Courtesy: ISO 12402:2006 personal flotation devices
A personal flotation device (PFD; also referred to as a life jacket, life preserver, life belt, Mae West, life vest, life saver, cork jacket, buoyancy aid or flotation suit) is a flotation device in the form of a vest or suite that is worn by a user to prevent the wearer from drowning in a body of water. The device will keep the wearer afloat with their head and mouth above the surface – they do not have to swim or tread water in order to stay afloat and can even be unconscious.
PFDs are commonly worn on small watercraft or other locations where accidental entry into deep water may occur in order to provide immediate support for the wearer should they end up in the water. PFDs are also kept on large vessels for passengers to wear in an emergency in order to help them stay afloat should they be forced to enter the water or accidentally fall overboard during an evacuation. PFD’s are commonly worn for swimming and/or other activities that require an individual to be in the water. This is for reasons such as safety (to prevent the drowning of weak swimmers, swimmers in dangerous conditions or swimmers far from safety), to make swimming easier and less demanding, to allow someone who is unable to swim to safely enter water, or as assistance for activities such as water skiing.
PFDs are available in different sizes to accommodate variations in body weight. Designs differ depending on wearing convenience, the activities and conditions they are designed to be used in and the level of protection the wearer needs. There are three main types of PFDs: life jackets, buoyancy aids and survival suits; PFDs are most often constructed out of foam pieces, with the exception of some life jackets which are inflated with air. Other highly specialized forms of PFDs include buoyancy compensators used for scuba diving, and submarine escape devices.
The oldest examples of primitive life jackets can be traced back to inflated bladders, animal skins, or hollow sealed gourds for support when crossing deep streams and rivers. Purpose-designed buoyant safety devices consisting of simple blocks of wood or cork were used by Norwegian seamen.
In a letter to the Naval Chronicle, dated February 1802, Abraham Bosquet proposed issuing Royal Navy Ships with “strong canvas bags of dimensions, when filled with cork shavings, equal to about that of a bed bolster, coiled in manner like a collar, and sufficiently wide for the head and shoulders to pass through.”
In 1804, a cork life jacket was available for sale in The Sporting Magazine.
In 1806, Francis Daniel, a physician working at Wapping, exhibited an inflatable life preserver, mounting a demonstration in which a number of suitably equipped men jumped into the Thames below Blackfriars Bridge, and variously played musical instruments, smoked pipes, discharged guns and drank wine, as the tide took them upstream. Daniel pursued his idea for some years, by his own account receiving a gold medal from the Royal Society of Arts after surrendering the idea to them.
Personal flotation devices were not part of the equipment issued to naval sailors until the early 19th century, for example at the Napoleonic Battle of Trafalgar, although seamen who were press-ganged into naval service might have used such devices to jump ship and swim to freedom.
Following the 1852 sinking of the troopship Birkenhead Ensign G.A. Lucas of the 73rd Regiment of Foot wrote “Cornet Bond, 12th Lancers, was…the only person to have a lifejacket – a privately owned Macintosh Life Preserver and seems to have got ashore fairly easily.”