Style Over Safety?
Dear Sir/Madam,
Looking at the “stylish pinnies” in your March 2021 edition (“MudRatz Ready to Rock!” windcheckmagazine.com/article/mudratz-ready-to-rock/), I wonder about the choice of life jacket color. Almost looks like they are designed to be a camouflage in the water. A couple of years ago, while crewing on a boat my friend’s wife fell off during a knockdown. Being petite she was a little difficult to see in the water because of her dark clothing. We did recover her safely after we got the boat under control. On shore my friend said that some classes require a yellow or orange life jacket. That I think is a good idea.
Roy Hershey Lewis, via email
Mischa van Berkel, MudRatz Opti Parent Coordinator, replies:
Roy – Thank you for bringing up this very important point. The MudRatz organization takes safety as our top concern.
One of the ideas behind having pinnies was so our coaches could readily identify our sailors when they are in a group, but we hadn’t considered the effect they would have if sailors were in the water. This will definitely factor into our next generation pinnie design!
In the meantime, we will continue to give our sailors the choice to wear our higher visibility pink pinnies and if they opt to continue to wear the darker colored ones, we will make sure they (and their parents) are aware of the safety benefit a brightly colored jacket/shirt underneath can have. ■
