Industry Input Being Sought Through Online Survey
New harmonized standards for personal flotation devices (PFDs), lifejackets and lifejacket components, and throwable lifesaving devices means more options of personal lifesaving appliances are on the horizon for the fishing industry.
“We do know there are changes being made right now. Some of them are good changes that some folks in the fishing industry will like, but not all the changes we want to see… we get a lot of verbal PFD feedback on the wharf. If we can capture that in a survey, we hope it will effect change,” said Matthew Duffy, safety advisor for the Nova Scotia Fishing Safety Association (FSANS).
In partnership with the Nova Scotia Fisheries Sector Council and being conducted by the Are You READY team, an online PFD survey (https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/K3W2HQT) is now open to all fish harvesters in Atlantic Canada.
The purpose of the survey is to collect data on what the fishing industry has to say on PFDs. The survey results will be shared with all PFD manufacturers to use in consideration when they are updating and designing new or existing PFDs.
The survey is the result of the PFD working group formed earlier this year by the safety association and fisheries sector as part of the Are You READY Program, said Duffy. The working group has been in contact with PFD manufacturers asking if they plan to make any changes to their current PFDs or make new PFDs, what is the feedback for making those changes and where is that feedback coming from, he said.
“We gathered a lot of high-level information from manufacturers,” said Duffy. “We held conference calls with all three of them which gave us a really great starting point. From there we developed a PFD survey which is currently floating around online and in person. Once we gather enough responses, we can give that to the manufacturers and say this is what the fishing industry wants, these are some of the changes they have suggested, and this is the kind of PFD they prefer,” said Duffy. “The more responses we get hopefully the better results we get from the manufacturers.”
Prior to launching the survey, the working group did a preliminary poll on social media, gathering 615 responses on the question if people preferred solid PFDs or inflatable PFDs. The majority of respondents (61.3 per cent) said they preferred the solid model, with 38.69 per cent preferring inflatables.
“Not really surprising to us the majority of responses prefer solid PFDs the ones that do not inflate,” said Duffy.
“There are still people that like the inflatables. It really comes down to preferences and in some cases trust. With the inflatable PFDs you have more moving parts which requires you to trust it will work when it needs to work,” noting they also have to be maintained.
A harmonized standard for PFDs was published by Underwriters Laboratories (UL) in December, 2015, said Alexandre Desjardins, senior communications advisor for Transport Canada in an email.
Underwriters Laboratories is a Standards Development Organization that is accredited by the Standards Council of Canada and the American National Standards Institute.
Transport Canada and the United States Coast Guard, working under a Memorandum of Understanding for approval of personal lifesaving appliances, have both published policies to accept PFDs that have been deemed equivalent to those previously approved to the old standards, said Desjardins.
“Personal flotation devices (PFDs) approved to the new standard, UL-12402-5, are available on the market now and are labelled as approved by both Transport Canada and the United States Coast Guard,” said Desjardins.
“There are other PFD options within the new harmonized standard intended to encourage boaters to wear their PFDs. These are new PFD options that have not previously existed in Canada or the United States, and both our countries are now consulting with stakeholders to determine how they may be adopted. Transport Canada and the United States Coast Guard are also working to align oversight of certification bodies and auditing of manufacturers of PFDs.”
With the new PFD standard now adopted through policy in both Canada and the United States, the Harmonized Standards Technical Panel is now working on additional standards for lifejackets and lifejacket components; and throwable life saving devices such as horseshoe buoys and ring buoys, said Desjardins.
