Life jacket fitting made easy

Author: Marieke Vogt, Team Leader at SOURCE TO SEA

Life jacket and helmet are essential safety equipment in white water. But even the best helmet and the best life jacket won't help if they are not used properly. We summarize here what you have to pay attention to and how you can adjust your helmet and life jacket.

Marieke Vogt

In very Marieke-specific imagery, she explains the most complicated things to her kayak students and the world to us along the way.

Customize life jacket

The point of your life jacket is that it must fit tightly enough so that it can't slip out of place when you're swimming. Above all, it must not slip upwards. Of course you should still be able to breathe, after all you are doing sport! Different life jacket models have different adjustment options. We show you here as an example the Palm FXr life jacket, which we use for years for our courses.

With the side straps we adjust the width of the life jacket.

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The Palm FXr has two straps on each side that are tightened to prevent slippage. In the pictures it is the two orange ones. The black chest strap is not used to adjust the life jacket, but to attach a cowtail to it, or to secure yourself - we explain it in the next paragraph.

The length of the shoulder straps of the life jacket is adjusted by pulling the straps.

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The shoulder straps of most life jackets are also adjustable. Adjust the shoulder straps so that the life jacket is pulled against your body.

Marieke pulls the life jacket up. It should not be able to slip over her head.

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Finally, pull yourself up firmly by the shoulder straps. Then you will immediately see whether it is well adjusted. Under no circumstances should it be able to slip over your head!

Adjust chest strap

The black chest strap is firstly used to attach a cowtail to save kayaks. Secondly, you need it if you want to secure yourself, for example, if it requires a jumper safety as a safety. It is threaded differently for different applications:

The strap of the chest belt is threaded only through the plastic buckle.

Cowtail attachment

The chest strap as cowtail attachment is the standard case. You simply thread the belt directly through the plastic buckle. You leave out the metal deflection. This way the belt has minimal friction. So if the boat that you have attached gets jammed somewhere, you can easily release it by opening the buckle.

The strap of the chest strap is also deflected by the metal buckle.

Self-securing

The chest strap as a self-belay rarely occurs. If you need it on the river, just rethread it. To do this, this time you go through the metal redirection once before the belt is threaded through the plastic buckle. This increases the friction and thus reduces the load on the buckle somewhat.

The chest strap should not be too long, so that you do not get caught on it. When you buy a new life jacket, the chest strap is often very long. Fit the vest and then cut it (preferably with a rope cutter) so that it only protrudes about two hands width over the plastic buckle. You don't have a rope cutter? No problem, we do. Just let us know and we'll be happy to take it to the course/camp!

Customize helmet

A helmet only protects if it is properly adjusted.

A woman tries to slide the chin strap of her helmet forward over her chin.

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Make sure you can't push the chin strap over your chin.

A woman tries to push her helmet back at the front of her forehead.

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Also, it is very important that your forehead can never be free. Try to push the helmet up in front (as in the picture).

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If this is the case, shorten the front of the two straps on your ear.

Back of a woman's head adjusting the width of her helmet with her left hand.

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Last but not least, most helmets have a mechanism to adjust the circumference of the head.

This blog post explains how to customize your helmet and life jacket. If you're wondering why all this should be, just give us a call (+43 512 546710) or join our safety education! Also if you have questions about your specific life jacket or helmet model, please feel free to contact us!

Correctly fit helmet and life jacket

Marieke Vogt

Customize life jacket

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Adjust chest strap

Cowtail attachment

Self-securing

Customize helmet

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Much snow in Corsica

Marieke Vogt

Customize life jacket

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Adjust chest strap

Cowtail attachment

Self-securing

Customize helmet

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