Have You Ever Been a Person Overboard ?

[SaltyMonkey]

just incredible mind blowing stories here! So many lessons captured to learn - lessons you don't find in the usual pretentious manuals. keep 'em coming!

[Hydra]

I have been overboard 3 times. The first was on a solo sailing dinghy, which capsized. I couldn't hold it head to wind and climb on the centerboard at the same time. Luckily, the safety boat arrived after a few moments to help me.

The second and third were for MOB training, with a wetsuit and a lifejacket. The last time, the jacket didn't inflate automatically (didn't check it before donning). I pulled on the toggle, still nothing. I had to inflate it by mouth.

Alain

[Hud3]

We used to take family vacations in Sandbridge, Virginia, on the Atlantic shore a few miles south of Virginia Beach. Four families and three Hobie 16s--great fun! One afternoon we spotted a beach cat capsize about a mile and a half offshore. The two crew got it back up, but it went right over again like a pinwheel. That senario happened a couple more times, and then nothing at all happened for a while.

We dragged two of the Hobies into the surf and four of us sailed out to the capsized boat. There was one fellow hanging on to it. He was in his sixties, and looked totally exhausted. We didn't see the other crew member anywhere, and the first guy couldn't give us any info other than he was wearing a PFD.

My crew and the crew on our other Hobie jumped in and swam to the capsized boat, where they quickly righted it and hauled the exhausted sailor onto the tramp. They headed for shore while I and the other Hobie skipper began searching downwind for the missing sailor, gybing back and forth to comb the area.

It was blowing 18 kts or so, so there were some whitecaps and 3'-5' waves. It was 15-20 minutes before I finally spotted him, and I didn't actually see him until I was less than 100' away. All I saw was a wet, gray-haired head intermittently appearing on top of the swells and then disappearing into the troughs.

I hove to just upwind of him, and with some effort managed to get him on the boat. He was really wiped out and couldn't climb up by himself. He just curled up on the tramp once on board, shivering. I guess he'd been in the water for almost an hour, including the 20 minutes or so they'd spent trying to right their boat. I got him back to shore, where his wife was anxiously waiting. Both guys were fine after resting a bit.

Two things stuck with me from that experience. The first was how exceedingly difficult it was to see the "missing" sailor in the water, even under fairly benign conditions. If he'd drifted further away we might not have found him at all. The other thing was how totally exhausted and spent both of the gentlemen were from the experience, to the point of being incapable of rescuing themselves.

[careka]

We lost a sailor yesterday in Norway. strong winds and heavy seas.
Sea kicked him out of cocpit, he had vest and lifelife. He is still not found.
the 3 other guys in the boat tryed to get him onbord, but in the struggel they pulled the vest of him and the lifeline is attached to it, so they lost him in the sea.
Sad story. Very sad. i Just hope we all can learn somthing from it.
Use short lifeline som you dont get out of the cocpit at al,l when the sea comes for you.

Søker nå etter antatt omkommet - Aftenbladet.no

use google to translate

i also feel a lot for the guys trying all they could to get him back onbord, and then the vest slips of him and............

[hummingway]

Originally Posted by careka

We lost a sailor yesterday in Norway. strong winds and heavy seas.
Sea kicked him out of cocpit, he had vest and lifelife. He is still not found.
the 3 other guys in the boat tryed to get him onbord, but in the struggel they pulled the vest of him and the lifeline is attached to it, so they lost him in the sea.
Sad story. Very sad. i Just hope we all can learn somthing from it.
Use short lifeline som you dont get out of the cocpit at al,l when the sea comes for you.

Søker nå etter antatt omkommet - Aftenbladet.no

use google to translate

i also feel a lot for the guys trying all they could to get him back onbord, and then the vest slips of him and............

That's a nightmare situation for sure. In addition to a short tether a good fitting vest is important.

[hummingway]

Originally Posted by Hud3

Two things stuck with me from that experience. The first was how exceedingly difficult it was to see the "missing" sailor in the water, even under fairly benign conditions. If he'd drifted further away we might not have found him at all. The other thing was how totally exhausted and spent both of the gentlemen were from the experience, to the point of being incapable of rescuing themselves.

I was at a hotsprings once and watched a young man testing himself in the cold plunge. The owner has his eye on him and realized he was in trouble. With some help he got the fellow out of the pool and began warming him. The young man kept insisting he was practicing mind over matter but he couldn't speak or stand when they pulled him out. As a disinterested third party I went over to him and told him what I'd seen. He was shocked by my description.

Hypothermia robs you of your strength and your faculties. You may not even know your drowning. Most of the year the water around here will claim your ability to fight for yourself in 15 minutes. In cold water it is amazing how fast it occurs.

[E.L.Green]

while working commercial lobster 2 people decided not to show and even though something told me not to go i went with a not so hot skipper.. about half way into the day, i was letting the pots off the stern which is a very dangerous procedure.. the pots were strung up the WRONG WAY and while i was pulling them from the top to place on the deck random pots started flying at me. one after the other while all i could do was shield my face with my arm when of course, the WHOLE STACK started moving aft towards me and dragged me off the stern. by the grace of god i was able to kick off my boots and bib and not get tangled in the sinking octopus of lines and pots. the capt didnt even know what had happened for some time and while i watched the boat chug away i swam over to the high flyer to stay afloat. 5 minutes later he notices and comes back. i climb aboard and get the typical tongue lashing which i didnt even respond to because i was red with anger and releife of being alive. to top it off i told him were going in and by the way your prop is fouled with pot line. he didnt believe me and started it up anyway fouling it even more. come back into Point Pleasant inlet on one engine and call the divers to come cut it free. two days later he calls asking when i can drop the money that i owe him for the invoice for the divers!!! he claims it was my fault it happend and i was responsible. needless to say i went to work on another boat. oh and the one time i gave my brother a kick in the arse for being extremely irritating right after he said " ive never fallen off this boat and probably never will" infront of his 3 lady friends. it was 4 feet deep and we were anchored up so no harm no foul in my book

[SaltyMonkey]

Un F#*@* believable! ELGReen! That guy was a holy spinkster!

[E.L.Green]

yeah he was. come to find out he had his boat and company registered to his 13 year old daughter who had a different last name for some sort of legal issues with his past boat. i was glad to get out of there.

[Capt Phil]

Brings to mind sailing in the Gulf Islands with a couple of newbies and my then wife. As none had much sailing experience, I ran through MOB drills with each of them at the helm of a Cal 28. We were towing a hard dinghy at the time and after the drills were completed, I turned the boat over to my wife while I went to the stern of the cockpit to bring the dinghy up on a shorter painter.
There were a couple of life jackets in the skiff getting wet so I stepped into the dinghy to get them out of the water and the dinghy just flipped, dumping me into the water.
Once I surfaced, I watched the firedrill aboard and saw my crew of neophytes bring the boat about and come back for me. As I chuckled to myself over my circumstances, I suddenly realized that the boat was bearing down on me at what looked like a tremendous rate of speed, probably about 5-6 knots. They managed not to run me down but trying to grab and hang on to a stanchion as the boat passed nearly tore my arm out of tits socket! With the help of the crew, managed to get back aboard but it was a sobering experience for all aboard, including me.
A few years later while working commercially in the same area, a toddler fell overboard from a large powerboat out of Seattle headed for Desolation Sound. No one noticed the child was gone for close to an hour. An older, retired gent who lived on one of the islands was out fishing and caught sight of an orange PFD in mid channel. He went to investgate and found the child, very cold and approaching hypothermia. He pulled her aboard his small open boat and got her ashore where he contacted he Canadian authorites who sent a rescue boat out of Nanaimo to pick up the youngster (before the days of heli rescue) and get her to hospital.
It took nearly a day for the family to be reunited due to communication limitations in those days between marine operations in US and Canada but all ended well.
I heard the story first hand from the rescuer in the bar at Silva Bay on Vancouver Isld. Very heartwarming to have a good ending... Capt Phil

[SaltyMonkey]

Capt Phil - surprised there was no extensive damage to the kid, given the cold waters in those parts.

You yourself were performing ol navy frogman pickup tricks in that MOB incident

[Capt Phil]

You are right, SaltyMonkey... one very lucky youngster! I think the reason she survived was she was fully clothed and wearing a PFD which kept in much of her body heat. The guy that picked her up was only about 15 minutes from his house so she got warmed up quickly. I can just imagine the heartbreak of the parents when they couldn't find her aboard the powerboat and not knowing where she had gone over the side.
On a personal note... don't think I would have made much of a frogman... I recall seeing a movie years ago about their escapades and the boats they were boarding out of the water had very little freeboard but too much excitement for me! CP

[smurphny]

Originally Posted by E.L.Green

while working commercial lobster 2 people decided not to show and even though something told me not to go i went with a not so hot skipper.. about half way into the day, i was letting the pots off the stern which is a very dangerous procedure.. the pots were strung up the WRONG WAY and while i was pulling them from the top to place on the deck random pots started flying at me. one after the other while all i could do was shield my face with my arm when of course, the WHOLE STACK started moving aft towards me and dragged me off the stern. by the grace of god i was able to kick off my boots and bib and not get tangled in the sinking octopus of lines and pots. the capt didnt even know what had happened for some time and while i watched the boat chug away i swam over to the high flyer to stay afloat. 5 minutes later he notices and comes back. i climb aboard and get the typical tongue lashing which i didnt even respond to because i was red with anger and releife of being alive. to top it off i told him were going in and by the way your prop is fouled with pot line. he didnt believe me and started it up anyway fouling it even more. come back into Point Pleasant inlet on one engine and call the divers to come cut it free. two days later he calls asking when i can drop the money that i owe him for the invoice for the divers!!! he claims it was my fault it happend and i was responsible. needless to say i went to work on another boat. oh and the one time i gave my brother a kick in the arse for being extremely irritating right after he said " ive never fallen off this boat and probably never will" infront of his 3 lady friends. it was 4 feet deep and we were anchored up so no harm no foul in my book

In a similar incident, a friend of mine went out in the morning on his lobster boat in LI Sound. Hours later the boat was found doing circles with no one aboard. He was a veteran fisherman. Never found him. It's an all too common event on commercial boats. You were lucky. Glad you weren't a statistic. Lots of great stories here about incredible luck. We always wore an ankle knife so we could try to cut free if caught in the gear but once you go down it's usually curtains.

[E.L.Green]

Originally Posted by smurphny

In a similar incident, a friend of mine went out in the morning on his lobster boat in LI Sound. Hours later the boat was found doing circles with no one aboard. He was a veteran fisherman. Never found him. It's an all too common event on commercial boats. You were lucky. Glad you weren't a statistic. Lots of great stories here about incredible luck. We always wore an ankle knife so we could try to cut free if caught in the gear but once you go down it's usually curtains.

i was extremely lucky and i know plenty of other seasoned fishermen who have gone down a reminder is the lighthouse keeper memorial at the foot of Pt Pleasant inlet where all the names of vessels and those lost at sea have their names..when i was flying for the county where i live, one of the marsh workers was on his way out in a 18 ft whaler to the machinery on the salt marsh. when the other workers who followed about 20 mins behind him saw the boat spinning donuts they laughed. when they saw a jacket and hat in the water they knew something bad had happened. when they found him he was near dead in the early may morning water with hypothermia and the story was that his paperwork had been blown overboard and while at open throttle instinctivly tried to grab it which let his knee knock the wheel and spin it hard to starboard. boat went right, he stayed straight..

[wannago]

Last October, while I was standing on the dock waiting for someone to throw me a line, one of the gents on the boat got a little anxious to help and stepped off the boat too early. They saw this immediately on the boat and threw it into reverse to avoid running him over and managed to pull over to another dock and another guy got off the boat to help.

The man in the water had a full rain suit, boots and a PFD. He was able to swim around a little, and floated pretty well, and was in no immediate danger. But even with him pretty fully mobile and two of us on the dock, we couldn't pull him out of the water. He was a larger man, but not huge and with no mobility issues, and the two of us on the dock were both fit, active, probably a little larger than average. But pulling him out of the water just wasn't going to work....

we ended up going to a boat on the other side of the slip and borrowing it's swim ladder.

But it's really an eye opener in that situation, pulling him up just wasn't happening, in an almost best case scenario (no one unconscious, no one hypothermic from being in the water yet, it's not my 100 pound wife trying to do the lifting and we were on the dock, lower than the topside on most boats, and stable).

I went home and started working on permanently mounting a ladder on my transom.