LMY said..
We always need to be wary of generalities and should always look at the particular conditions In making decisions about safety. However, the statistics at around October were that in NSW last year there were no drownings relating to boating of a person wearing a life jacket. I cannot recall the number for people not wearing life jackets, but it was more than none.
I am also pretty wary of letting the law dictate what I do to keep safe on the boat. I tend to apply the law as a minimum, and if I feel appropriate go a bit further. For example, the law says that I can take the life jacket off once over the bar. Experience tells me that a modern life jacket is comfortable, and can be worn all day without any concerns, so why not wear the life jacket at sea or in poor conditions on the lake?
Yes there were more drowning of people not wearing pfds than those wearing them, but there were probably millions of situations encountered by boaties where those few drowned, and I bet the vast majority were recreational fisherman in small runabouts. Chris249 is still on the money that the odds of dying from another cause are higher.
I tend to be the opposite with the laws, I take them as guidance rather than for obedience. But I actually think most of them in NSW are pretty reasonable. A pfd crossing a bar is common sense, as is it in a small open boat or with kids.
While modern pfds are more comfortable than earlier ones, wearing one for 4-5 days, or even 3 days, straight is not comfortable. You get sweaty under them, they catch on bits of the boat and you damage them more. Crew comfort on long passages is important and pfds are not THAT comfortable.
On MB my rules are: pfds and harnesses when I deem it necessary in rough stuff (especially if alone in the cockpit), when going to the mast to put a reef in unless in benign conditions (why would you be putting a reef in then, because it is getting dark and you suspect it to worsen over night. We had at least one of those last year when Havefun questioned the need for a reef it was so comfortable but sometimes you just need to make that decision), sunset to sunrise pfds and harnesses clipped on.
Cisco and Havefun went to the mast numerous times to reef when we were on passage and they religiously put on their pfds and clipped on. Admittedly, sometimes it was pretty untidy conditions and self preservation rather than skippers requirements were their motivator. I rarely did so in the cockpit except at night.
I have posted previously that I am not into gadgets. There are some things that are necessary to be able to safely conduct probable evolutions at sea but some people load their unseaworthy boat up with MOB detectors, DSC GPS radios, multiple GPS epirbs, the most modern of everything. It doesn't make a low freeboard, open cockpit, lightly built skiff or a poorly prepared boat a seaworthy yacht in Seastate 6 and above.
