Has anyone ever fallen over tethered and tried to pull themselves back in?

[er9]

so i read over and over of solo sailors tethering themselves to their boats as a safety precaution. good stuff and i'm an advocate but...

i recently read Istvan kopars book of his first circumnavigation. If your not familiar...this guy was is peak physical condition as a man for his first circumnavigation. In his book he describes being on a shakedown sail with a buddy. he decides to jump in as the boat is sailing along and get dragged by a tethered fender if i remember correctly off the stern for a fun tow/swim. he then describes not being able to pull himself back to the boat from the dragging fender/rope.

there are pictures of this guy at the time and he is muscular and in very good physical shape. i got to wondering....if any of us tethered solo sailors actually fell over, you have to remember...if your thrown overboard chances are its moderately severe conditions, would we actually be able to really pull ourselves back aboard on a slick rope, under probably severe conditions being dragged by the weight of a many ton ship moving at 6+ knots?

my question is has anyone here actually had to do this? has anyone ever tethered themselves with friends aboard and purposely jumped in to see if they actually could?

i'm not questioning the act of tethering ourselves to a boat but is there a right way and a wrong way to do this so you actually have a realistic chance of pulling yourself back aboard, alone in the worse case scenario?

to add to this....im a humongous fan of Laura Dekker. i was watching her documentary last night for the 50th or so time and i noticed her harness. she was clicking in her harness from the back. ive tethered myself sailing alone and i can only assume from experience clicking in from the back causes less snags moving around on deck but.... when i thought about it though i imagined being thrown overboard like that. you essentially would be dragged backwards from the weight of a 20 thousand or so pound ship moving at many knots speed. her harness looked off the shelf made but that would mean you would be dragged backwards and would have to summon the strength to not only turn yourself around against humongous forces but then pull yourself back aboard.

wow...i'm in pretty good shape but that seems like a tall order even when its life or death and the adrenaline kicks in...