remember, auto-inflating life jackets also have a pull cord that you can use if the auto inflation mechanism doesn't trigger.

If you were sailing on my boat there is no way you'd get away with wearing a buoyancy aid. I don't know what the failure rate of auto (or manual) inflating life jackets is (I bet it's less than 1 in 1000), but a buoyancy aid will not provide enough buoyancy 100% of the time in the sea.

Don't get me wrong, I will wear a buoyancy aid, but I wouldn't class it as a life jacket, and it would be in certain situations like kayaking or paddle boarding perhaps.

I can't remember what class the one I've got is. PFD is the term. It's been a while since I've spent any kind of time on the water. It is intended to roll you onto your back and for situations where you're not going to be far from rescue. It's is definitely not intended for the ocean though. Wouldn't do the great lakes in it unless I was staying close to shore. Or any of the big ones up north honestly.

The context here was kayaking. In that very unlikely scenario that your auto-inflating life jacket doesn't deploy, there is a very likely scenario that you're disoriented or unconscious. That's a big risk in any scenario where you need a PFD and the reason I'd rather go with an always-deployed one appropriate for conditions than hope I have my head on straight if I get dumped overboard and things get worse from there.

As a kayaker, it is possible to capsize. You should know how to flip yourself back over. If your life vest inflates while you are capsized, you are dead or going to have a very bad day stuck sideways while your craft fills with water. Once it fills, it will sink. If you don’t get out before that happens, your life vest won’t save you.

Basically, as a kayaker, you only want a life vest once you are out of the boat and you can’t get back to your boat or to the shore.

Specifically for kayak-related reasons?

Most likely. They are not supposed to trigger when getting wet, even very wet, but are supposed to trigger when you go into the water.

You really shouldn’t wear an auto-inflating PFD in a situation where going into the water isn’t 100% a bad thing. Kayaking seems to be one of those activities where you wouldn’t want it. Even dinghy sailing/racing seems like a poor use case.

In case anyone is unfamiliar with them, though, they all have a manual pull handle that is supposed to trigger the CO2 canister, and as a 3rd backup they even have a tube you can pull up to your face and a one-way valve so you can blow them up with your mouth.

So take your phone when you fall off.

I mean, then you could probably call someone.

If you've got coverage out there.

This story took place 20km out at sea.

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