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The quality of life jackets used in speedboats

Nov 06, 2008 Letters

Dear Editor,
I do thank Captain R.E.W. Adams M.N.I. for his response captioned, “Life jackets used in Guyana are not buoyancy aids,” (GC November 4, 2008 ) to my letter with a contrary headline.

I must hasten to say that my letter was not intended to be published in the SNs’ letter columns; it was only sent as a blogger’s comment under a report on the recent Corentyne River tragedy. The editorial department of that newspaper decided to publish it as a letter as a matter of public concern.

Right now I have little time to go into a detailed description of the application of Archimedes’ principle to life jackets. Nevertheless, I must bow to the more expert knowledge of Captain Adams in his field.

His Archimedean physics is spot on. However, without my initial letter, the good captain would not have been prodded to bestow upon the Guyanese public such detailed and intimate knowledge of lifejackets in the wake of the recent tragedy.

We should take particular note that the two persons to survive that disaster did so with the help of 5-gallon buckets and not only the life jackets they were wearing.

We need to ask why. One blogger in SN asserted that some speedboat operators are using life jackets made of ordinary water absorbent foam covered with a nylon material. If so, this is not a life jacket but a death jacket.

I know that Captain Adams is a very busy man, as all good captains should be, but I earnestly crave his indulgence to address the issue of the quality of life jackets used in speedboats and also the question that begs an answer, “What then is a buoyancy aid?”

Someone’s life may depend on the correct information that he supplies. After all, public safety on Guyana’s waterways is more his stock-in-trade than it is mine.
M. Xiu Quan-Balgobind-Hackett

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