This just showed up at our local lake (Lake Lansing). I think that it is a great idea but I confess that I’m unsure if it will do much good. I paddled a lap this afternoon and saw three other kayaks on the lake. all Pelican style rec kayaks and no sign of life jackets.
They have one of those at Grand River Landing at Fairport Harbor (near Painesville, OH). I’d never seen this done before and thought it was a good idea, but there was only one PFD hanging on it, and it looked like it had been dragged through the mud.
We have the same thing on Lake Hartwell but they are all horse collars. I’ve never seen them used.
Somehow I doubt the issue is availability. Great effort, but unfortunately futile.
Kind of like an idea for a perfect world that sounds great but in reality needs a control person for it to work as expected and no one planned or budgeted for that.
I’ve seen those loaner PFDs at a few places. In CO, they seem to be offered in case someone failed to get PFDs for kids under a certain age, who are required to WEAR them, not just have one nearby.
In Alaska; a lot of the lakes we paddled in had them. We always have extras that we use as loaners
Seems like a good thing even if it only helps one person ever. Lifeguards don’t have to save people very often but they’re good to have around.
@JackL said:
In Alaska; a lot of the lakes we paddled in had them. We always have extras that we use as loaners
Still have that program. Actually used it a few years ago for June. Called " Kids Don’t Float" . There are a few adult sized pfds too
We were getting ready to paddle just a couple weeks ago at our local reservoir in CO, and 2 high school aged girls came and started to get ready to go paddle boarding, and neither had a PFD. My wife said that they were required, and they responded that they both knew how to swim so they didn’t need them. After a little further explanation of the regulations, they walked up to the loaner box and each got a pfd. They were very polite and thanked us (they didn’t want the tickets), and were really just totally unaware of the regs. They didn’t wear them of course, but at least they had them!
We see them at Corp of Engineer boat ramps.