Something New

EMMA'S BOAT

Part Eight

“Ok” Emma walked up and stopped in the middle of us, between Steph and me. “I think I have a solution here.” She held out the yellow bundle in front of her, presenting the new lifejacket to us.

A few minutes ago I would have said that the children's life jackets Jamie and I were wearing were about the most unusual thing you could find a young adult wearing. The new life jacket in Emma’s hands proved that assumption wrong. The kiddy life jackets were juvenile, made for kids, so it was embarrassing to wear them, but ultimately they were normal jackets you saw all the time, just on kids instead of young adults. The jacket in Emma's hands now wasn’t like anything I had seen before.

It was a bright vibrant yellow, the foam on the front looked to be about twice as thick as the foam on my lifejacket. The collar in particular looked crazy heavy duty. Unlike the collar of my jacket, which was relatively thin and floppy, the new jacket's collar was at least as thick as the heavy foam flotation on the chest of the vest. The collar sat flat across the top of the shoulders, it had a cut out in the middle for your neck and protruded forward on each side; it seemed like it would wrap around the sides of your neck stopping just short of coming around under your chin. Criss crossing the vest were heavy duty looking black straps which contrasted against the bright yellow. The jacket had a heavy strap that ran around the chest; a strap over each of the shoulders, which was lost beneath what looked like a velcro pocket; and, hanging from the back; not one, but two straps for between your legs. It was blue on the inside, had a heavy duty looking zipper, and the strap around the waist closed with some kind of metal contraption instead of a normal buckle.

Steph just stared at the thing. “What-- is that?..”

Emma didn’t pick up on Steph’s tone in the least. “It’s our old Crewsaver SuperSafe, lucky this was in there, it’s a sailing jacket from back when we had our old Beneteau.” Emma seemed almost to have some reverence for the jacket. “Steph you're 140 right?”

Steph shook her head aggressively “No, no i’m 145” She looked hopeful for a moment.

“Right still ok, this one is too small for you it caps out at 110, but” Emma turned and looked dead at me. “You’re 110” It wasn’t a question. “So you can give Steph yours, which will also work for her, and we should be able to squeeze you into this guy” Emma held the new yellow jacket aloft and gave it a shake, causing the buckles to rattle.

My first reaction was to start to step backwards away from Emma. But I was standing near the shore and so only had about a half step behind me before I risked falling back down the muddy bank.

“Ow ya ok” Steph was walking over to me eagerly “I’ll take yours then”

I raised my hands up to hold the shoulders of the vest as tho to hang onto it. As much as I had spent a lot of time today hating the kiddy jacket, I had actually gotten used to it. And learned to enjoy it quite a bit in the water. But I wasn't so sure I was ready for an upgrade.

Steph stood in front of me. Hand outstretched.

Despite my embarrassment, and my desire not to be the one strapped into the new and improved life jacket I had to admit that I was a little curious. Unable to think of any way to escape the situation either way, and also wondering what the new one would be like…, I reached down slowly and unbuckled the waist and crotch straps. The jacket loosened noticeably as they fell away. As I pulled the zipper down, undoing the vest from around my torso, I became aware of how long I had been strapped into it and just how used to its presence I had become. A moment later I was attempting to shrug off the vest, having difficulty getting it off my shoulders due to it’s small size. Steph walked over and I turned, allowing her to pull it down off my arms and take possession of the lifejacket. I felt surprisingly sad watching her carry it off.

Standing on the shore, now without a lifejacket for the first time that day, I was surprised at how loose and exposed I felt. The sensation reminded me of taking off a pair of skis. I felt free in a sense but I also felt vulnerable. Looking over at the nearby water I was strangely aware of the fact that If I fell in I would need to swim actively to avoid sinking down into it. I had enjoyed being able to just float in the water. I realized that I was actually missing the jacket. Shifting my attention to Steph I saw that she was succeeding, just barely, in keeping Emma at arms length. Steph had the vest on and zipped up and was in the process of tightening the waist belt as Emma hovered around her. Steph was clearly trying to make a show of doing everything up sufficiently to keep Emma off her. Jamie and Mike were chatting among themselves now. Jamie was still absentmindedly pulling at their own new life jacket. Halfway between Emma, Steph and me was the so-called “SuperSafe” as apt a name as any, laying on the ground. Now curious what exactly I was in for I walked over and retrieved it.

Holding the jacket up I got a better look at it. The first thing I noticed was how heavy it was, it felt about as heavy dry as the kiddy one had felt when soaked with water. Squeezing the foam in my hands I was surprised by how soft and dense it was, it was just as thick as it looked, easily twice as much as the jacket I had given up, probably more than that. The foam chest panels were massive, they felt like they must be nearly five inches thick. But the real difference was the collar; it was different from the kiddy vest in two obvious ways: one, it was almost as thick as the foam on the chest, at least four inches thick, the collar on the kiddy jacket had been a thin floppy thing by comparison; and two, it looked like I had seen correctly that it protruded out past where your neck would go. Where the kiddy jacket’s collar sat behind your head, this one had a cut out so that it could wrap around the sides of your neck. The waist belt was a heavy webbing, much more substantial than you would expect to find on a lifejacket and about two inches wide. I wasn't sure how the metal bit at the front went together. The crotch straps hanging from the back were the same high quality webbing but were only an inch wide, they ended in plastic buckles. There were two female buckles in the front, connected to the waist strap with short webbing loops.

I turned the jacket around to have a look at the back. The back panel itself was a thin but really dense foam, it held its shape firmly, again unlike the last jacket which had a foam block at the top and then just loose fabric below. The waist belt passed around and through a sleeve on the back, the crotch straps ran up to this sleeve and were presumably sewn to the waist belt, there was another heavy two inch strap that ran up from this junction before splitting into two straps again, just below the collar. Those two ran over the shoulders of the vest forming a big Y. At the center of the Y there was a big stainless steel D-ring which rattled about as I turned the vest. Flipping the jacket over again I could see the other end of those shoulder straps connecting to the waist belt in the front; but for most of the chest they disappeared under some kind of velcro pocket .

I was distracted by Steph yelling.

“Ahh Emma!” I looked over just in time to see Emma giving Steph a good once over. Yanking on her jacket and pulling on the straps.

Deciding I would, like Steph, rather put the jacket on myself, and also honestly a little curious what the new one would be like, I decided to try on my new flotation aid.

Putting my left hand through the first arm hole I held the jacket out at arm's length behind me and reached around with my right arm for the other hole. I was able to find the second hole after just a moment and, with some squirming, was able to get the jacket just about up to my shoulders. The heavy straps and buckles of this new vest made a lot more noise than the last one as I tried to wriggle the thing on.

Surprisingly, the new lifejacket didn't feel smaller than the kiddy one, if anything it seemed a bit easier to squeeze into. With a bit of squirming I was able to get one arm all the way through the hole, so that the vest came to rest over my shoulder on one side. My other arm was still stuck but now I was able to get a hold of the jacket with my free hand and yank it forward onto my torso, freeing my other arm. The jacket was now wrapped around me, resting on my shoulders. The collar was even thicker than I had judged; it came up to just below my ear and actually made contact with my helmet where it came down to cover my ears. With the vest now partly on it I was getting a better perspective on just how thick the foam on this jacket was, even without the vest done up it felt like I was being cocooned. Looking down for the zipper my view was blocked by the massive foam panels over my chest. I started feeling along the bottom of the jacket for the zipper. As it turned out the zipper didn't go right to the bottom of the vest but started a few inches up, so it was taking me a few minutes to find it. The combination of the huge foam chest panels blocking my downward vision, the thick collar wrapped around my neck and my helmet was making me feel a bit like the Michelin man.

I was still trying to get the two halves connected by touch only as Emma walked over. She hovered in front of me with her hands out to help but I had the two sides of the zipper in hand and wasn’t giving them up. After another moment or two of fiddling with Emma circling like a buzzard I got the zippers connected and pulled the slide up to the top of the vest. The zipper was really heavy duty, it felt like I was zipping up a big duffle bag more than a lifejacket. Even the sound it made was deeper and more rumbly than I expected. The zipper was pretty short so it was only a second and I had suddenly sealed myself into the vest. The front panels were now wrapped around me snugly. Securing the vest also caused the shoulders and back to snug up around me pulling the collar further forward. The collar was now up against the back of my neck and wedged under my plastic helmet, so that I couldn't lean my head back, it was feeling a lot more restrictive than the kiddy jacket already. Emma was still hovering so despite feeling like I wanted a minute to take stock of the situation I quickly felt around for the waist belt, I found this faster than I had the zipper, despite it still being hidden from sight. My fingers found the metal bits at the end of the waist belt. I immediately wished I had given them a better look before putting the jacket on, I hadn’t been counting on the vest blocking my line of sight or restricting the movement of my head like this. I felt the metal buckle with my fingers trying to visualize them and picture in my head how they would go together.

To Emma’s credit she did give me a minute before speaking up.

“You got that or do you need some help?”

The metal bits both felt the same, they just felt like metal rectangles, which was in line with what I thought they had looked like. I had no idea how they were supposed to clip together.

“Do these clip somehow?” I was hoping for a verbal answer, no such luck.

Emma just stepped forward, taking the clips out of my hands.

“Here, let me”

She fiddled with them for a second, then reached way around to my right hand side, practically behind me.

“You need some more slack” I felt her tug on the vest and heard some webbing pulling through a tensioner. Emma returned to the bucked and I heard metal rattle on metal. Then, to my surprise, she actually stepped back. Feeling the waist belt again the metal rectangles were connected, now I understood, she had passed one through the other so the belt would pull them tight against each other. The belt was hanging loose so I started feeling around for the tightener, Emma had pulled the slack from way around on my right hand side. I was reaching around, following the strap around my torso to find the ajuster. Between the collar and the helmet I was, once again, unable to see and wishing I had paid more attention before putting it on. I found what felt like it had to be the adjustment point but it was in a very awkward position under my armpit. I was focused on trying to get a hold of the loose end with my arm sort of bent awkwardly backwards and was startled when Emma moved in on me again, apparently having come to the decision that I was still in need of help after all.

She brushed my awkwardly bent arm out of her way and I was jerked around as she yanked unexpectedly on the strap. In response Emma put her free hand on my shoulder to stabilize me as she pulled hard a second time. I felt the waist belt pull up tightly around me, squeezing the jacket against my torso. 

The foam of this vest felt distinctly different from the last one, it was somehow both denser and softer, it seemed to conform to my torso more than the kiddy vest had, the dense foam back panel was also a really noticeable difference. 

With a couple more tugs for good measure Emma seemed satisfied and couched down, disappearing from my field of view beneath the horizon of the chest panels, presumably going for the pair of straps between my legs. I immediately reached behind me, searching for the two crotch straps hanging there and I took a half step back for good measure. 

 I was still stepping back as my fingers found the end of the loose hanging crotch straps and grabbed them. For a second I thought I had beat her to it, but then the straps were no longer hanging loose, they were pressing my fingers into my back as Emma grabbed the loose ends and pulled them through my legs. I briefly considered trying to hang onto them but quickly gave up as the top of Emma’s head reappeared in my vision. 

 I pulled my fingers out from between the straps and my lower back and stood there awkwardly unsure what to do with my hands. I found myself running them along the lower back part of the jacket, the foam back really was quite dense. 

Still feeling awkward I tried looking off to my right at the boats but the collar really did restrict my ability to rotate my head. Especially with the helmet taking up any room that would have been available between it and my head. I couldn't look off to my left or right without tilting my head back to get my chin over the foam, but the back of the helmet was in contact with the collar so I couldn’t really tilt my head up. 

I would have to rotate my torso a bit to look around properly. But couldn't do that at the moment with Emma fussing over the jacket. There was a loud click as the first crotch strap was connected, followed by a second a moment later.  For a moment I was surprised at how loose the straps were, but half a moment later I felt one of the crotch straps pull up tightly as Emma snugged it up. The strap tightening after it had been buckled took me off guard, with the last jacket the length had to be set before the straps were buckled, a loud grunt escaped my mouth as it suddenly pulled up tight. Looking around I saw Steph smirking at me, arms folded and clearly enjoying the show. It would have been a more convincing look if she wasn't still tightly strapped into the purple and yellow kiddy jacket with a bright orange helmet. I managed to refrain from grunting a second time as Emma tightened up the second crotch strap. Were two straps between my legs really necessary?

Emma got to her feet and took hold of my now tightly secured lifejacket, giving it a shake for good measure. I endured about thirty seconds of tussling before she was finally satisfied. Despite the awkwardness and embarrassment I really couldn't help but feel a little excited to try this jacket out in the water.