Mr. Brendan Cahill:

I will describe the system for life jacket servicing in the Coast Guard as it was and still is. Boat units are allocated a number of life jackets depending on the number of boats and crew available to the unit. Our old allocation was 14 life jackets. Normally, the life jackets are serviced every 12 months. Prior to them being sent for servicing, a replacement set of life jackets was sent to the unit so that it would not be off the board when the life jackets were gone. The replacements were sent to us. I decided that since the unit jackets were going back for servicing, it was a good time to give people experience of life jacket inflation, because it is quite a violent event. It gave them experience in the water.