Life Ball ??

[petermat]

I just found an locker in my US 30 that I had noticed in the year I have had her. Inside where two 'things'. Each is two red plastic half shell held together with tape, about 5" long and 4" in diameter. There is a hank of cord attached to the shell, and some 'stuff' inside the shell that I cannot readily see. There was half a label attached to one of them. This identifies them as a device called a "Life Ball" and the part of the instructions that I have say -
"Take the life ball out of the bag. Pull string and remove safety valve. Throw ball to objective"
"The life buo ....
alighting on ....
in only 2 ~......
of 60 cm cap ....
of 120 kg."

I am suspecting that this is something like Mustangs new throw stick. Google turned up nothing for me. (Maybe they are to old?).

Can any one identify these devices and advise if they are likely to be useful please?

Peter

[sailingdog]

Peter-

Sounds interesting...do you have a photo of the beastie?

[petermat]

Saildog - will get one tomorrow and post it.

To the Bucaneer 305 owner - Sailnet wont let me reply to private messages.
There was nothing magic about the locker, it is the space behind the starboard settee back. I must just never haver pulled on those cushions before!

[Lancer28]

I don't know if you should pull the cord... maybe it is some strange object like Jumanji.... hahaha

No seriously, I'd like to see a picture too. It could be a survival kit. If that is the case, it is probably expired anyhow, so go ahead and open it and see what your time capsule contains!

[petermat]

I got the picture. I tried "insert image" from the taskbar - no joy. I tried the "attachment" item. The popop says jpeg less than 800*600 and < 97.7k is OK. So i selected my 788 * 378, 50 odd kb file and it said "upload failed" - so now I have a different question ....
Peter

[SimonV]

Sounds like a life saving device used in Australia by rock fishermen. Where if a fisherman is washed of the rocks into the sea a person on land can throw a line to them. We have a large number die each year.

[Sapperwhite]

Well, the instructions have some metric clues in there, if it were made for the US market it wouldn't be in metric.

[SanderO]

This reminds me about some banter I had with a watch mate on a offshore passage to Antigua a few years ago.

We "invented" the all purpose marine accessory which we called "navball".

It was intended to be an all in one device being a ball which could be divided into two halves. Some of the uses we came up with were:

Day shape
Mooring buoy
anchor float
barbecue
radar reflector
abandon ship container
fender
epirb
spare fuel or water tank

There were many other uses for the navball , but I can't recall them now. Perhaps you have some ideas for this exciting product. Spheres are useful!

jef
sv shiva

[LittleMissMagic]

Lifeball is an inflatable radar reflector, intended for use in an emergency, I found a website www.lifeball.comSeems like a good addition to a ditching kit.

[sailingdog]

Peter-

Should have warned you...the photo upload on Sailnet has never worked properly IMHO. You really need to upload the photo to a photo sharing site, like flickr.com, shutterfly.com or the such, and then post the image via the icon in the toolbar.

Originally Posted by petermat

I got the picture. I tried "insert image" from the taskbar - no joy. I tried the "attachment" item. The popop says jpeg less than 800*600 and < 97.7k is OK. So i selected my 788 * 378, 50 odd kb file and it said "upload failed" - so now I have a different question ....
Peter