Help - someone has sabotaged a lifejacket !

If you were paying attention to our last post you may have noticed an interesting stylistic device when it repeated that every year  we tested the life jackets by inflating them and leaving at least overnight before re-checking.

Hence we  can say with certainty that all the lifejackets were fit for use and in good order at the start of last season.

Well imagine the astonishment when we found that number 3 jacket was like this:

The arming head had been fired and, as you can see, the cylinder had been un-screwed and removed, making it useless. But the jacket has been perfectly re-packed and there was no sign that it would have been useless in the water.

So we don't know exactly what happened, but we do know it was during last season, as they all checked out okay at the start of 2017. My guess is that it accidently fired overnight, when the toggle snagged on something  or water dripped on to the firing head. Maybe whoever was responsible was too embarrassed to own up, so carefully re-packed it, leaving a nasty little trap for someone else to fall into.

I'm fairly clear about this - they've abused our hospitality and broken the most basic and obvious rule of seamanship - they're so banned from the boat full time.