WAVE POOL TESTING

The wave pool testing required more of the victims. On a cool fall day, each tester got into a chilly wave pool with swells of two to four feet, wearing a fully packed jacket.

Their first task was to activate the jacket. Then came “secondary donning” or pulling the jackets over their heads and making adjustments. In about a third of the cases, the testers felt they had to make additional adjustments to the straps. In addition to the waist straps, there are also straps located near the bottom of the bladder on some jackets, which you would not know about unless you had tried on the jacket first and read the owner’s manual.

The victims then were asked to perform several tests, including a wave break test, swimming test, and turn test. During the wave break test, the testers went limp in the water and for five minutes, counted the number of waves that broke over his or her face and while their designated observer also counted. The SoSpenders 38 came through with flying colors as no waves broke over the face of any of the testers. The Mustang 33 had only one wave break among all testers. The Stearns 16, which has the distinctive sausage-shaped belly pack, gave all but our large male tester a lot of waves in the face (over 100 total for 3 testers). The 16 gram models, however, can also be orally inflated to create up to 22 pounds of buoyancy. The other models all performed well, delivering between five and 14 wave breaks total for all three testers. One tester commented that you learn quickly that if you are vertical and facing the waves, you get much wetter. Facing into the waves, the water rushes up like a channel into your face.