Water wings
As water wings (rare: floating sleeves ), a buoyancy aid of plastic or rubber referred to, which at the upper arms is supported. Two inflatable pillows each provide buoyancy . So that they can be seen from afar, the buoyancy chambers are usually bright orange. Water wings come in different sizes. They are used by babies / toddlers, teenagers and adults, but mainly children between the ages of one and six.
background
The armband was invented by Bernhard Markwitz in Hamburg : in 1956 his three-year-old daughter fell into a goldfish pond and almost drowned. Markwitz developed and produced a swimming aid that was supposed to make swimming safer, especially for children, than the cork swimming rings that had been common up until then . A lottery win (in the amount of 253,000 DM) gave him the necessary start-up capital.
It was not until 1964 that the armbands had their final shape. Initially, the armbands only had an air chamber and no check valves in the valves. Under the brand name "BEMA" (for Be rnhard Ma rkwitz) they have been sold over 150 million copies.
Almost at the same time, also in 1964, another variant of this so-called upper arm swimming aid was invented in Australia. The inventor Klaus Maertin approached this invention for the same reasons. His son Philip almost drowned. The buoyancy aid with the brand name "Floaties" spread as quickly as the armband in Europe. The most striking difference is the color, "Floaties" are bright yellow with blue lettering and blue safety valves. The shape also differs, the two air chambers are not opposite each other as with the armbands, but lined up one behind the other like two swimming rings that are worn on the upper arm.
A similar buoyancy aid was featured in the October 1931 issue of Modern Mechanix magazine. This was made of rubber, consisted of two parts and was also worn on the upper arms. It each had an air chamber that could be inflated via a valve . The buoyancy aid known as "Side Wings" or "Water Wings" was presented to the public for the first time on the beaches of Los Angeles . Since inflatable swimming aids are generally considered unsafe in the United States today and water wings also hinder the freedom of movement of the arms, they are rarely used in the USA and have long been replaced by other swimming aids.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Cornelius Kob: NDR: Bernhard Markwitz - The swimming helper on ndr.de