Ocean Safety Sport ADV is a smart looking lifejacket with a sprayhood and light as standard. We give it a thorough test to find out how it performs.
Ocean Safety Sport ADV lifejacket – Tested
Ocean safety sport 170 ADV
The Ocean Safety Sport 170 ADV lifejacket is smart looking and well specified. The manufacturer has a well established reputation for marine safety gear and the Kru brand as well as Ocean safety.
Dry testing
The Ocean Safety Sport ADV 170 is a coastal jacket the model we tested came with light and sprayhood as standard and was fitted with a harness loop as an option. It has a smart casing with generally well sculpted shape to fit the body.
It is easy to adjust with a side adjuster and has a traditional style metal square ring buckle. We like the styling of this lifejacket and it fits a variety of body shapes well.
Toby comments that the zip is on the opposite side to the top up tube so this makes it tricky to repack and remove the air completely.
The sprayhood caused repeated comments from our testers that it felt underwhelmingly small and claustrophobic and this was repeated in the pool testing. We’re not sure why they chose to fit such a small sprayhood
It has a tidy uncluttered finish with very little to get snagged, though we would like to see a smarter stowage solution for the manual trigger toggle which dangles a little to far down for our preference.
This lifejacket fitted well across our range of testers and body shapes. The casing is more compliant than some other more tightly packed 3D shaped lifejackets.
Pool Testing
Anna comments: “The mounting of the CO2 bottle is all wrong. Inside the bladder (on the back of the bladder, facing the body – Ed), it forced the canister against my chest. It’s not only uncomfortable but it could cause a cold burn.” Anna added after pool testing “The features don’t seem to be very logical in their positioning. A sprayhood and light are included and the light came on straight away, using a long lead/sensor. The sprayhood doesn’t feel structured though and dropped too close to my face. Despite tightening the crotch strap in the water, it still didn’t quite feel right.”
As we attempted to alleviate the discomfort to Anna with the bottle jabbing uncomfortably into her ribs and chest it was apparent that it wasn’t possible to adjust it as the bottle is mounted on the curve of the bottom of the bladder, meaning that as the bladder inflates, it rotates the CO2 bottle causing it to sit at an awkward angle, jabbing the wearer somewhere uncomfortable.
The Ocean Safety Sport Adv has a crossover bladder design which helps to avoid waves funneling up into the face. Though the position of the light centrally mounted can cause it to be obscured by the sprayhood when it is pulled over into place.
Ocean Safety Sport ADV Lifejacket
Price from £99.95
Buy Ocean Safety Sport ADV from Marine Superstore.
How our lifejacket scored on average out of 10 for each of our criteria
7 – Adjust speed ease difficulty
8 – Fastening buckle ease with gloves
6 – Comfort women body size (when tested by men 4)
6 – Practicality. bulk snagging
9 – Positioning of essential items
NA – Accessory attachment / kill cord loop
9 – Night view / reflectors / light (if fitted)
4 – Ease of checking bottle / trigger status
4 – Unpacking / repacking
7 – Style
6 – In water score65% Total as a percentage
Verdict
Whilst there’s no doubt this is a good quality ISO rated lifejacket, it is smart and fits well, adjusts well and functions well in all aspects, however there’s no escaping its shortcomings in respect to the bottle position and the underwhelmingly small sprayhood.
