How many people actually fall overboard each year?

[dana-tenacity]

Stas in NZ show a huge divide between small open boats and the kind of boats most of us sail. On a decked sailboat over 25 ft the numbers are miniscule. (not to say you shouldn't try to avoid it, but don't destroy yourself worrying about it either).

[Rakuflames]

Originally Posted by zboss

I am curious if this is a common occurrence given the given the amount of discussion regarding the importance of staying on board and the various training and mechanisms available to keep you on board...

Has anybody been successfully retrieved from a long distance from the boat? For example, if one person was on watch and the boat kept going a good two or three hours before the other watchperson came on.

Why would you have only one person on watch? How do you fall out of the cockpit if you're not in a violent storm? By walking forward. At night you shouldn't go forward without calling the other person up.

That said, it's a devastating accident and prudent people should be prepared for it.

If you're single-handing, you REALLY need a plan for getting back on the boat.

[Dockhead]

I've been overboard twice in almost four decades of sailing. It is much easier than you think, till it happens to you, and very frightening.

[micah719]

For the electronics-averse sailors, how do you go about installing a mechanical "killswitch" for a sailboat.....perhaps a line trailing astern that pulls out a pin and looses the sheets? Going further: also releasing MOB float, drogue and ladder?

Personally, I'm more interested in preventing going over the side at all...and with the planned junk schooner rig and midships-mounted anchor-handling gear have little reason to go forward at all. But, murphy will likely sneak aboard at some time....

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by oldragbaggers

One is too many if it is someone you knew and cared about. We lost a friend, only a casual friend, but the fact that we knew him personally instead of him just being part of a statistic, drove the point home for us.
.

That is how it is.

No overboard for me or anyone I know but when friends and workmates children are lost on the road...............

4 in two years.

[donradcliffe]

I've fallen overboard once (leaned back into a non-existant lifeline, but never let go of the spinny sheet) and retrieved people half a dozen times. The Coast Guard statistics are only for reported incidents, and it happens a lot more than that. It doesn't matter if you are fully crewed or single-handing--if its rough and its dark, your chances aren't good.

[hpeer]

Well,

I made it to the dock in 1.5 elegant leaps and bounds at 1:00am in St Johns, NL harbor. Got my foot wet and caught myself on a safety line and shroud.

The wife took a header getting out of the dink in Shelbourne, NS.

On a more serious note I know a guy crossing the Atlantic on a Amel 54. The owner and 17 YO son are on watch. My friend is below when he hears something. Goes on deck to see TWO heads receding into the waves. He screams and points while two other crew come up and retrieve the man and his son.

Kid went to grab something or other and went in. The Father went in after him. When asked what he was thinking he said something like "I just could not face going home to the Wife without him." Touching, and stupid, but touching. We all do these kind of things.

[Rakuflames]

Originally Posted by micah719

For the electronics-averse sailors, how do you go about installing a mechanical "killswitch" for a sailboat.....perhaps a line trailing astern that pulls out a pin and looses the sheets? Going further: also releasing MOB float, drogue and ladder?

Personally, I'm more interested in preventing going over the side at all...and with the planned junk schooner rig and midships-mounted anchor-handling gear have little reason to go forward at all. But, murphy will likely sneak aboard at some time....

You don't have to be "electronics averse."

I have a drag line that can trail about 150' behind the boat. Tug on it, the wheel turns, the boat turns. On my other boat (a tiller boat), the boat would heave itself to. On this boat It just slows way down. Both are good!

It's not a "solves all" solution. It's one more tool.

[CCBullseye]

I did go over board one night many years ago, but we were a mile from the mouth of a river and I went over because a cousin in law fell off the boat, the captain choked out the engine, and we were drifting away. I threw a flotation device to my friend, and told the captain to throw over the anchor, but he fouled that up, mean while I was trying to throw a line to him, and then putting on a life vest and then jumped when there was no way to retrieve my cousin. After about two hours in the water, the tide pushed us up to the boat where the anchor had fouled on some rocks around the entrance light of river. I was never really worried about my own safety, for the water was warm, and I knew that at day light, there would be a massive flotilla out searching. I was worried about my cousin in law, and knew I would never want to face his wife, one of my favor people in the world and tell her I had not been able to save her drunk husband. Needless to say, I never went sailing with those two together again. Lesson learned, me being sober was not good enough, everyone needed to be sober. This was before the drunk boating laws.

Another time, when I was a teenager, my tyrannical brother, aka Captain Bligh, pissed me off and I jumped over, a mile from shore and swam home. My sister jumped over once and swam home too.

Seriously, when I sail alone, I wear a safety harness hooked when in open water or cold water and at night, always, regardless if alone or not. I think most men fall overboard when nature calls them to stand on stern to admire the wake for a minute. I find a bucket in the cockpit if I can't go below much safer.

[roverhi]

Haven't rigged it yet but will for my next solo passage. A trip line trailing astern that will pull the self steering wind vane hard over and put the boat in irons or trying to sail in circles. All it will take is a line to the weight on the base of the wind vane around one of the pushpins verticals and then overboard. Will probably have to seize it to the vertical with a very light breakaway twine. The weight of the line trailing in the water would most assuredly screw up the wind sensing ability of the vane without something taking the load off the vane weight.

In racing have heard of several instances where crew went overboard and were picked up by following boats with almost no time in the water. Not surprizing with a bunch of boats going to the same places. Falling overboard on a typical coastal or ocean passage, it would be very doubtful you'd be rescued by anyone other than the boat you fell off of. Still, have a vague memory that someone on an ocean passage was picked up by a boat that just happened to be in the area when he fell off his boat unnoticed. The memory is very vague so could be just my imagination.

[zeehag]

when single handing, you really NEED to remain ON the boat--make sure the jacklines and tethers do not allow for falls over the side.

[Rakuflames]

Originally Posted by dana-tenacity

Stas in NZ show a huge divide between small open boats and the kind of boats most of us sail. On a decked sailboat over 25 ft the numbers are miniscule. (not to say you shouldn't try to avoid it, but don't destroy yourself worrying about it either).

I know a man, a very experienced sailor and a name many would recognize here, who jumped in after his dog fell in -- in very thick fog. He stayed with the dog, and his partner managed to get back to him -- she must have taken a compass reading immediately -- and sailed back and forth until they were able to grab the dinghy. The dog climbed up his back into the dinghy and he climbed in after her. The boat was a three-masted schooner and she really had her hands full but she did it.

[Rakuflames]

Originally Posted by roverhi

Haven't rigged it yet but will for my next solo passage. A trip line trailing astern that will pull the self steering wind vane hard over and put the boat in irons or trying to sail in circles. All it will take is a line to the weight on the base of the wind vane around one of the pushpins verticals and then overboard. Will probably have to seize it to the vertical with a very light breakaway twine. The weight of the line trailing in the water would most assuredly screw up the wind sensing ability of the vane without something taking the load off the vane weight.

In racing have heard of several instances where crew went overboard and were picked up by following boats with almost no time in the water. Not surprizing with a bunch of boats going to the same places. Falling overboard on a typical coastal or ocean passage, it would be very doubtful you'd be rescued by anyone other than the boat you fell off of. Still, have a vague memory that someone on an ocean passage was picked up by a boat that just happened to be in the area when he fell off his boat unnoticed. The memory is very vague so could be just my imagination.

I also wear a waterproof handheld radio in a fanny pack if sailing by myself, or at night on anyone's boat, not just mine. The newer radios can broadcast your lat and long and that would be a really good thing to have in the water. I'm gonna write to Santa Claus.

[Kettlewell]

The statistics are vanishingly small for sailboats the size most of us sail. If you take all the deaths in the entire USA, for every reason, on cruising sailboats it is often less than a handful on one year. You are truly in much greater danger driving to the boat, or probably taking a shower--lots of people die every year falling in the bathroom. It perpetually amazes me the amount of time, money, and effort we expend worrying about the wrong things in life--falling overboard from a larger sailboat amongst them. Yes, have good lifelines, use safety harnesses, and be careful, but the words of Irving Johnson come to my mind when someone asked him if it was dangerous to climb to the top of the masts on a square rigger offshore with no safety lines or gear. His answer was something like, "It would be silly to let go, wouldn't it?"

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by Kettlewell

The statistics are vanishingly small for sailboats the size most of us sail. If you take all the deaths in the entire USA, for every reason, on cruising sailboats it is often less than a handful on one year. You are truly in much greater danger driving to the boat, or probably taking a shower--lots of people die every year falling in the bathroom. It perpetually amazes me the amount of time, money, and effort we expend worrying about the wrong things in life--falling overboard from a larger sailboat amongst them. Yes, have good lifelines, use safety harnesses, and be careful, but the words of Irving Johnson come to my mind when someone asked him if it was dangerous to climb to the top of the masts on a square rigger offshore with no safety lines or gear. His answer was something like, "It would be silly to let go, wouldn't it?"

The yacht broker and his dog who went overboard were very glad I spend a few extra bucks on the extra safety gear including the lifesling. I assume they would dissagree with you... And say I spent time worrying about the right things.