Retrieving a man overboard

What methods do you have set up on your boat to retrieve someone from the water should they fall overboard? Prevention is better than cure, and ideally your crew will not fall into the sea; but there is always the chance it might happen. During the last 40 years or so of sailing, I have lost five people overboard, and all have been within 100m of a pontoon, pier or wharf. So I do have a few ideas of how to retrieve someone. Over the next few months I will show you some of these methods.

A tribuckle is an excellent piece of kit, sadly now, I believe, out of production, but there are some similar contraptions still available. Tied to the toe rail, and with the spinnaker halyard made to the apex the casualty is floated into the bunt of the contraption and then the halyard is taken up and the body rolls up the side of the boat. The major advantage is that the body is pulled out horizontally, which will mean less chance of the casualty having a stroke as the blood does not immediately drain to the toes. There may be difficulty in strong winds to get the material to stay in the water, a boathook may help here. What do you do if the man in the water is unconscious? You may like to discuss this by posting a comment below. If you have some brilliant idea for retrieving a casualty, why not explain it and I will publicise it in All At Sea?

Out of fuel at sea

For the first time in my life, I ran out of fuel at sea.  We were coming into Newtown Creek to have supper and prepare for a night pilotage exercise.  The fuel tank had shown half full at the start of the week’s charter, and the owner just said fill up the tank to the same mark as you find it at the end of the trip.  So with a tank of 130 l, I assumed we had enough fuel for about 2 day’s solid motoring.  When we ran out of fuel we had only motored for five hours or so.  The engine faltered and died on us right by the bifurcation navigation mark in the creek, so we dropped anchor and lay back on that for all of 2 minutes.  I got the engine going and we made it to one of the mooring buoys up the western arm of the harbour.   I called the owner and she asked me to call out Seastart, which we did.  They were very efficient and quick to answer our call, did all the necessary in checking the fuel system and it was concluded that we had run out of fuel.  We refilled the fuel tank and had no further problems.  The silly thing was that the engine was brand new, with a brand new fuel gauge, but showing half full when empty.  I was reading a link on one of the internet forums for yachtsmen where an owner had the sender for the fuel tank gauge replaced under warranty.     The installers had apparently failed to adjust it to the yacht’s tank, and the owner, like us, ran out of fuel whilst the gauge was still showing 1/2 full.  Lesson: if you have any changes made to your fuel gauge or senders, ensure the necessary adjustments are made correctly.

Gas heaters, beware

Have you, by any chance, fitted a gas heater to your boat recently? If you have, be aware that you may possibly have invalidated your insurance policy. Underwriters will need to be told of such installations and may well demand a survey by a CORGI registered surveyor.
Catalytic heaters can be unsafe in boats because there is no permanent ventilation into the accommodation area which cannot be permanently closed off. The closeness of inflammable materials can also be a danger, especially if the heater is fitted in a passageway past which crew need to move and thus brush up against heater screens. How many skippers know that there is a firm recommendation that catalytic heaters should not be used on board pleasure craft? A talk to insurance brokers may be worthwhile.

Rigging failure

How many skippers have run through in their mind what to do if they have a rigging failure and a shroud parts? I am a great believer in the “what if?” syndrome and always talk through the possible emergencies when teaching. One needs to be careful about being a doom and gloom merchant, but if crew have been talked through the major dangers of fire, explosion, man overboard, collision, grounding, mast down and abandon ship in a sensible and balanced fashion, they will be encouraged to follow the same guidelines when chartering or owning themselves. How many owners have a set of bulldog clips on board? A range of sizes to cover repair of stays and shrouds, cable controlled wheel steering systems and suchlike should be included in the inventory of the prudent boat owner. This way, if a check of standard rigging is made, a potential fracture may be spotted in sufficient time to rig the bulldog clips and prevent a serious accident happening. On a recent delivery trip, I was inspecting the standing rigging, prior to leaving, through binoculars and noticed from the deck that the wire halyard to the headsail was more than 50% chafed through. A quick hand swage repair prevented what could have been a serious incident.

Blocking up holes

Those of us who sail long distances always gather bits and pieces over time and many skippers have numerous plastic boxes full of those items which just cannot be thrown away because they may be useful in an emergency or for a simple repair. Reading through some magazine articles the other day, I was surprised to see an author in his list of “lessons learnt” say that he would, in future, carry some wooden bungs in case of another incident of holing from grounding on rock. This is basic safety equipment, and though maybe not rated as important as a lifejacket or harnesses, no yacht should go to sea without something to block up a hole quickly.

Care for jackstays

Do you have tape jackstays which may have been lying on deck for some time? Have they ever been removed and washed? These jackstays are, to my mind, far better than those made of wire, because unlike webbing stays they will not roll underfoot. However the tape variety will degrade in sunlight. Ideally the tape versions should be taken off and stowed below when the boat is not in use. A simple method of attachment is to cow- hitch one end to a strong point forward, say a mooring cleat; and with a lanyard, tension the other end aft. It will then not take too long to remove or fit the jackstays.

Some thoughts after a Yachtmaster Assessment

During a Yachtmaster preparation course a few months back, two of the three candidates were well up to the required standard and both passed. The third came to me with misgivings on the Wednesday, saying that he was not happy about his boat handling and thought he should have more practice before taking the assessment. I thought he was up to the required standard and told him so. I seem to have given the chap confidence, so he said he would have a go at the exam. We had, in fairness to this candidate, some strong winds during the Monday and Tuesday of the preparation week and it had not been easy to park the boat on finger pontoons with a strong cross wind; but the other two had managed successfully. The third candidate had made two Atlantic crossings and had spent most of his time in either the Mediterranean or Caribbean, he had been crew and mate of a large charter yacht, but had rarely been behind the helm for close quarter manoevres, and was understandably a little lacking in confidence in strong tide and wind conditions.

The examiner arrived on board and candidate 3 decided to be first with the assessment. A safety briefing was given, followed by preparing a passage plan to take us from Gosport to Cowes, setting off about 9.30 pm. The examiner ordered that the GPS be turned off.

The first point I would like to emphasize here is that a Yachtmaster is not expected to buoy hop down the Solent to get from A to B. Reduction of soundings exercises should be carried out to ascertain the rise of tide at a particular time. A Yachtmaster then can see if there is sufficient water over a shallow which will allow him to cut a corner safely and, if needs be, save time on passage. He should then be able to shape a course to his destination, providing there is sufficient water over the shallows. By all means use buoys to help on position finding and to help keep a check on progress. The trouble with candidate 3 was that he followed the ferry route out of Portsmouth harbour when we were close to HW; he took as his departure point one of the port hand buoys close to the small boat channel, but failed to make a log entry of time, log reading and course steered. Not being familiar with the Solent, the candidate then started heading for the north beacon off Wootton Creek thinking it was north Sturbridge, the two are in fact nearly three miles apart. Shortly after that he admitted he was lost.

I have always encouraged any navigator who is lost or confused to stop the boat and gain time to gather his thoughts. This can be by heaving to, putting down the anchor or taking down the sails and motoring into wind or tide so that there is the least amount of speed over the ground. This the candidate sensibly did, but was a trifle nonplussed with being lost and having difficulty in locating lights which could be recognized on the chart.

See my tips on the man overboard procedure we practiced.

Check your lifejackets

Boat owners, now is the time to check your lifejackets. Check that those made to inflate automatically on immersion, have clean, unpierced cylinders with no rust on them, that the inflation device has not been damaged is ready for use and that the cylinder is screwed in properly. Check also that the hand triggered firing mechanism works with the cylinder removed and that the automatic capsule is clean and unfired. The seams should be checked for damage, does the light work and is it properly secured? Are all the webbing, buckles, whistles et al in good order? Try blowing up the lifejacket by mouth and leaving it for a couple of days to see if leaks have developed during the past season. Rinse the jacket in fresh water if salt water has been near it.