Safety gear in cockpit

[ozskipper]

Did anyone mention a DanBouy. Its not tethered to the boat and creates a high vis "meeting place" for the helsman and MOB (on the assumption the MOB is able to swim of course)

My personal thoughts is that it should be tethered to a life ring or other buoyancy device. But thats just me.

http://www.islandwaterworld.com/prodimg/pl55664.jpg

[OceansFive]

You seem to have everything covered. someone has mentiona sharp knife - i think it should be a fixed knife (not folding) on the pedestal or somewhere else easy to access and ready to use immeditately.

Binoculars - situational awareness is probably the biggest safety factor.
Dennison

[jackdale]

Did anyone mention a hand bearing compass? Both for taking bearings for a fix and for taking bearing to determine the risk of collision.

[Cheechako]

I have doen actual on the water tests using a Lifesling. For about a day and a half actually. I have been the skipper and have been the guy in the water in a survival suit. It's a very good device, especially up here in the PNW where the water is often 52 degrees. It's not simple though.... especially getting the person aboard. It is pretty simple , even under sail, to circle the victim so they can grab the lifesling, and pull them to the boat. It's a lot better situation to at least have the person next to the boat, thean drifting out there somewhere!

[Andrew Troup]

re the recommendation "A pair of multipliers is a neccesity in my opinion."

I struggled to work out what 'multipliers' might be, and what purpose they would serve...
A couple of waterproof calculators, strapped back to back?
A plurality of abacuses (abaci?)

Then a hyphen swam into my pitiful little pond of comprehension and inserted itself helpfully into the midsection....

I must admit, my sailing (aka serial fixing things) career divides neatly into two eras: pre and post Leatherman...

One thing to add: on bigger boats, a second knife in a scabbard strapped on top of the outer tube of a rigid or hydraulic vang, is handier to other localities of likely need.

[Andrew Troup]

Another thought: Binoculars have been mentioned, but it's possibly worth reinforcing that there is a further safety benefit which may not be immediately evident. It's particularly helpful for those males, like me, whose red-green colour differentiation is impaired.

A decent pair of 7x50 (not x35) binos will gather enough of the colour of dim navigation lights to intensify them considerably - for me this makes all the difference telling a portlight from a starboard, or (more difficult for me) a starboard from a stern

(the same with stars - I used to be puzzled by people claiming that Aldebaran was red and Sirius blue, etc - until I got out the binos.

They also come in handy as poor-man's (and reliable, battery independent) night vision glasses: navigating into a bay where there are unlit piles at night, they can go from invisible to clearly seen, without impairing your night vision or your bank balance.

[Andrew Troup]

There's lots of good stuff in this thread, and for my money a disproportionate amount of it comes from one source.

However I have one bone to pick with what Evans has said:
He points out that "sailors used to be both lighter and stronger"

Maybe I'm the exception that proves the rule ;-)

I used to be heavier and stronger

[estarzinger]

Originally Posted by Andrew Troup

"[COLOR=Blue]sailors used to be both lighter and stronger"

I used to be heavier and stronger

It's something I am struck by when I read sailing stories from 2 generations ago and longer. Rod Stevens (and many sailors of his generation) could easily hand over hand up a (tall) rig. I am not sure I know more than a couple sailors today who can do that. I sure can't. That was back in the days when more people came from farm roots, or split logs for the fireplace or just routinely did harder manual labor than we all do today.

These guys could pull themselves back on board with one hand, so the 'getting back on board' part was not much of an issue. However, many did not have engines, or if they did they were hard to start, so they had to get back to the MOB all by sail, which they were (mostly) quite good, at but that was the challenge and the focus of MOB procedure

I am not sure that the standard instruction has caught up yet . . .to stronger motors and weaker sailors.

Regarding cockpit safety . . . one other thing in our cockpit is that we replaced our washboards with a truly watertight door. This (should) greatly reduce our likelihoods of down-flooding. Washboards are just a pain and they are often left out (at least the top one). I believe that was the cause of the German boat that was lost near us in the Drake passage - they had one board out, broached on a big wave, took a lot of water in the cockpit, down flooded, and sunk like a stone. Our good friend Hewitt Gaynor had a very similar situation on a J120 coming back from Bermuda this summer. They saved the boat but took a lot of water below and lost a lot of electronic equipment.

[Andrew Troup]

Another good point, Evans

One of my more extraordinary experiences at sea was getting rid of the Stoway mainsail on a 52' alu alloy cruiser (a "proper yacht", along Alden lines, even down to the midnight blue hull...) when caught napping by a miniature tropical revolving storm in the South Pacific.

The exercise was made considerably more interesting by the fact that the bottom washboard remained in harbour stowage throughout... in a beautiful teak compartment in the skipper's cabin.

This was a split-level cockpit, with a lower sole level under the discreet hard dodger.
To my way of thinking the bottom washboard -- effectively a removable bridge deck-- which went almost down to the sole of that lower level, and which bolted into place with rubber seals, should have been a permanent fixture off anchor.

We had far too much sail up, and only three people on deck --and no-one we could spare to roust out the nominal skipper, whose rank was entirely due to being the owner's eldest son. He later pretended to have slept through the whole thing!). It's lucky we didn't fetch him, because he subsequently said he would have rounded up to put the sail away. No worries. Yeah, right!

We were making more than twelve knots the entire time (in a narrow, non-planing hull, in flat water) with the anemometer needle never off the peg -- the peg representing 70 knots. There was nothing visible below the gunwhales: the spindrift had become a silver carpet at about that level -- but you could tell that the seas had been blown completely flat - the crests presumably converted to spindrift.

Another, even younger son was on the helm, and he did the seemingly impossible, the only conceivable option, to enable us to get rid of that #!$%!!* sail.

For a prolonged period, I'm guessing three quarters of an hour, he steered almost but not quite dead downwind, and we had the boom hauled in almost amidships. It was the only de-power option available, and in any case the sail would only furl when the membrane lay close to the axis of the slot.

For the entire time, we were on the razor-thin bleeding edge of what would have been a catastrophic gybe, even if the washboards had been in place.

And during that time, unperceived by us, the wind went gradually through 270 degrees, so our track must have described a massive question mark across the ocean.
Meanwhile the remaining two of us strained on a double winch handle in the pathetically undersized line-driver winch, relying totally on a constant-diameter splice in the endless braid furling line.

(We should have repositioned the splice to always be on the return side -- which we could have kept doing, because the line-driver winch slid along a track, and I imagine we could have periodically loosened it and fed the other loop around the drum inside the mast).

Inch by inch, we ground that sail into the mast, and by the time we'd done that, the wind had dropped to nothing (well, forty knots, anyway) and the sea had become a mobile, scaled up version of the pyramidal teeth on a meat tenderiser. So we had to get half of it back out again!

The helmsman was mentally exhausted, as you might well imagine, and we were physically shattered ...

[Andrew Troup]

Further to cockpit safety and down-flooding: I have NEVER understood why cockpit lockers, except on expedition vessels, almost always form part of, or connect through to, the interior.

Surely the cockpit walls should always be outside the lockers?

It's only compounded when stormsails or other safety gear are stowed in them. Boatbuilders seem to have a major blind spot on this.

[Cheechako]

Originally Posted by Andrew Troup

Further to cockpit safety and down-flooding: I have NEVER understood why cockpit lockers, except on expedition vessels, almost always form part of, or connect through to, the interior.

Surely the cockpit walls should always be outside the lockers?

It's only compounded when stormsails or other safety gear are stowed in them. Boatbuilders seem to have a major blind spot on this.

Yeah, I havent understood it either , other than that's the Cheap way to do it. Often it opens right into the engine compartment.... hmmmm....wonder what a spare sheet looks like wrapped around the coupling?

[Cheechako]

Originally Posted by Andrew Troup

Another good point, Evans

One of my more extraordinary experiences at sea was getting rid of the Stoway mainsail on a 52' alu alloy cruiser (a "proper yacht", along Alden lines, even down to the midnight blue hull...) when caught napping by a miniature tropical revolving storm in the South Pacific.

.................................................. ....... (omitted)
Inch by inch, we ground that sail into the mast, and by the time we'd done that, the wind had dropped to nothing (well, forty knots, anyway) and the sea had become a mobile, scaled up version of the pyramidal teeth on a meat tenderiser. So we had to get half of it back out again!

The helmsman was mentally exhausted, as you might well imagine, and we were physically shattered ...

precisely why I dislike in mast furling, sure it's all nice sailing around the harbor or doing a controlled reef.. but just when the SH** hits the fan... it's big trouble....

[GreggL]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

precisely why I dislike in mast furling, sure it's all nice sailing around the harbor or doing a controlled reef.. but just when the SH** hits the fan... it's big trouble....

I can attest to that. Single handing on a cruise when my in mast furling line slipped the drum. The sail was set on free mode and it came flying out of a reefer position. When I switched it over to ratchet and tried getting it in is when I noticed it was furled completely backwards in installation and I had a hell of a time fighting that alone. Could have ended up much worse..

[estarzinger]

Originally Posted by Andrew Troup

Further to cockpit safety and down-flooding: I have NEVER understood why cockpit lockers, except on expedition vessels, almost always form part of, or connect through to, the interior.

Surely the cockpit walls should always be outside the lockers?

It's only compounded when stormsails or other safety gear are stowed in them. Boatbuilders seem to have a major blind spot on this.

Completely agree. Our Shannon (a very well respected 'offshore' design) had cockpit lockers like that . . . just open into the inside of the boat.

Hawk does not. We have a lazerette locker and a propane & gasoline locker but both are sealed lockers with watertight to the interior. . . . and we have a watertight bulkhead just forward of the rudder shaft.

[ozskipper]

Originally Posted by Kuan Yin

You seem to have everything covered. someone has mentiona sharp knife - i think it should be a fixed knife (not folding) on the pedestal or somewhere else easy to access and ready to use immeditately.

Binoculars - situational awareness is probably the biggest safety factor.
Dennison

Agreed. Long Blade Serated Fishing knifes are best IHMO. Folding knives can seize at just the wrong time and the blades are too short to cut a line in a hurry.

Folding knives like the Leatherman tool are great for general use. But I much prefer to have a real knife at hand..