Death Lines!

[Blue Stocking]

We subconsciously receive many peripheral vision safety clues from our surroundings. Lifelines are one we get on the boat. How often do you walk down stairs without using the handrail. It's conditioning. IMHO

[HappyMdRSailor]

Try putting 32" lifelines on a 22' boat and see what they look like...

[crazyoldboatguy]

I use the shrouds frequently when working forward. That wasn't part of the discussion - but I'm sure many folks do just that. I brace my feet against the shroud/turnbuckle/chainplate terminus when working on the mainsail. Much more secure than the 2" gunnel.

[northoceanbeach]

You don't have to hang on for dear life on an Oday 22 with the rail in the water in a gale. They are good just to have something to put you hand on going forward to check on the anchor or something. Haven't you ever walked using your hand just as a bit of support. My handholds along the cabin top have always been very low and awkward to use unless you really need something to hang onto.

[markpierce]

Originally Posted by scarlet

YES! that is what I've been using.

On our little boat.. there is sooo little room to pass on either side of the cabin, that I rely HEAVILY on the foot board (I don't know the proper nautical word for that.. sorry.)

Toe rail.

[Ukeluthier]

Get a catboat!

Catboats traditionally don't have 'em. No reason to go forward while under way. Many less potential deck leaks.

[Silverbeard]

I tell those who are sailing with me for the first time that the purpose of lifelines is to let you know that you have just left the boat. I do stress that one should keep their body low when leaving the cockpit to go on deck and to always hang on to something such as cabin top handrails, shrouds, mast but only use the lifelines as a last resort.



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[scarlet]

Originally Posted by Silverbeard

I tell those who are sailing with me for the first time that the purpose of lifelines is to let you know that you have just left the boat.



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OMG!! that is hysterical!!!!!

[markpierce]

Sound advice, Silverbeard.

[SURV69]

I agree.

I've often used the smallest of saplings to get up and down cliffs with surveying equipment hanging off my shoulders and on my back. The balance those little saplings gave me were amazing to say the least.

But, those saplings would've still been in my hand at the bottom of the cliff, had I slipped.

My main problem with lifelines is that they are too low to be much good, if the "solid", footing on the deck were to be lost.

I wonder about a 1/2"+ line running along cabin-top handrails that can be tightened or loosened for the better diameter hold and as a handhold that would tend to keep a bouncing body toward the interior of the boat ... rather than the outside(and low to boot), of the boat.

[ryon]

Come to think of it, I broke the port quarter lifeline on an Oday this last March during a real MOB situation. I think I already said to keep your center of gravity low, to which I'll add check those cheesy, flimsy Oday swage fittings too!

[Alan Mighty]

Originally Posted by Silverbeard

I tell those who are sailing with me for the first time that the purpose of lifelines is to let you know that you have just left the boat.

The USCG did Anglophone cruisers a favor when they imposed the relatively neutral term PFD (for personal floatation device, or personal flotation device should you be orthographically so inclined) instead of the euphemisms 'life-belt', 'life-preserver', 'life-vest', 'life-buoy', 'life-ring', 'life-saver' etc.

The points being that:

* PFDs are just as good as floating a corpse as a live person; and

* we need to recognise that risks exist and devices are just ways of managing risks, not eliminating them.

Perhaps time we came up with a new moniker for the little ring fences we erect around our decks.

Perhaps VFD, vessel fence device?

And that might free more cruisers:

1. to consider the practices of the Pardeys and others of erecting temporary lines at hip or shoulder height (from memory, the Pardeys sometimes ran lines from their boom gallows to their shrouds when offshore, giving them a temporary fence line close to shoulder height).

2. to adopt jacklines and harnesses routinely.

Al

[Parmenter]

Catamaran - when working at the mast I have to fall 12 feet to reach the side
My harness length is 10ft.

[ryon]

Originally Posted by Alan Mighty

... 2. to adopt jacklines and harnesses routinely.

Al

What he said! You have no idea how difficult it is to see someone floating in sloppy seas, even with an orange vest.

Stay on the boat!

[nimblemotors]

The solution to the problem of failing off your boat is not to stand or walk at the edge.

Why they design boats which make you walk along the edge of death is the question.