This weekend Yachting Monthly and Ocean Safety joined forces to promote safety awareness to all water users with two Open Days at Ocean Safety’s premises at Saxon Wharf in Southampton.

The aim of the weekend was to answer questions such as, “Do you know what your liferaft looks like?”, “Have you ever let off a hand flare” and “Do you really know how your lifejacket works?”  Experts from Ocean Safety, Aladdin’s Cave and Yachtmail of Lymington were on hand to discuss and advise on servicing and purchasing of liferafts, lifejackets, epirbs and man overboard equipment.   KTY Yachts were also available to discuss appropriate courses for Sea Survival, First Aid and use of Radar or VHF.  Liferaft owners were encouraged to book in their own liferaft so that they could see it unpacked and inflated by the service engineers, and then leave it to be professionally serviced.  For most this was the first time they had seen their liferaft and its equipment out of its valise or container, let alone inflated!

Representatives from the local Coastguards from Southampton and Lymington arrived to supervise instruction on use of flares and demonstrations on both days, which proved a success as once again most of the visitors had never seen a flare in use.

The message from the weekend was before the boat goes back in the water for this season, make sure that your safety equipment is appropriate to your type of water use, regularly serviced and most important of all, in date.

Enquiries to:  Ocean Safety 44 (0) 23 8072 0800

Email:  info@oceansafety.com