At the headquarters of the nonprofit BoatUS Foundation for Boating Safety and Clean Water, on the line is a first place prize of $10,000 for the best new design submitted for the 2015 Innovations in Life Jacket Design Competition. However, for now, there are just a trickle of entries as boaters, arm chair inventors, design, engineering or high school students have until the April 15 deadline to submittheir design to BoatUS.org/design.
Five competition judges are eagerly waiting to review the entries coming in for the design contest, which hopes to seek out the newest technologies and design ideas for the next generation of these life saving devices. Teamed up with the Foundation are the Personal Floatation Device Manufacturers Association as well as the National Marine Manufacturers Association, all looking to find the best new life jacket ideas based on four criteria: wearability, reliability, cost and innovation. Not too distant on any of the five judge’s minds was the big news on October 22, 2014 — the US Coast Guard had eliminated the old Type I-V code labeling system which clears the path of out-of-box design ideas and is the first step in a multi-year process to get new designs to market (for more on this, go to BoatUS.com/typecodepr).
Design competition Judge Lili Colby, Co-Owner of MTI Adventurewear, a paddlesport life jacket manufacturer, said, “Manufacturers will continue to use Type I-V coding until newer labels are designed, approved, and new standards are adopted, so it’s likely a couple of years before consumers will start to see a difference on store shelves. But this is where it all starts. It’s all about targeting your message – or product – with an appeal to a specific audience,” added Colby, whose manufacturing and marketing expertise is being heavily tapped as a judge. What these judges decide may have a long-term impact on increasing voluntary wearing of life jackets and saving lives. Winners will be announced in September at the International Boat Builders Exhibition and Conference in Louisville, KY.