Everyone,
Thank you for the great responses already. I guess I do need to explain my hair-brained plan.
We are planning a Pacific crossing for next spring and my partners biggest fear is coming on
deck with someone missing. So we are exploring some ideas beyond the "harness at all times" thought process- which I find inhibitive. Obviously its a personal choice and harnesses have their place when the
weather is ominous.
The intention of dragging 300' of polypropylene line behind the boat is for
overboard retrieval, but perhaps not as you imagine because I agree with you, the drag induced by your body is significant and its unlikely you would be able to drag yourself up any appreciable distance- even under a high adrenaline circumstance as falling overboard.
I have for fun- under a planned circumstance- jumped from the spreaders, grabbed a trialing line dragged behind and climbed along the line back into the boat at 3 or 4 knots boat speed and its aided by, a swim suit, a
head down swimming posture and keeping your arms and grip close into your body- like swimming. But this is impractical in any real world circumstance- especially if wearing clothes and a bunch of other reasons.
It does seem to me it should be possible to use a specifically weight rated fishing line as a
gasket to the 300' of poly so when you get a "fish on" i.e. a fallen crew
member grabs the trailing line and the fishing line breaks- this would then activate a bungee cord and disable the
windvane, causing the boat to round up and hopefully alerting other crew, as well as allowing the fallen a chance to pull themselves closer.
Will this
work? Is this silly?
Obviously it needs testing on the
water. But I thought I would start by trying to find some number to
work with from people smarter and more experienced than myself.
This is also why I was wondering the drag in pounds between 5/8 or 1/4".
The fishing reel comparison was a great point. Even a non-fisherman like me knows that 15lbs of drag holds back some big lures.
My thought was a foot size loop at the end of the line, no knots along it.