Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

Repost from the Facebook side

Dan and Susan Cates Lallement Facebook ‎Pontoon Boat Owners Group

Harbor Patrol pulled us over Saturday to see if the babies had on their life jackets. They did and they got a free t-shirt that said I got caught wearing my life jacket, a free dilly bar from DQ, and their picture posted on the conservation site, awesome!

I'm sure now these three will help teach others to wear theirs

Great "enforcement"!

Good job! Wish everyone was doing that, wearing their LV on younger kids.

10 and under... if the anchor is up, wear life jackets.

everyone - all ages and abilities - that gets into the water from my boat... takes something that floats, with them.

don't like those rules... i'll take your ass right back to the dock.

Thats cool Here, anyone 12 and under Must wear a PFD while in the boat moving or not. Everyone should wear one always

Yep, no kids on my boat without jackets. Period. Ethan's been wearing his since he was 2 months old.

badmoonrising wrote:Yep, no kids on my boat without jackets. Period. Ethan's been wearing his since he was 2 months old.

+1

Little ones wear jackets until back to shore. Where we swim, they usually switch to floatie devices.

One day, the wife was getting in the pool with the 3 yo granddaughter. She was sitting on the step getting ready to put her floaties on her when the little one slipped off the step. Well, she sank and was standing on the bottom of the pool looking up at me with big blue eyes as to say, "Are you going to get me Paw Paw"? I reached down, grabbed her and brought her back up. She wasn't scared but mister, I sure as hell was.

Now imagine had that been the murky lake water...

Those Puddles Jumpers by Sterns are great!!! No bulk, or hot, and they are USCG approved. All our little ones love them and they do work!!! They make a kid float on their backs if needed.

These are the ones we hand out. We also have a supply of infant and child Life Jackets that we give out to people who may have the wrong size, or old unserviceable ones. Not to mention all the other swag we hand out on the water.

Cool on my boat all kids have it on all the
time moving or not. All adults who can't swim
same thing. I try n make it easy I have the ones
That inflate when wet

we got stopped on the lake on the 4th by water patrol and they gave all the kids a free ice cream coupon for sonic ice cream. Said that we would be surprised at how many tickets they had given out because kids didn't have life jackets on.

That's really cool

We have a couple of friends that don't swim. I don't make them wear life jackets but I do give them one when they get on the boat. They usually just hold on to them to feel more secure. But the more I think about it, if we were to ever have a major issue and they went overboard, I'm not sure just holding on to the jacket would be enough. I think I might require them to start wearing them while underway. Better safe than sorry.

A good test is to put them in a pool and have them try to put a jacket on in water too deep to stand up in, it's harder than most people think and why a lot of people die up here. We had 5 deaths in the last 2 weeks on the Chesapeake, none wearing jackets.

Very hard to tread water and try to put on a jacket at the same time.

Years ago we were taking a lady and her son on the boat. I got a few jackets and told him to try them on till the right one fit. He told me no, I said no jacket no go, he said no and he and mom were left standing in the drive crying as we drove away.