DaveW
No disagreement there
I wear a life jacket too.
The question mark is whether one can
swim a short distance (e.g. to a raft) faster with one or without one, and how well one can swim with one inflated.
I read a report a while ago, of people who ditched wearing the standard jackets. For some reason they decided to swim. This may have been just localised movement, to keep themselves oriented face-away from breaking waves (perhaps a significant sea state, F6 or more). After swimming half an hour, all were bleeding substantially from cuts in the neck area, caused by the jackets.
All "pilot" jackets will do this, as far as I know. They are not designed for serious wearing. Once inflated, you are supposed to keep still. These come from the usual pilot shops, usually made by Remploy Ltd to various external fabric specs but with identical internal content. The cheapest (£50) are awful, with fabric which makes you sweat like a pig.
There are proper jackets with padding in the right places, and designed for continuous wear by professional crew. These start at about £250. One name I recall is Switlik, made in USA. I tried to buy one of these a while ago but the UK agent was completely uninterested in selling me one.
Obviously if somebody can't swim at all then they will swim better with an inflated jacket than without a jacket
Myself, an OK swimmer, I am not so sure. I would wear the jacket but would not inflate it unless I was stuffed (no chance of getting into a raft) and just had to float. But then I must admit I have never tried swimming with one on, inflated or not.
This is all hypothetical for most of us, and let's hope it remains so, but it's a good discussion.