CREWSAVER CREWFIT 180 PRO
Price £99.95 Weight 1181g Website www.crewsaver.com
This is ISO 12402-3 (150N) approved but it’s built with additional buoyancy (180N) to float the casualty higher in the water. It has a Peninsula Chin Support which is intended to keep the casualty’s airway higher to reduce the likelihood of secondary drowning in rough conditions. It performed really well in the pool, excelling in all areas of safety and comfort, so much so we re-armed it (it took our RNLI man 30 minutes of cursing with the anti-twist mechanism – so we re-armed it without the sticky mechanism the second time around) and threw our sea survival instructor in from a diving board, ‘unconscious’ to see how it would perform. It flipped him onto his back within about three seconds. In the opinion of our onsite RNLI lifejacket
inspector and sea survival instructor, all lifejackets, even coastal ones, should come as standard with a sprayhood and light as this one does.
James tested this in the pool and liferaft, commenting positively on the wide bladders (moving buoyancy lower in the water, lifting the casualty more) and sprayhood, and the light which triggered instantly. It was fiddly to locate the sprayhood but it was easy to fit over the bladder in the water. The lifting strop isn’t marked, but the end of the top up tube is well positioned. His only criticism was that it felt quite stiff around the neck.
PROS: Understated. Has sprayhood and light as standard. Well designed wide bladder. Very comfortable. Easy to adjust.
CONS: Unpacking and repacking is a bit of a fiddle and re-arming the firing mechanism is really fiddly.