tophatyachts.com

Authorities are shortly introducing life preserver ratings for Eskys.
The common 15 litre Esky will have a rating of Level 150. That is its rating in lifting capacity in newtons ie 150 Newtons of positive bouyancy. Equivalent to a PFD 1.
Refer to this article;
http://www.theage.com.au/national/two-s ... -7kza.html

This follows on from the many reports of fishermen that have survived a sinking by clinging to an esky. Life preservers are no longer needed but you must have an Esky if using a dingy more than 400mm from shore or at night.
In open waters you must fit an Esky of the rating shown in the above article one week after the 25th March.
This is an early heads up.

Does it have to be full of bear Greg?

Mark, if its full of bear there is not much room for anything else and if its full of Beer it wont make much sense.

Perhaps you could put a little lifejacket on each beer to give it positive buoyancy?

Maybe let bear drink the beer with a life jacket on ? That way you would save on putting life jackets on all the beer ,and then you have an empty esky as life perserver !

Not a good solution Bear for two reasons. 1) It leaves us nothing to drink while waiting to be rescued and 2) It would quite possibly render you incapable of helping or being able to lift our spirits by telling shipwrecked sailor jokes. Still it would be fun to all be in the esky!

Have you been drinking Mark? Those are emergency supplies for the lifepreserver.

The life jackets for the beers are called stubbie holders!!

Well provided it does not displace too much beer, I guess I can fit my epirb and flares in my esky. Perhaps I could store the displaced beer in my grab bag or liferaft.

Seriously, I think the use of eskies for survival is really for fishermen in tinnies. They have bloody big eskies and they usually have drunk the beer and emptied the esky before they get into trouble, which frees it up to be used as a life preserver. Pretty cunning those fishermen.

Seriously Google "Fishermen rescued esky" and there are a list of articles a mile long.
They should seriously be considered a life preserver.

Anything that floats and is at hand is a life preserver, and yes, I know that even the humble esky has saved lives.