In December of 2024, after decades of meetings of the stakeholders, testing, and technical meetings, the Final Rule was published in the Federal Register. This article, the sixth in a series, describes how the new North American Standard for…
2024 Search and Rescue Experience in Lake SuperiorMark & Bev Lenci, M/V Friendship 4We have decades of worldwide cruising experience, but those years never included being the primary vessel in a search and rescue (SAR) event. Then in one week,…
This article is about the process by which life jacket standards and requirements have changed in the last 50+ years leading up to December of 2024, when new standards and requirements took over. In the second part of this article, available next…
The underlying reason to wear a life jacket is to provide buoyancy to keep the wearer’s mouth above the water to prevent drowning while awaiting rescue. With that relatively simple goal, why are there so many life jacket designs, and why are some…