Patagonia announces Self-Inflation Vest

On Monday, December 10, Patagonia announced the creation of a Portable Self-Inflation vest.

According to Jason McCaffrey, Patagonia’s Director of Surf, “Inflation vests are pretty much mandatory if guys are going to go out and push it in big-wave conditions the way they want to.”

During developmental stages the team turned to Patagonia’s ambassador and big-wave surfer Kohl Christenson  for insight.  After months of experimenting, each new vest would be taken to the pool and tested. The result is a vest that can support four inflations, be worn under a variety of wetsuits, features an air release valve Online Pokies, and allows the surfer to paddle and swim while inflated. In short, the vest is designed to bring an injured or unconscious surfer to surface in rescue position.

According to their site: On November 30^th, Patagonia presented a prototype of the Portable Self-Inflation vest to big-wave surfers at the Big Wave Risk Assessment Summit at the Turtle Bay resort in Hawaii. The response from surfers was resoundingly positive and optimistic.

The vest is still in its test phase and and not available for sale at the consumer level yet.

Portable Self-Inflation Vest from Patagonia on Vimeo.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 12th, 2012 at 8:00 am. It is filed under Surfing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.