Please Wear Your Eye Protection

[Delancey]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

A bit of info:
Eyewash is just saline (preserved if in a bottle, or unpreserved in unit dose form). Once a preserved bottle is opened, in simple terms it will "go off" (time depends on the storage temperature and what it has been contaminated with).
This is then not the best thing to stick in your eye when it has sustained an injury LOL. Once opened and used, throw it and buy a fresh bottle. It is inexpensive.

Yup, that was my eyewash kit at the time of the epoxy incident. Four bottles of saline solution, unopened. I had actually changed them to keep current with the expiration date. Cheap insurance that was there when I needed it.

Um, yeah, duh. I am actually in the process putting together a med kit for offshore. Had to go look at the various books and lists I have been referencing. Nope. No saline solution.

[StuM]

> Um, yeah, duh. I am actually in the process putting together a med kit for offshore

Plenty of saline solution offshore - you can haul it up by the bucket load

[Delancey]

My bad. STERILE saline solution. But if you want to change your contact lenses or flush your eyes with seawater, have at it. Probably not the end of the world.

[Captain Bill]

Originally Posted by BandB

I'm going to use a term many consider bad and that's OSHA. Maybe I'm one of the few businessmen you'll ever hear praise them. But their rules make sense. Everytime I know they found a violation, when I thought about it, they were right. Most of the time it wasn't us as an employer but employees ignoring work rules and us failing to police them adequately. But I'd encourage everyone to take all the precautions that the strictest safety people would recommend. I hear "I've always done it this way and never had a problem" all the time. Well, it only takes once. A serious burn, lost vision, loss of finger. Broken bones, loss of hearing, loss of life. Sailors who take extra precautions when sailing to make sure they don't fall overboard then take chances at the dock where a fall can result in hitting their head on the way to the water. Captains who are very careful when out on the water take chances at dock when working in the engine room. Plus often one is alone when working. Make sure you have a way to call for help. If nothing else keep your cell phone with you. It just takes one time, one mistake, one incident of taking careless short cuts.

Most times OSHA rules make sense, but other times they can come up with some really moronic ideas. The worst one I ever expreienced was when I was in graduate school and our university had a dock at our marine research facility. The dock was used for smaller research vessels and it also had intake pipes for our flow through seawater system. Osha decided that the dock needed to have a safety fence installed along the edge of the dock about three feet high. So after that to board a vessel from the dock you had to climb over a three foot fence. At least one didn't have to worry about falling off of the dock. Frankly I'm surprised that they didn't apply this rule to marinas, or maybe they're all just in violation.

[cheoah]

Great post. As I remind all my staff on the farm, you can chew with false teeth, walk on a wooden leg, but cannot see with a glass eye.

But you could get a patch! arghhhh!

kidding, not cool. I'm fortunate enough to be conscious of it all the time, keep them around everywhere, and replace them when they get the least bit cloudy, being the particular type.

I'm a little less conscious on the boat, being in vacation mode I guess. What a huge life change to lose some vision. I do have at least two pairs onboard in addition to sunglasses, which are much better than nothing depending on type and activity.

Hope your eye is OK Delancey.

[Roy M]

ahhh, this reminds me of the old days in the boatyard, where Rick, the master 'glasser would grind fiberglass with sunglasses and a Camel cigarette between his teeth. For our sterile water supply we had plenty of the $3 a case cheap beer. I was a wimp and wore a mask and goggles, but still guzzled the cheap beer. Not much alcohol in it but it was wet and we didn't chill it. The good old days. Wonder what happened to those guys.....

[Delancey]

At the time of the epoxy incident I was halfway through a multihull boatbuilding project and was very concerned about becoming sensitized. I lay on the floor and instructed my friend to get the epoxy out at all costs and to not worry about hurting me. He donned fresh gloves and got with a paper towel and went to town on my eyeball. That and the saline.

In hindsight it is possible the paper towel did as much damage as the epoxy. My eye was painful, red, and irritated for a solid two weeks before it started to get better. Suffice to say not a lot of boatbuilding during that time. I would still suffer the paper towel scrub if it happened today. I don't think I was exposed for more than about three or four minutes.

Supposedly epoxy resin is fairly benign. My understanding is the hardener is the stuff to stay away from. In my case I had selected a three-to-one system for the project specifically because to limit this risk. The higher the ratio, the worse the risk.

To this day, knock on wood, I have yet to develop any sensitivity to epoxy which I still work with on odd occasion. I contribute this fact mainly to having always been super careful, as in barrier cream + gloves. I know someone who is sensitized, great way to end a career. He breaks out with a red rash all over if he even comes in contact with cured epoxy sanding dust.

As for the eye itself, works pretty good. I notice weaker night vision in that eye as the result of a welding burn but that's another story, with nothing to do with boats.

All this business about eye protection makes me think of a solider friend of mine who refers to eyeballs as P.O.R.T.S. MARK1, as in Paired Optical Ranging and Targeting System with an emphasis on the fact that there will be no design revisions or re-issuance of said equipment.

[delmarrey]

Wasn't it OSHA that put the tall ships out of business?

Well, if they didn't, they sure would in today's time.
(No fall protection, trip hazards everywhere, spilling of oil in the sea, unstable floors/decks, pinch hazards on the winches, fire extinguishers not up to date, not enough life boats, and the list would go on I'm sure)

[BandB]

Originally Posted by delmarrey

Wasn't it OSHA that put the tall ships out of business?

Well, if they didn't, they sure would in today's time.
(No fall protection, trip hazards everywhere, spilling of oil in the sea, unstable floors/decks, pinch hazards on the winches, fire extinguishers not up to date, not enough life boats, and the list would go on I'm sure)

Oh, you mean ships like the Bounty? No that was Sandy....

[gonesail]

i'll never forget the time i had to do a saw cut .. upside down and directly below the work area. even with goggles on it blinded me but i persevered for a few more minutes and got it done

[S/V Alchemy]

Originally Posted by delmarrey

As a Machinist for over 40 years I can tell you lots of stories about the use of safety glasses.

In the old days they were a joke. It was a false sense of security. The partials would still go between the nose piece or over the top and still get ya. Then they incorporated side shields which made you lose your peripheral vision, so you were always banging your head.

The best I've found to work are the clear plastic slip-overs that go over regular glasses. But face shields are the best, if you can get them in spaces. I have a face shield that I picked up from a Dental supply. It's like a squeeze visor with cheap replaceable lens. Slip it on in a moment then slip it off when out of danger. Very light weight too.


.

Plus one from me. I got into these when I had to replace core from beneath the deck. Glasses alone don't cut it when there's a possibility of getting a blob of thickened, kicking epoxy up one's nostril.

Now I have a metal boat and the grinding and welding mean I sometimes wear a welder's mask with just a clear panel (for grinding). I had a wheel come apart and take some divots out of my leg,



but at least I'm still as two-eyed and pretty as I've ever been!

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by delmarrey

Wasn't it OSHA that put the tall ships out of business?

Well, if they didn't, they sure would in today's time.
(No fall protection, trip hazards everywhere, spilling of oil in the sea, unstable floors/decks, pinch hazards on the winches, fire extinguishers not up to date, not enough life boats, and the list would go on I'm sure)

Anyone read "The Last Grain Race" by Eric Newby? He describes his voyage on a square rigger in the last Grain Race before WWII with lots of photos. Even with a reasonable head for heights, the photos of men in the rigging securing sails untethered in appalling conditions just freaked me out LOL.

[BandB]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

Anyone read "The Last Grain Race" by Eric Newby? He describes his voyage on a square rigger in the last Grain Race before WWII with lots of photos. Even with a reasonable head for heights, the photos of men in the rigging securing sails untethered in appalling conditions just freaked me out LOL.

Haven't read it but have read other books of those who undertook voyages totally unprepared, took virtually no precautions. I don't believe the fact they made it successfully means it was the right way to go about it. Sometimes people are just lucky. But they did those things that have gotten many into real trouble. And it wasn't that they were more experienced because they weren't very much at all.

[S/V Alchemy]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

Anyone read "The Last Grain Race" by Eric Newby? He describes his voyage on a square rigger in the last Grain Race before WWII with lots of photos. Even with a reasonable head for heights, the photos of men in the rigging securing sails untethered in appalling conditions just freaked me out LOL.

Yes, it's one of my favourites, along with his funnier A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia