Helicopter Rescue, what would be acceptable to take from aboard?

[Franziska]

Funny :-)

Still, not leaving port is not an option. It's not about not taking risks, it's about minimizing them within reason.

Originally Posted by AKA-None

Here’s a thought. If you can’t afford to lose the stuff on your boat then do not take your boat where you could lose your stuff.

There fixed it for you.

[roland stockham]

It is the winch-mans decision and will depend on the situation and the helicopter available payload. Most services have a priority for saving life but will then consider what they can do to help if it does not involve a risk to you or the crew. Abandoned ship due to fire in calm weather close to shore they may even do a second lift for gear. In a force 10 at the range limit it's get you and only you out as fast as possible. There is no 'right' answer here.

[Westcliffe01]

You may initially get on board whatever you have in your hands or on your back, but if there is a space constraint or weight concern I doubt the crew would think twice of throwing your stuff out the door if they thought they needed to so that they could load additional victims or extend range so that you all can get back to land...

[Franziska]

Regarding weight, we talk about documents + 1 hdd. Not a ton of equipment, but rather 750g.

The question was initially more if a laptop is acceptable or if one should only hope for the backup drive. Sounds the latter is more likely due to bulk.

[AKA-None]

Originally Posted by Franziska

Funny :-)

Still, not leaving port is not an option. It's not about not taking risks, it's about minimizing them within reason.

Then may I suggest you learn about differential backup. Only the bits that changed are backed up.

[guyrj33]

i'd like to suggest a careful analysis of the business and build your backup plan from there.
Anytime you are in port or within cell phone range a complete cloud backup is possible to achieve. Done daily the greatest loss will be one days work. Also good for recovering from virus or hacker intrusion.
I suggest you strive for a model that will allow the business to survive without you, then when you do survive your business will be waiting for you.
The biggest potential problem I see is backing up work done while at sea. You could backup via sat phone (likely to be very expensive) or backup to HDD and risk loss.
Keeping HDD backup on board is a very good idea. Potentially you could run with mirrored HDDs and always have a bootable backup available that you could slip into another laptop and be up and running in a short time.
Test your backups.

[redneckrob]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

If you have to leave them, how do you find them again? Do they have a beacon? Do you have comms with them?

They're fast swimmers but not that fast. They're usually pretty close to where we left 'em

They have a radio we can DF on or they can vector us with and a full set of flares/strobes/dye/smoke and we can kick out their little one-man "taco" raft to them although most would rather just stay in the water because they make you seasick. They actually have to practice vectoring you in to them in the water I think as a semi annual minimum training requirement. You usually only leave them if you can get to shore relatively quickly to drop off your survivors and come back. The longest I left one out was under 30 min and the conditions weren't that bad. It's always their call as well.

[barnakiel]

Mind that many SD memory cards (as used in cameras) and similar are:


" ... Keep your memories safe. With a 10-year limited warranty, the EVO Plus microSD Card boasts 4-proof protection. That means it can survive up to 72 hours in seawater1 , endure extreme temperatures2 , withstand airport X-ray machines3 and resist a magnetic field4 equivalent to a high-field MRI scanner. ..."


The above is from Samsung.


Weight maybe 5 gramms or so. Size 1 inch x .5 inch x .01 inch.


Most laptops have SD slots too ...


You do not need a hdd or sdd for backups, you can use SD cards that fit any laptop, weigh nothing and can swim with you happily for 72 hours...


barnakiel

[RafaCorfu]

Hi people: As a Rescue Swimmer and Crew Chief in Spanish Navy, trainned in US Navy and now happily retired, can tell you that "forget everything but yourselve" is the rule. From that point, the situation of the action will determine if the CrewChief is more flexible or not. But you dont know that, so asume they will not spend one single minute in extras.
For example, it is a nice and calm day, close to the base, (not to your port or just the coast line), and the rescuees are a nice elderly couple... They probably spend a minute in taking the lady little puppy...
But... If it is the tale of the Hurricane Melania, with 60 knt wind, 10 mtr seas, and 150´from base... someone will miss her pet...
I read about different procedures in Usa or Europe. I exercise SAR in NATO with different countries and the procedures are quite similar. The big difference is the real conditions, and that is what they are trainned to, make a quick evaluation just in the approach to hovering. That will decide if someone gets wet or not. From a sailboat, difficult to miss the swim... From an smoker, it deppends, size, deck, sea state... But I said before, you dont know that decision until the very last minute, so, put in your pocket, in dry pack, what you really value. The rest...

[Cadence]

By time I had to be lifted off my boat, all I would be interested in is me and my brown draws.

[hcfirstlight]

I have actually been taken off our boat, mid (third) gale in the Bay of Biscay, in December, for a medical emergency by a Spanish Coast Guard helicopter and transported to a hospital on the coast of Spain. The clothes on my back, weather gear">foul weather gear, and a passport were all that was allowed. And, everything was soaked in seawater.

[jjjacq]

Like Brassens used to sing: "Sauve qui peut le vin et le Pastis d'abord!"

[FeralCat83]

All you really need is your passport, credit cards and medicines.

[Franziska]

Sorry, but I disagree. Did you read the starting post?

If you are a budget liveaboard cruiser and your boat is your home and the data of your business is cruical to make a restart after you lost everything, than its very much worth thinking of how to save that data.
If one has a full bank account and lots of cash stored in the bank it might be different.
We are not talking about games or stuff like that. Only cruical data to restart.

I'm talking of the most recent updates. The rest is in the cloud.

I do understand that its unlikely in such a horrible event that you can take a waterproof case with the laptop with you.

Reading the answers, it looks like two waterproof harddrives of 5TB each solve it for me. They are 2.5" ruggedized drives and fit easily in my survival suit or in the oilskin pocket & weigh very little.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/G-Technolog.../dp/B07X92R8Q1
One needs to glue the rubber seal onto the drive though. It arrives only slipped over the case.

This one is a case for smaller drives. I use it for the system backup.
https://www.scan.co.uk/products/icyb...5-sata-hdd-ssd

In both cases it might be a good idea to put them in a zip lock bag for added safety.
Another plus is that they are less likely to suffer from corrosion issues in a tropical environment.

Originally Posted by FeralCat83

All you really need is your passport, credit cards and medicines.

[Franziska]

@feralcat

And, by the way, please don't tell me what I need, it might be very different from what you need...