Use your influence
My eye was caught by the letter called ‘Lifejackets please’ (YM, February 2021).
I am a long-term reader of YM and used to run my own small practical sailing school.
Surely the point that was missed by Theo Stocker is that YM is an influential magazine. When it publishes tests of expensive boats such as the X49 by professional and well
respected skippers they surely ought to both comply with and support the drive for safety at sea?
The RNLI and RYA spend huge amounts of money promoting safety at sea. Wearing lifejackets is a key part of their message. Commercial fishermen are required by law to wear them to wear them or ‘have a documented risk assessment to show that the risks of going overboard are controlled in another way’.
I agree that the decision to wear a lifejacket or not is down to the individual. I would hate to get to the point where it became the law for leisure boating. However I’m actually quite surprised – and disappointed – that YM doesn’t seem to have a universal ‘wear lifejackets when testing’ policy. It would help to drive home the message that ‘an unworn lifejacket is no use if things go wrong’.
Andy Thomson Theo Stocker responds:
I agree that wherever possible we should be setting the example of wearing lifejackets.
However, the situation is more complex than a simple photo can necessarily show.
Firstly, we don’t always have creative control over the images or actions of those in the photos we use in the magazine, and this was the case with the boat test in question – we commissioned the editorial for YM after the photoshoot had been done. Secondly, when we are involved in a photoshoot, we are not the skipper of the boat but guests on board. So while we can request that lifejackets be worn in those instances, we can’t necessarily insist on it. Finally, it is easy to wear a lifejacket and to feel that you are then safe, but safe sailing entails many more factors to keep your crew on deck in the first place.
So yes, I heartily encourage the wearing of lifejackets; wherever possible, we encourage everybody to do so, and request that sailors in our photoshoots do so where appropriate, but the authority to insist on lifejackets being worn still resides with the skipper alone, and rightly so.