Man Overboard Recovery Systems

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The first time we sailed to New Zealand, there was a husband and wife team sailing to New Zealand from the South Pacific, and the husband went overboard while wearing his safety harness. The tether was long enough for him to be dragged in the water beside the yacht, but there was too much freeboard for him to pull himself back on board. The wife was not strong enough to pull him back on board, and he drowned as he dragged in the water beside the yacht. The New Zealand Air Sea Rescue had to lower someone down to the yacht to help the wife get the boat safely into port, and to recover the body of the husband. The cruising couple were in their late sixties. I suspected that if they had been in a yacht with a sugar scoop on their stern, the outcome would have been different. It was obvious that their man overboard recovery system was inadequate on their yacht.

We carried three types of man overboard recovery systems on board Exit Only.

One of the systems was conventional, and two of the systems were unconventional.

The conventional system was the well-known Life Sling. As long as the individual could get in the Life Sling, we could winch him on board.

The unconventional systems consisted of a Mast Mate - a device used by people to climb their mast, and a Gale Rider Drogue.

Before I installed folding steps on my mast, I used the Mast Mate to climb the mast and inspect the rigging. Once I installed the folding steps, I no longer needed the Mast Mate to go to the top of the mast. I decided to keep the Mast Mate on board as a man overboard recovery tool. If there was a malfunction in the Life Sling system, I planned to toss the Mast Mate into the water with one end attached to a halyard. The man over board would then pass his arms and legs through the loops of the mast mate, and we would winch him out of the water and back on board.

The third unconventional man overboard recovery system was our large Gale Rider Drogue. This drogue has a large stainless steel hoop at the mouth of the drogue, and when you take the drogue out of the bag, the stiff stainless steel hoop opens up like a large hoola hoop, and the webbing deploys that is attached to the stainless steel hoop. This creates a very large cargo net configuration, and in an emergency, an injured crew member could be lifted out of the water inside our large Gale Rider Drogue that is attached to a halyard.

I am not advocating any of these methods for getting people back on board the yacht, but in an emergency, you do what you have to do. My kids and my wife all knew that they had these options available in the event of someone going overboard.

In a storm north of New Zealand, we ended up with a three foot gaping hole in our port side trampoline. If someone had stepped on the trampoline in the dark, we would have lost someone overboard. Fortunately, we discovered the blown tramp in the daytime rather than having someone go through the trampoline at night during a storm.

What is your plan for recovery of a person who goes overboard on your yacht? How will you get them out of the water? Do you have any unconventional methods of recovering a member of your crew?