Self Inflating Marker Buoy Testimonial

"Fantastically easy to use", "very clever design, virtually unsinkable!"

Testimonial

On winning the bid to host the 2007 New Zealand Starling Nationals, it suddenly became painfully obvious to our club that our existing set of pre inflated course markers would be woefully inadequate for the required 7 mark trapezoid course, which included two sets of gates. Not only would it be virtually impossible for us to carry seven pre-inflated marks of adequate size on our 5.2 metre course laying rib, but the time to retrieve extra marks from another boat would restrict our ability to lay a course in an acceptable time.

Our club decided to solve this problem by investing in a set of 8 self inflating marker buoys from Aflex Technology a year before the event to ensure that they would be unsinkable. Initially we had reservations about them getting holes in and sinking, or sinking if run over by a yacht or patrol boat. But these reservations were soon put to rest after several fairly testing sessions. We ran them over with almost every yacht in the club, including between the hulls of a tornado and they just bounced right back up. The air issue turned out to be even less of an issue than with a pre-inflated mark. If a pre inflated mark gets a hole any where in it then it will sink! We found that you could have a hole anywhere in the self inflating mark except in the top 6 inches and it would still stay afloat. To date 18 months later and with several large regattas and club sailing behind us, there has not been one instance of trouble of any kind other than the normal rope versus prop that you get with any mark<

Not only did we find that these marks would fit nicely in a pile at the front of the rib leaving plenty of room to move, and for other needed equipment. But the speed of deploying and retrieving the marks far exceeded expectations.

Another unexpected benefit was the ability to adjust the height of the marks in the water, to suit the wind strength. Out traditional marks would fall over sideways in a strong wind, making them less visible from a distance. With the self inflating marks you just burp out a bit of the air and they sit lower in the water making them far more stable in strong winds and less likely to fall over. The slightly tapered shape along with the extra height more than makes up for setting the m lower in the water. The fact that part of the mark is under the water also makes them less susceptible to being bounced around by the waves.

The clever weight design and easy clip system makes handling the lines and anchors a breeze and of course storage back at the shed is no longer the waste of space it used to be. We will certainly not go back to the pre inflated marks after having these.

Would I recommend them ? I certainly would!

Having as Race Officer run many championships for several clubs in the ACT, and at numerous clubs elsewhere, I have always been aware of the compromise between having buoys which are visible and at the same time easy to handle from a small boat.

After a buoy problem at the recent ACT cat championship, I remarked about the problem to a visiting NZ sailor competing at the CYC. He said his Sailing Club at Nelson successfully used self inflating buoys as marks, and he would send me details. The manufacturer, Aflex Technology, went one better and sent me a sample.

It is an ingenious system, the weight of the buoy and its sinker causes air to be trapped so it floats some 1.5m out of the water. The weight of the buoy is 5kg, to which is attached a short length of chain for stability. Un-inflated the buoy is only 900x 200mm so it is very easy to carry several on board a small RIB safety boat.

I have been testing the sample buoy over four weekends dropping its anchor into 4-12metres of water. I set it up using an anchor with 15m of rope attached to a 2m loop of 3/8 chain [4m total] attached to the buoy. It was well visible from a kilometer away against the trees in the background. During the laying tests I ‘accidently’ dropping the buoy in the water at an angle of 60 degrees, rather than upright, and again with it only held half high from the boat. With the worst handling I could achieve, the buoy still floated one metre out of the water due to the trapped air.

With the anchor line attached to the end of the chain, the buoy remained upright in 25 knots wind, and the anchor line hung down as to be no problem for boats passing closely. A critical advantage with the system is a standard length of anchor line could be used regardless of depth, so avoiding the frequent problem of marks drifting out of position due to the significant variation in depth of the lake. For example, at the recent ACT Trailable championship on three occasions marks shifted when they were blown by strong winds into the deep water of the old river bed with the anchor floating clear.

I also set up the system by using a concrete sinker from the existing buoys suspended from a 1.5m rope instead of the chain. It worked well but the chain is slightly more convenient to lower over the side while holding the buoy upright. Using a slightly longer rope, while easier to handle, is not feasible when the depth is shallow such that the sinker hits the bottom.

As a result of these tests I fully recommend both the CYC and YMCA SC investigate the Aflex Self Inflating Buoy when they consider replacing their present set of buoys.