The invention of the present application relates to a life jacket for aquatic environments, be it the sea, a lake, a river or even a swimming pool. More particularly, the jacket of the present application is primarily intended for swimmers and people naturally moving in water, that is individuals who are in the water, but not by accident or involuntary fall in the water.
The jacket of the invention has to be able to compensate for difficulties arising when in the water, due, for example, to a physical deficiency, and thus avoid drowning.
Life jackets have been around for a long time. Most are arranged to be slipped on or worn before any difficulty arises, so that for swimmers they can only hinder their progress in the water.
There are automatic life jackets, which are automatically inflated on contact with water. They are also outside the scope of the present application, since in the water they become active and perform their safety function, and the swim of those wearing them is therefore always impeded.
Finally, the problem that the inventor has faced is to be able to provide swimmers with a manually operated life jacket that they can wear while swimming but without preventing them from swimming.
The following patent applications are also known: WO2010/128690A1, KR20180046057A, FR2216166A1, FR2891155A1 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,497,889A.
To this end, the invention relates to a life jacket comprising a harness arranged to be slipped on the torso of an individual and comprising a back structure and a belly structure, at least belly buoyancy tubes connected to the harness and manually actuatable inflation means for inflating the belly buoyancy tubes, wherein the belly buoyancy tubes, when uninflated, are disposed in the back structure of the harness and, when inflated, are spread out on the belly structure of the harness.
The life jacket of the present application, as long as its inflation means are not actuated, cannot interfere with a swimmer who is moving in the water, since he/she does not have the buoyancy tubes on his/her belly. He/she only spreads out them on his/her belly in case of difficulty.
In the preferred embodiment of the life jacket of the invention, the harness comprises a guide cord extending along its two back and belly structures and the belly buoyancy tubes are connected to the harness by a connector that is also inflatable and arranged, under the action of the inflation means, to spread out while being guided along the guide cord.
Advantageously, each belly buoyancy tube is connected to its connector by a valve arranged to allow the inflation of the tube only after the connector has been spread out.
Thus, it is ensured that the belly buoyancy tubes, once inflated, are well positioned on the belly structure of the harness, thus providing the swimmer a comfortable position in which he/she is turned on his/her back.
It is also preferable that the life jacket of the invention also comprises a back buoyancy tube arranged, under the action of the inflation means, to be inflated and spread out against the individual's nape.
Still advantageously, the uninflated buoyancy tubes and the inflation means are disposed in a pocket of the back structure of the harness, as are the inflatable connectors.
In the preferred embodiment, a pull control element is provided to actuate the inflation means.
In the uninflated state of the buoyancy tubes and connectors, the latter may be folded back into the pocket below passage slots which are kept sealed, so as not to reduce hydrodynamics.
The inflation means of the life jacket of the invention, well known to the person skilled in the art, may comprise a cartridge of gas, generally CO2, a triggering device, a control pull tab for the triggering device, for releasing the gas from the cartridge, and means for putting the cartridge and the buoyancy tubes and their connectors into communication.
The invention will be better understood with the following description of several embodiments of the jacket of the invention, with reference to the appended drawings, in which:
The life jacket that will now be described comprises a harness 1, here slipped on the torso 2 of an individual in
The harness comprises, for positioning on the torso 2, a pair of shoulder straps 8, passed around the individual's neck 5, and a belt 6 passed around the individual's belly 7.
The shoulder straps 8 are attached to the belt 6 by a clasp 9.
The belt 6 may be in one part, and is then elastic to accommodate different sizes of individuals, or it may be in two parts, which may also be elastic, and may be joined by an adjustment buckle.
At the rear of the jacket, on its back structure 4, a pocket 10 is attached, for example by sewing, on the shoulder straps 8 and the belt 6, for receiving two inflatable belly buoyancy tubes 11, their inflatable connectors 12, a back inflatable buoyancy tube 13 and an inflation system 14. The pocket 10 is closed and has passage slots 18 for the tubes and their connectors.
The tubes and connectors are made of a material suitable for inflation, which the person skilled in the art will be able to choose without difficulty.
At rest (
To spread out the belly buoyancy tubes 11, the inflation system 14 is triggered to begin inflating the connectors 12, causing them to come out of the pocket 10 with the buoyancy tubes 11 still in a more or less folded back or curled up state.
Suspended from the belt 6, between the pocket 10 and the clasp 9 to which it is attached, is a guide cord 15 for the connectors 12 (
To ensure that the buoyancy tubes 11 do not remain against the back structure 4 once inflated, which would be detrimental to the safety of swimmers in the belly-up rescue position, each buoyancy tube 11 is connected to its connector 12 by a valve 17 whose flapper releases the passage of gas to the tube only after the connector 12 has been fully spread out, around the individual's torso 2, from the pocket 10 to the clasp 9 so as to inflate the tube only after it has been positioned against the belly structure 3.
A particular embodiment of the pocket 20 for receiving the buoyancy tubes, their connectors and the inflation system of the jacket of the invention may be contemplated, as illustrated in
The pocket 20 comprises a relatively rigid plate 21 on which is clipped, on its top 22 and bottom 23 edges, a flexible cover 24, provided with two top 25 and bottom 26 clipping edges.
At rest (
The inflation system 14, which is perfectly conventional here, comprises a gas cartridge 30, a triggering device 31, with a locking member for the device, and a control pull tab 32 for the locking member. The connectors 12 of the belly buoyancy tubes 11 and the back tube 13 are connected to a bag 33 into which the neck 34 of the gas cartridge 30 opens. The gas used is usually carbon dioxide CO2. When the swimmer pulls the pull tab 32, he/she unlocks the triggering device 31 and the gas escapes from the cartridge 30 to fill the bag 33, the connectors 12 and the tubes 11, 13.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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FR1913305 | Nov 2019 | FR | national |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
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PCT/EP2020/082761 | 11/19/2020 | WO |