First one - canister weighed - within 1 gm, which is close enough when the jackets are stored in a cold loft..
Inflated and left for 24 hours..
Ditto the second one...
Went back up yesterday 24 hours later and they're still firm - canisters screwed back in firmly, arming pins checked, bladder deflated, folded, and ready for a new season..
Cheers for the link Steve. Once we're off the Trent we'll be giving our canisters a weigh too.
ReplyDeleteNo problem Pip.. like you I was nervous about doing it but bit the bullet about 4 or 5 years ago.. they differ slightly depending whether they are manual (like mine) or automatic (which will have the salt tablet or whatever that dissolves in water to set them off) but I found a whole load of good video's on You Tube.. and they're all basically the same.. take the outer cover off, weigh the bottle to make sure it's still got a good supply of gas in it, check for corrosion, replace as necessary, manually inflate (and some people say don't blow up by mouth as water vapour gets in the bladder, but I do), leave them for 24 hours to make sure they retain their buoyancy, then deflate and fold up having re-screwed the gas canister and put the outer cover back on... they retain fold lines (I found) even after blowing up so it's fairly easy to re-fold ...my jackets are 20 years old by the way.. still good but the outer covers are getting a little scruffy...
DeleteWhen the first close up photo in your post flashed up I thought for a brief moment I was looking at a bottle of expensive French wine (I am sure you keep the wine in a special cupboard along with all the other medicinal bits and pieces).
ReplyDeleteWell done with the life jacket check, very sensible.