Lifejacket Servicing Courses

[SDGANDER]

Whilst I am perfectly capable of servicing/testing our own lifejackets I would like to be able to actually sign them off too and issue a certificate that the MCA will accept for coding.

Does anyone know of anyone who offers the course to become a certified/competent tester? I have googled without sucess...

SDG

[m chappelow]

How about lifejacket manifacturers ,

[SeaSkills]

Originally Posted by SDGANDER

Whilst I am perfectly capable of servicing/testing our own lifejackets I would like to be able to actually sign them off too and issue a certificate that the MCA will accept for coding.

Does anyone know of anyone who offers the course to become a certified/competent tester? I have googled without sucess...

SDG

We looked at this a while ago and decided against. I don't think anyone is offering this type of training any more, and I think in any case you would find that the standard required to sign them off for commercial use would require a significant level of investment in equipment (for example for pressure-testing and load-testing). Of course, you may already have all that - you've said you're perfectly capable of doing the job. You would still need to think about the liability risk which could be pretty hefty too, and your insurers would take a very careful look at what you were doing.

Home servicing may be OK for your own L/Js, but not acceptable for coding

[spartacus]

Originally Posted by SeaSkills

We looked at this a while ago and decided against. I don't think anyone is offering this type of training any more, and I think in any case you would find that the standard required to sign them off for commercial use would require a significant level of investment in equipment (for example for pressure-testing and load-testing). Of course, you may already have all that - you've said you're perfectly capable of doing the job. You would still need to think about the liability risk which could be pretty hefty too, and your insurers would take a very careful look at what you were doing.

Home servicing may be OK for your own L/Js, but not acceptable for coding

That's it in a nutshell. One thing doing it for yourself, and completely different if it's commercially driven for a third-party. Imagine a scenario if there was a fatality. One of the first things the MAIB will do is look at the lifejacket, when it was last serviced, history, etc. More hassle than it's worth.

[chewy]

Must just be me been tight but did no one else see the potential for making some money and servicing other peoples jackets?

[treerat]

It's geting to the point with some of our diving equipment it's more cost effective to sell it on every 2 years and buy new than to pay for servicing.

Lifejackets must be getting to that stage too - unless you have 100s of them.

EG
Regs to buy new £210 if you know where to look
Regs 2nd hand on THAT site £150 - £200
Plus a spare 1st stage left over to keep or sell at about £50

Service cost - £50. Haven't paid for a service in years

[SDGANDER]

Originally Posted by chewy

Must just be me been tight but did no one else see the potential for making some money and servicing other peoples jackets?

Yes, we did too We had quotes this year from around £7.00 up to £18.00 per jacket, with a minimum of a week turn around due to workloads.

We have 6 gas jackets and 14 foam jackets as minimum on board. The foam ones don't require certification but we change our own lights and check them over already and the liablity factor did come into play...

SDG

[Trell]

I got in touch with Crewsaver on this subject, late last year, and they were totally unhelpfull, all I got was they had enough service centres located around the country and did not train or run courses so that companies could service and certify their own lifejackets. I think the term is "over a barrel"