Man Overboard with Auto Pilot Engaged!

[Andrew Troup]

Never mind, Oregon. You'll probably get used to it. I did ....

[River Cruiser]

Hanging on a line being towed behind a boat is bait;-)

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by Andrew Troup

I'm nearly your age. After viewing the youTube difficulties of the young guy trying repeatedly to reboard a yacht from an inflatable off Pitcairn a year ago, dropping into the water each time, I wondered if I could have done as well, let alone better.

I checked to see if I could still do even a single pullup (chinup) and found to my dismay I couldn't. I had memories of being a little kid, watching some skinny little runt effortlessly doing something which was completely beyond me.

So ... for the last year or so, I've spent a few minutes a day (when I first get up, and last thing at night) doing chinups. Initially I had to stand on a box so I was pulling up with bent arms, until I could manage one free-hanging.

I can now easily do ten, from the free-hanging situation. This morning I did 14 straight, for the first time ever.

At first, I had to be very careful not to overdo it and pull a muscle, and my stomach muscles would ache. But the careful progress has done wonders for my core strength.

It doesn't make me any keener about falling off the boat, but it does reassure me that (at least in this one respect) it's not necessary to equate age with weakness.

At the same time I've been working on quads, and pushups, so as not to end up with an over-specialised physique - but I don't find it takes long, and doesn't need any gym equipment.

That's great Andrew but I'm thinking most of your average CF'ers are more like Pvt Pile here:

Pull Pile Pull - YouTube

[klmmicro]

Originally Posted by thomm225

That's great Andrew but I'm thinking most of your average CF'ers are more like Pvt Pile here:

Sadly, this is the case. Used to be able to grab and hold on to a moving inflatable and with a grunting effort pull myself over...now, I AM the infaltable.

[fozrunner]

Originally Posted by River Cruiser

Hanging on a line being towed behind a boat is bait;-)

Now that's something I can relate to!

Back a few years ago I was involved in a survey of the Great Barrier Reef. A pair of us were towed off a dingy from two lines attached to a piece of plywood. We called it manta boarding. You had snorkel gear and were towed over transects across the reef (this was in the Swain's reef). After 5 minutes or so (about three breaths) you were stopped and then debriefed on what you saw. It's amazing how good you got at recalling what you had seen. The section of the reef was then rated for a number of things.

Given my experience drift scuba diving I reckon we would be going 3-5 knots. You could hang on quite easily, but got tired after a few hours. By the end of the week you were much stronger. You could pull yourself up the rope, but it was a challenge. At that time I was in my twenties and worked out with weights twice a week. I don't think you could pull yourself 200m, but if it meant life or death, I sure would try!

My first post mentioned, rather tongue in cheek, to tow a surf board (or perhaps a sit on board). Maybe it wasn't so dumb. Chafe on the line could be a problem, but we did tow those dingy's all over the reef and there were no worries. This could be a viable solution to those concerned enough. I don't think it would take me 30 s or more to swim to a line. We did it enough in full scuba gear trying to catch lines in fast currents. Some of the weaker specimens couldn't do it and we ended up dragging them in on occasion.

Back to the bait part. The only time we were concerned was when a tiger shark checked a pair of the surveyors out. I was in the dingy. They didn't know what to do, they didn't want to let go and they didn't want to start thrashing their hands around to get the dingy's attention! Hang on was all they could do!

We also went over a section of reef that my buddy and I rated a 10/10 ( the highest before that was a 7). It was simply spectacular, amazing coral and fish diversity, huge staghorn coral, large Moorish idols and Grouper, and two turtles swimming into the blue. The GBRMPA guy didn't believe us so we towed him over the section. When he came up he said, no it was a 2! What! He said if we rated it that high every dive ship would be out there anchoring on it. He thought it was the most beautiful section of the reef he had ever seen. So we wrote down a 2, noted the gps coordinates and I reckoned I would go back one day and see how it fared over time. Hopefully one day soon!

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by Andrew Troup

Trailing a line without it being set up to stop the boat strikes me as dangling false hope. I'm not surprised, Therapy, that no-one bothered testing that proposal. It seems to me to offer very limited benefit indeed, virtually zero in the case of single-hander.

Whenever this discussion comes up, most of those who promote the idea are talking about a tripline which stops the boat, and most of those who denigrate it are talking about a different idea: a simple fixed line.

A classic cross-purpose discussion, whose result is the opposite of enlightenment.

Andrew, that's great. I love a lot of your posts. I have no idea what goes on in your mind, but I keep reading to try to find out. I read all of your posts. I don't care about enlightenment with a single line that does nothing. So why not I think of something else?

I am pretty sure that this is going to open me up to prove that my mind is not nearly as complex or understanding is yours. But what the hell.

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by fozrunner

So we wrote down a 2, noted the gps coordinates and I reckoned I would go back one day and see how it fared over time. Hopefully one day soon!

What a great story.

Clever fellows, you are.

[Oregon Waterman]

Originally Posted by Andrew Troup

Never mind, Oregon. You'll probably get used to it. I did ....

Yeah, I used to teach special ed so...

[Andrew Troup]

Sorry Therapy.

I wasn't taking a dig at your post with the latter part of mine.

I should have clarified that my feelings about what you wrote were limited to this:

A) It seems to me that, even in the case of a person powerful enough to pull themselves a considerable distance to the transom of a boat sailing at anything near hull speed, that person would be unlikely to have any reserves of strength left to haul themselves on board unaided.

Since it seems self-evident, it didn't surprise me that no-one had tried it after the previous thread and reported back.


B) The second point, which I should have labelled "New Topic", and which did NOT relate to your post, was that it seemed to me that this thread seemed likely to take the same turn as previous threads on this topic.

In case anyone doesn't remember, previous threads turned into a few people saying "stopping the boat seems worthwhile and doable" and a lot of people saying "You must be nuts. There's no way you'll get to the rope, and if you do, .... (at this point, they generally made some variation on the point I make in my first paragraph of this post)

So I was saying (in the second part of my post which still may have seemed to be aimed at you, but was really intended for general consumption), that I did not relish another discussion where the two sides were talking "at cross purposes", ie about entirely different proposals.

NEW TOPIC:

Your suggestion with the parachute is thought provoking.

A big chute would be a bit of a nuisance if it deployed accidentally, ie because of a snag or marine animal caught on the tripline.

But I'm thinking that, in the case of a boat where it was hard to rig a tripline to operate at a light load, I can see merit in a tripline where a lighter pull broke a wooden shearpin, say, releasing (paying out) the tripline for further 5m perhaps (which would give you a chance to get a really good grip on the handle if the boat was hightailing it) and incorporate a drogue or two at the tail end of that extra section, to provide the bulk of the force to heave the steering over, AND start slowing the boat down.

I do think you might be onto something, Therapy!

(Oregon - I wonder if that might be a possibility for your bigger boat?)

I'm glad I took the risk of raising triplines again.

It was a pointless, verging on humiliating experience last time, but this time there seems a bit more variety of response.

ANOTHER NEW TOPIC:

As for length of tripline, I personally think 30m would be plenty for the basic deployed line, for any boat up to 15m long sailing at displacement speed.

I frankly doubt that anybody unable (whether by bewilderment, injury or incapacity) to get to a line that long is going to be able to make any use of a longer tripline, in which case the topic will be of limited interest to them.

I would hope any people in this category would leave the tripline discussion to those who do consider it doable.

[Tx J]

Originally Posted by Andrew Troup

Sorry Therapy.

......

ANOTHER NEW TOPIC:

As for length of tripline, I personally think 30m would be plenty for the basic deployed line, for any boat up to 15m long sailing at displacement speed.

I frankly doubt that anybody unable (whether by bewilderment, injury or incapacity) to get to a line that long is going to be able to make any use of a longer tripline, in which case the topic will be of limited interest to them.

I would hope any people in this category would leave the tripline discussion to those who do consider it doable.

A boat traveling at just 5.4kt/h (10km/h) is moving 2.78 meters (9.12 feet) per second.
With a 30 meter drag line, that gives you just 10.79 seconds from the time you lose contact with the inexorably moving vessel*, enter the water, surface, orient yourself, focus your eyes, and start grabbing for a rather thin slippery tenuous rapidly moving line; which could be up to, say, 0-15 feet laterally from your position. Quite a high stakes cr*pshoot, eh?

*(measuring from the transom, further forward gives you a little more (but costs you lateral distance), if you don't stun yourself on the hull going down)

Best case test would be for somebody to stand on the swim platform/step right next to the drag line and fall in the wake, then try to grab the moving line. I think even that simple exercise might be a bit difficult.
(and I usually drug a 'safety' line behind the old Hobie, can't recall anyone successfully grabbing it)

Now a firmly 'attached to your person at all times' boat stopping/course altering/changing the helm to head to wind mechanism tripline might work.

[GILow]

When I tested this on the Austral 20, the boat was doing a bit under 5 knots. I "fell" overboard from next to the upwind mast stays (OK, it was planned, but I sort of flopped out sideways in a somewhat overly dramatic fashion to simulate falling, no Oscar nomination...) and I then surfaced, swam briskly towards the boat (I swim very well, being an Aussie kid has some advantages), and ended up grabbing the second of the three handles on the line, about 40m from the stern. The first handle was about 30m from the stern, but I missed it just looking for the line in the first place, it was harder to spot with my head in the water than I had expected.

Hardly a scientific test I know, I was more curious to see if the boat would stop, I wasn't thinking much about whether the line was long enough, though reading all this now I realise I should have been doing so. It seemed so very long looking back from the cockpit.

Anyway, the little 1.2 ton boat rounded up very sharply with my 110kg in the water pulling on the line, probably in less than a boat length. So I believe this simple mechanism is adequate for a SMALL boat, provided you can get the degree of offset from the centreline of the boat that I was able to achieve by using the upwind jib winch (And the Austral 20 has a pretty significant weather helm most of the time anyway). Of course, when you tacked, you had to move the line to the other winch, but that was pretty straightforward.

When the water is next warm enough, and I am somewhere in South Australia where it is reasonably unlikely to find a big, pointy toothed fish waiting for me, I will give it a try with the Swanson to see what happens, but somehow I think I am not going to have much effect on 17 tons of boat.

On the original question though, it strikes me that an active transmitter, attached to the life jacket of the solo sailor, would be a reasonably fool proof solution to this and probably is what one of the previously recommended electronic options uses. A bit like the MOB warning systems, once the transmitter is no longer being received it triggers the alarm. The electronics would not be too hard for most autopilot systems that accept NMEA inputs, a simple reverse course calculation, with a timer circuit, that tries to turn the boat back on its course for, say, two minutes, then reverses that again after two minutes... etc. Clearly the boat is going to end up nearly dead in the water if it is sailing boat, if it were a power boat then I suppose something that just killed the engine(s) would be simpler still. The same circuit could be incorporated into a sailing boat on the primary ignition wire for the engine, in case you were motoring at the time. Reverse the course, kill the engine feed. Probably less than $100 worth of electronics and a few hours with a soldering iron. Or buy the MOB alarm system and add a few relays to that.

Matt

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by Tx J

Now a firmly 'attached to your person at all times' boat stopping/course altering/changing the helm to head to wind mechanism tripline might work.

I have it figgered out in my head.
It will work easily.
No trailed lines either.
And you will have a parachute for normal purposes. Who would not want that?

Once developed we can all pee with abandon!!!

Oh the freedom..........Oh the security..........Oy.........**** - that waters cold.

[builder dan]

My father was delivering a yacht down the west coast of the north Island in a storm and a breaking wave threw him out of the cockpit over the side luckily the next wave lay the boat over enough for him to get tossed back in.In storm conditions all the trailing lines wont be worth a damn,use a life harness and shirt tether.

[SV Simple Life]

I found this on a quick trawl through Google..

http://www.killcord.co.uk/resources/...al_v2_6_EN.pdf

Eamonn.

[Steve Bean]

I crewed on a delivery from USVI to Nassau with a charter skipper and wife who had lost a guy while crossing the Atlantic. He was being dragged astern on a rope.
I know a way to climb a rope using mostly leg power.
While holding on with your hands, pull one leg up as far as you can and wrap the rope around your foot, then clamp the rope against your ankle with the other foot. Straighten your legs and pull with your arms. Even if you don't have the arm strength to do a single pull up, you can climb up. I haven't tried this behind a boat.