Read the post about colision mats and thought I would put my 2 cents in. I am the Lead Trainer here at the Readiness Response Institute in Bremerton, WA. We teach maritime fire fighting and Damage control (flooding control)to the
Navy, Coast Guard, Army Ships, and within the last year we have started with the
fishing fleet. Northern
Fishing Vessel Owners Association (NPFVOA) here in the Northwest has been sending their sailors here for a little over a year now. I am conducting Watertight door
training and
maintenance with them and we show them stuff to help stop/control flooding. I could write pages here on this stuff, but today I just wanted to remind everone on this site that if you do run aground, hit the rocks or you are in a situation where you cannot put a
collision mat over the side then here is one of the methods I teach here at
school. We use Wooden DC Plugs and screw an eylet to them, different size eylets for different sized wooden plugs. You then attach a lanyard (line or rope) to the eylet that you haved screwed to your wooden
plug, now if you can reach the hole inside your vessel you put the
plug thru the damage and it will float to the surface with your lanyard attached. Now go outside and take the plug w/lanyard out of the
water. Now you have a line inside your
boat and outside your
boat in the
safety of your
cockpit or
deck. Now attach something to that line (cushion, pillow, piece of
plywood, 2 x 4, blanket, tabel top, cubby hole lid, have to use your imigination) Once you have your item attached to the lanyard go back inside and pull on the lanyard until whatever you attached to it comes up against your damage (hole). This is one of the best ways of NOT HAVING to put someone over the side in cold or stormy seas. EVERYTHING I teach is to stop or control the flooding enough so eductors and
bilge pumps can keep up with what is leaking by. This may of maynot help someone out some day, but it is just another option because of
weather or obstacles inside the vessel that stop you from putting something over the damage, outside has no obstacles in the way like inside. Here are some pictures of my
engine room at
school.