How Do Couples Cruisers Fall Off Boats?

[boatman61]

Tell that to the person who yells.. Grab my hand.

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by boatman61

To the first, tie the spinnaker line to the tether using a bowline then start cranking the winch... the bowline works its way along the tether as the weight comes on from the body raising them enough to help themselves.. if unconciious it raises them enough for you to keep lifting over the guard rails. That's good idea. The only problem is that they are drowning in the bow wave. You need to move them first or work really fast. But it's a good idea. I've never heard of it being tried. Seems obvious. Even a small person should be able to do it.



The victim needs to KNOW to keep their arms down.


If they went under, then you take the topping lift and secure it to the harness, release the tether and spinnaker line, hoist till you can swing them inboard..
A free floater is much harder if unconscious and unable to take a line.. tactics would be dictated by conditions approaching under motor or using sail then hove to technique and there is no hard and fast plan. The problem here is how do you get the rope attached to the person? A boat hook as been used. If you've got much freeboard, this is going to be ugly, because you still can't reach them. It's not like you have crew to hold your feet!



Yeah, you kind of need several plans. No plan is what actually happens. They get close, but fail to get a hold of the person. And that is with crew. IF the MOB can grab something, great. If not, some variation on a boat hook is the only thing that comes to mind, for me. Unless they are wearing some type of harness, very little hope.

See above.

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Tell that to the person who yells.. Grab my hand.

No choice. The elbows must be down. Boaters need to know this.

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by thinwater

That is an interesting discussion point. If you could quickly release a tender on davits, assuming the MOB can get in it, now you have a lot of time and a big target.

Having been in the water trying to catch up with an empty tender I found it impossible, even in a light breeze, and I am a strong swimmer and I was not encumbered by heavy clothing or lifejacket.

If you release a tender in the ocean more than 10' from a MOB, the MOB will not be anywhere near it by the time you get back to it.

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by boatman61

If solo yes.. but then thats preferable to being dragged along at 5kts+ hoping the wind dies so the release of drag allows me to maybe crawl back aboard.

How dya wanna die..

I believe this is not an uncommon opinion of professionals in dangerous occupations, especially if older and no family.
I have a good friend that delivers aircraft over the North Atlantic, well actually world wide, but the North Atlantic is particularly troublesome.
He absolutely will not wear the required survival suit, his belief is that it only turns minutes of suffering into hours of suffering. He says he will do everything possible to get the engine going again but as he passes thru 100’, he’s pushing the nose down.

I believe it, you have to know John, he is one tough old guy, and like I said has one or another girlfriend, but no family that he has to take care of, and I think that makes a lot of difference.

[CassidyNZ]

Originally Posted by hpeer

Because of this we have sewn crotch straps into our auto inflate PDFs. A couple of years ago there was a fellow who lost his wife up here. She went over, he got to her, but could not get her onboard. She literally slipped through his fingers. Heart breaking story.

Where I live, all PFDs must have crotch straps attached in order to achieve CAT1 clearance to leave. But I often wonder what happens to the human body when one’s entire body weight is hanging on a 25mm strap in your crotch. Especially when, like me, one weighs 115kgs

I keep coming back to the obvious. Move about the boat as conditions require. If things are unstable, go on your knees. I know that on smaller boats it isn’t practical but on my boat I have replaced to lifelines with solid 25mm SS rails at 600mm high on the foredeck and 900mm high from the cockpit around the back deck where most of our out-of-cockpit time is spent.

So other thing I’ve noticed on boats of friends or deliveries I’ve done. People have all or some of the safety gear on the boat but mostly it’s scattered all over the place. horseshoe life ring here, Danforth bouy there, upside-down light in a locker, drogue somewhere else. It’s hopeless. At 6kn you are separated from the MOB at 2.25metres a second. You don’t have time to gather all this stuff together. Mine is all mounted on the rail, all tied together. The MOB only has one place to swim to.

We do passages with our dingy on the foredeck so unable to rig a centre-line jack stay. I suppose one could rig it over the top of the dingy but then you’ll have so much freeplay the concept would be self defeating.

[redsky49]

"The other lesson is that I bet she was reaching up to help. Without crotch straps, once some one gets you, you NEED to keep your arms down. Kinna obvious."

Somewhat surprised at such a flippant answer. No, not obvious at all.

I have recovered numerous sailing partners, typically from dinghy racing, in good conditions, with life jackets on, in warm water, with experienced sailors, in good physical condition, etc. This is not what one could expect to encounter among cruising couples, many of whom are older and not at their physical peak, or who may be new to boating (exactly the type who may be reading this thread for advice).

Whether it is the man or woman who goes overboard, both parties will go into adrenaline overload. This may translate into inaction due to fear, or superhuman strength or some other extreme reaction. You cannot expect to see textbook (armchair) responses in such cases.

My guess is that, unless the overboard event occurs in the most advantageous conditions, the remaining person on board will absolutely lose sight of the person in the water. If they are fortunate enough to return to the person in the water, I can virtually guarantee that the rescuer will reach down to the rescuee, and that the person in the water will reach up. It's human nature.

Crotch straps are essential for safety, despite the discomfort. Install them, if not already present.

Even on big (well crewed) boats, MOB recovery can be a cluster f*#@. Rounding a mark while dipping the pole, and with people in vulnerable positions, it may take several minutes until the boat can safely reverse course and attempt to collect the swimmer. And that is assuming the MOB has not been injured, or knocked unconscious and already drowned.

I can't over emphasize - recovering a MOB, unless under the most benign conditions, is a real challenge. Once again, DON' T FALL OVERBOARD!

[wingssail]

Neither of us have fallen overboard but each of us have had falls which resulted in injury and which could easily have sent us sliding under the lifeline.

So how do cruisers fall overboard? I'd say you place your foot in a wrong spot and it slides and you go down.

It happens. (two days ago a huge crash on deck brought me frantically up the companionway ladder where I found Judy barely conscious with her feet over the side. It was daytime, calm, no threat, but the deck was wet, she was barefoot, whew!) obviously no tether or life jacket.

How do we prevent it (falling)? We try to stay vigilant and stay low and keep one hand for ourselves. It still happens. While sailing, at night or in rough conditions, we wear lifejackets with tether, light, horn and we clip on. Neither of us leave the cockpit without the other person notified. The jacklines go on either side of the mast from 4' fwd of the stern to the bow pulpit. We clip on the windward side. We can go the whole length of the boat without unclipping, except to get past a jib sheet. We always wear deck shoes (Ha, how about two days ago?)

How would we recover a MOB?. The lifesling and the horseshoe with spar go over immediately. The boat is circled then stopped. If the MOB is able to get into the lifesling they will be pulled to the midship and handed a spinnaker halyard then winched onboard with a very large winch. The spinnaker halyard is long enough to reach anywhere on the boat. If the MOB cannot get into the sling, or attach the shackle, we don't know...it would be bad.

We have had two crew members go over while racing. Neither became detached from the boat.

John Sloboda, of Joliga II, while singlehanding from Mexico to Marquesas in 1999, fell overboard and watched his boat sail away from him (he was naked). Calm evening, a cruise ship came by. John hailed, then cursed. A passenger not at dinner heard him, notified the crew, who stopped, launched a life boat, and recovered John. John thanked them and asked if they could catch up with his boat and put him back on board. They did.

On a second occasion John was pulled off by the anchor chain as he was trying to prevent it from falling off the foredeck. He had set sail with a pile of it still sitting there. The boat again sailed on but this time John grabbed a fishing line and got back to the boat.

John Sloboda was lucky in that regard. He died in a hospital in Guam of a non-sailing related accident.

When I invited John to go snorkeling he declined, saying, "I don't really like the water that much."

Here is an idea for singlehanders: Run a long, knotted line from the helm to a block on the side of the boat and let it trail astern. It should be attached to something which would knock off the autopilot or windvane and turn the boat. If you fall off and you can reach this line you grab it and the boat stops sailing.

[redsky49]

To follow up, when we have a crew more than two, here is what we do for MOB:

Person A yells "Man Overboard", stands up and points at the swimmer. Person A does nothing other than keeping the swimmer in sight and pointing with arm fully extended.

The boat is driven into the wind, sheets thrown free, everything which floats is throw over (3 or 4 flotation cushions), motor started and recovery begun. This is the sole job of person B. This is one version of the quick stop. There are numerous variations on this, most of which depend on a still functioning crew to properly accomplish.

Recovery of the MOB, on my boat, may vary. We have a Lifesling at the stern, which is located right next to our dinghy motor hoist. I also have a second (unused) main halyard which is secured to the toe rail, forward of the life sling. I also have a stern boarding ladder which I can drop into the water and extends down about three feet below the waterline. The ladder also has a permanently attached lanyard such that it can be deployed by someone in the water.

I certainly don't have all the answers, but I take very seriously the duties of Captain, and first among those duties is the safety of my crew. I make every new crew member aware of some basic rules, including MOB procedures, when to clip in, etc.

To date, I have brought them all back alive, so something must be working right for me. Develop your own plan. Practice it, refine it, discuss it. Be safe.

[JPA Cate]

Wingssail's lovely story about Joliga John goes to show that one might not die, falling overboard. And probaby that recoveries are under reported, as thinwater suggested.

However, on our boat, it is definitely as it is on board Mike's: Don't [expletive deleted] fall off. And don't expect to survive if you do. Period.

This boat has a broad sugar scoop stern. It is easy to deploy the boarding ladder from the water, and there is a man rope fixed there if someone needs to help himself board. If Jim were unconscious, I couldn't get him there. Sure, I'd try, but barring a miracle, even with an adrenalin assist, I doubt I could. Our "plan" has always been to cut the lashing that holds the lifelines tight, but it's still a lot of freeboard. If I could get him amidships, and get the spinnaker halyard on him, I might have a chance to get him aboard on deck. .....And if he were dead by then I'd have a huge problem on my hands. ....Of course we've talked about it over the years, and it is something everyone should talk about. When to accept death's embrace. For some of us, it is not death we fear, but suffering.

A64's pilot friend has thought about that and made his decision. Such decisions are very private, and the details--how one comes to it--are similarly. It is an issue to consider, and you can change your mind, especially if you don't go telling people what it is.

Ann

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by redsky49

"The other lesson is that I bet she was reaching up to help. Without crotch straps, once some one gets you, you NEED to keep your arms down. Kinna obvious."

Somewhat surprised at such a flippant answer. No, not obvious at all.

I have recovered numerous sailing partners, typically from dinghy racing, in good conditions, with life jackets on, in warm water, with experienced sailors, in good physical condition, etc. This is not what one could expect to encounter among cruising couples, many of whom are older and not at their physical peak, or who may be new to boating (exactly the type who may be reading this thread for advice).


---


Don't fall off. I've published numerous print articles on jacklines and so forth. Wear crotch strap. I've published re. harnesses etc.


But how does a single person make contact with a swimmer that is not responsive. So far a boat hook is the only suggestion. I feel like I'm missing something obvious.


Whether it is the man or woman who goes overboard, both parties will go into adrenaline overload. This may translate into inaction due to fear, or superhuman strength or some other extreme reaction. You cannot expect to see textbook (armchair) responses in such cases.

My guess is that, unless the overboard event occurs in the most advantageous conditions, the remaining person on board will absolutely lose sight of the person in the water. If they are fortunate enough to return to the person in the water, I can virtually guarantee that the rescuer will reach down to the rescuee, and that the person in the water will reach up. It's human nature.

Crotch straps are essential for safety, despite the discomfort. Install them, if not already present.

Even on big (well crewed) boats, MOB recovery can be a cluster f*#@. Rounding a mark while dipping the pole, and with people in vulnerable positions, it may take several minutes until the boat can safely reverse course and attempt to collect the swimmer. And that is assuming the MOB has not been injured, or knocked unconscious and already drowned.

I can't over emphasize - recovering a MOB, unless under the most benign conditions, is a real challenge. Once again, DON' T FALL OVERBOARD!

Not intended to be flippant or critical.


Although reaching up may be human nature, we train to be better than our first, panicked thought. I posted it because I believe most people have not thought about it and because it is important. Very basic for rescue personnel, and obvious, as soon as you think about it.

[StuM]

Originally Posted by Kelkara

a cleat/winch to be used as a step, and get them aboard below the lifeline. I have less than 3ft freeboard, so standing on a step just below the waterline their waist will be almost at the rail from where it should be possible to wriggle them aboard, whereas hauling someone over the lifeline with the weathercloth in place would be much more difficult ... that all assumes a fully able victim beside the boat.
.

Consider a rope lashing on your lifeline terminators so that you can quickly cut it and free the line while doing the recovery.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by thinwater

See above.

Why are they drowning in the bow wave.. go on opposite tack and leave jib backed before going forward to begin recovery.

[a64pilot]

If you do the trailing line thing make sure it’s a floating line and long.
I’m not abdicating it, I used to rig on when we were diving, it’s real common for a diver to get current swept from the boat and a line makes it a whole lot easier to get back. Now we are taking about a half kt or so of current.

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

If you do the trailing line thing make sure it’s a floating line and long.
I’m not abdicating it, I used to rig on when we were diving, it’s real common for a diver to get current swept from the boat and a line makes it a whole lot easier to get back. Now we are taking about a half kt or so of current.

Without being flippant, the floating line obviously has to stop the boat. Do any of you have a system you have actually tested? I've never heard of such a system being tested, so for the sake of discussion, it does not exist.


In fact, I have tested one such system. Kinna fun. In fact, it could be looked at as a couples solution, since it stops the boat without a sailor aboard. Before you bash it...
a) I did this just to provoke thought.
b) It actually did work every time.
c)Yes, staying on board is better. Let's not start that again.





Sail Delmarva: I Just Want the Boat to STOP!!