I like the idea of the PDF with the hood and I have read glowing reports from Britain. I personally don't plan on going in to the water. Because of the regulations on crossing a bar I wear one of the few PDF's that don't need crotch strops. Most of the time I keep wearing it but on hot days I will strip down. For serious offshore stuff in less than ideal conditions I wear an old dinghy buoyancy vest I have modified by sewing seat belt webbing around it like a permanent helo lifting strop and a loop for my hand held vhf. There is no way this can be punctured and the arm holes are designed to stop it riding up over my head. I can sleep comfortably in it as well. Also has a whistle so I don't get fined by the MSB for not carrying one!

I do not know of this bloke that's missings history but it's a possibility it may be intentional. Strangely I feel more more the missing dog. Not the first time old men have sailed off into the sunset.

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Ramona said..
I like the idea of the PDF with the hood and I have read glowing reports from Britain. I personally don't plan on going in to the water. Because of the regulations on crossing a bar I wear one of the few PDF's that don't need crotch strops. Most of the time I keep wearing it but on hot days I will strip down. For serious offshore stuff in less than ideal conditions I wear an old dinghy buoyancy vest I have modified by sewing seat belt webbing around it like a permanent helo lifting strop and a loop for my hand held vhf. There is no way this can be punctured and the arm holes are designed to stop it riding up over my head. I can sleep comfortably in it as well. Also has a whistle so I don't get fined by the MSB for not carrying one!

I do not know of this bloke that's missings history but it's a possibility it may be intentional. Strangely I feel more more the missing dog. Not the first time old men have sailed off into the sunset.

Sorry Ramona, but on that last point I think you are out of order and totally wrong. Particularly as he had a dog. And he was heading to a get-together.

IMHO apart from being run down, the biggest problem with singlehanding is fatigue. The corollary of that is falling overboard. At a mature age the fatigue is also harder to handle.
Maybe we have to admit that long (overnight and more), coastal passages as an older single hander is not a good idea. Far offshore the chance of being run down is a lot less, and you could get some sleep.

Crotch straps are important, but they have to fit correctly. Article in recent Yachting World recounts how the author could have drowned after catching his crotch strap on an obstacle on deck, and ended up hanging upside down with his head over the side. Luckily he could release the mainsheet and the boat popped back up.

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FreeRadical said..

Jolene said..
"Splash factor"

Also known as secondary drowning, Floating on your back coping spray in your face can drown you. A full hood on your wet weather gear will stop it from happening along with rolling over on your belly to protect your face if you don't have a hood gadget . How long could you keep that up?

I have a crewsaver ergofit PFD that has a built in hood that you can pull over your head. It also has hammer activation.

why? Because I just like gadgets.

I like the gadgets too. The least they will do is give you some hope. I think it all depends on where you are in the world and who's around at the time that can help as to how effective they are. Floating around out off Freo with a Life jacket, EPIRB and a signaling device and your nearly guaranteed to be found alive, same might not be said deep in the southern ocean but it all depends on who's around, You could just get lucky.

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Toph said..
You start with a bag full of luck and an empty bag of experience. The trick is to fill the bag of experience before you empty the bag of luck.

That is the best little gem of wisdom I have heard all year. Good one.

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FreeRadical said..
Another bit of kit I think is really good is a Spot Tracker. Sends an email to multiple addresses for departure and arrival, can set track points for down to 5 min intervals, waterproof, pocket sized, has SOS function.

We had this on our yacht for the delivery from Airlie to Perth. Whilst off the boat for the stage through the Kimberley, I was following the progress via the spot tracker on its website. I noticed the yacht start to veer away from one of the planned anchorage stops (we had a very detailed route plan), I then sent a txt on the sat phone to confirm all ok and get an update on what the amended plan was. Very simple and the crew were glad to have a set of eyes on them through a pretty remote part of the country

we use it all the time for trips up an down the coast.

www.findmespot.com/en-us/products-services/spot-gen3

That is a top piece of kit. So simple and easy and free hardware with a service plan. Thanks for the link.

A better idea than a PLB I think.

Maybe when sailing solo it would be wise not to take pets, they may cloud your judgement and cause you to make a careless error. I sometimes take my dog out with me and each time I swear never again.

The dog is the key to the recent incident I think. The boat was found in good nick but the sail in tatters. I suspect the dog fell overboard several days before the boat was discovered. The skipper tried to recover the dog and fell in and the boat drifted off faster than he could swim. This is a surprisingly common scenario of old blokes drowning trying to save their dogs.

Dogs should be wearing life jackets too and have the same tethering arrangements as the skipper. The dog jacket should also have a large handle on the top so that it can be grabbed from the vessel. I would also suggest practicing this maneuver in harbour.

I have a suitable lifejacket if anyone wants one.

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Chris 249 said..

cisco said..
Solo sailing, what can we learn???

1. It compounds the risk of death by drowning megafold.

With respect, so we know that???? What are the stats?? If you have to move a boat from one port to another is it safer for one person to expose themselves to the risks, or for four people to be at risk of getting run down, hitting a container at night, losing a keel etc. More people would be alive today if Rising Farrster, Patanela and other boats had been sailed singlehanded, so can we just assume that singlehanding is much riskier?

In my experience I find that just moving around on a sail boat at sea is a lot more difficult than anywhere else. Having to go forward is virtually unavoidable no matter how well the yacht is set up.

MorningBird and I both found on the LHI trip that going forward to do a task is about as tiring as doing a 100 yard sprint. Age has a lot to do with it. So going forward must be done having three points of contact all the time and most of what you have to grab hold of is wire (lifelines and shrouds). Then when you get to the task you usually need both hands so you have to wrap yourself around something like the forestay. You are getting bumps and bruises all the time.

If in the transit between task and cockpit on the high side of the yacht one was to fall outside the lifelines, even though harnessed and clipped on, it would be near impossible to get back on deck unassisted and uninjured.

This is assisted recovery. How much harder is it going to be single handed????

www.oroliamaritime.com/products/kannad-marine-r10-ais-mob-device/

Another cool gadget, not really much chop to the solo sailor out in the never never, but it would give your position to a passing vessel if you ended up in the drink among shipping

In Cisco's video, throwing a lifebuoy attached to a rope might have made a much less dramatic video!

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Ramona said..
In Cisco's video, throwing a lifebuoy attached to a rope might have made a much less dramatic video!

Here's the story

www.clipperroundtheworld.com/news/archive-article/derry-londonderry-doire-successfully-recovers-man-overboard-

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Ramona said..
In Cisco's video, throwing a lifebuoy attached to a rope might have made a much less dramatic video!

Have to agree. I expect the complication was the MOB was incapacitated in some way but it doesn't appear to be the case. Why the swimmer was lowered into the water with the risk of bashing against the hull rather than jumping clear and towards the MOB is a mystery. I have never practiced such a procedure in any MOB drill. It might be the boat size or something but we don't do it on a 54 foot race boat.
A MOB Life Sling and a swimmer who could swim with a life line tied to him would have made this evolution easier.
An interesting video.

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cisco said..

Chris 249 said..

cisco said..
Solo sailing, what can we learn???

1. It compounds the risk of death by drowning megafold.

With respect, so we know that???? What are the stats?? If you have to move a boat from one port to another is it safer for one person to expose themselves to the risks, or for four people to be at risk of getting run down, hitting a container at night, losing a keel etc. More people would be alive today if Rising Farrster, Patanela and other boats had been sailed singlehanded, so can we just assume that singlehanding is much riskier?

In my experience I find that just moving around on a sail boat at sea is a lot more difficult than anywhere else. Having to go forward is virtually unavoidable no matter how well the yacht is set up.

MorningBird and I both found on the LHI trip that going forward to do a task is about as tiring as doing a 100 yard sprint. Age has a lot to do with it. So going forward must be done having three points of contact all the time and most of what you have to grab hold of is wire (lifelines and shrouds). Then when you get to the task you usually need both hands so you have to wrap yourself around something like the forestay. You are getting bumps and bruises all the time.

If in the transit between task and cockpit on the high side of the yacht one was to fall outside the lifelines, even though harnessed and clipped on, it would be near impossible to get back on deck unassisted and uninjured.

This is assisted recovery. How much harder is it going to be single handed????

Yep, but is the added danger to one person greater than the danger of exposing two or more people to the other dangers of offshore sailing? I honestly don't know and I suspect no one does.

Bow work offshore, IMHO, is something you have to practise at, like most things, and few people do. The really good guys are magic but just by practising and analysing the rest of us can become vastly better at it. I can't actually recall a racing bowman ever being lost after going overboard, despite the way that some of them run around in a way that scares me.

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Ramona said..
In Cisco's video, throwing a lifebuoy attached to a rope might have made a much less dramatic video!

It was not my video and not the one I was looking for.

The one I was looking for was of an older American guy doing a deliberate fall off and then climbing back on. He did it but it was not very convincing.

Maybe you can find it??

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Chris 249 said..

Yep, but is the added danger to one person greater than the danger of exposing two or more people to the other dangers of offshore sailing? I honestly don't know and I suspect no one does.

I know what you are trying to say but I think your logic is flawed. The danger to one person being at sea is X so therefore the the danger to three people at sea is three times X??

I believe for offshore and even coastal passages of length a crew of three is the most sensible. A crew should be a TEAM and pardon the cliché but Together Each Achieves More.

Yes the number of lives at risk is trebled but the risk factor to each greatly reduced by virtue of redundancy.

Bow work offshore, IMHO, is something you have to practise at, like most things, and few people do. The really good guys are magic but just by practising and analysing the rest of us can become vastly better at it. I can't actually recall a racing bowman ever being lost after going overboard, despite the way that some of them run around in a way that scares me.

Practice does make Perfect. That is what the military and savvy civilian organisations do all the time. They conduct drills so that everybody knows what their task is in an emergency situation and do it automatically.

Too many people, in particular older men, are set off sailing single handed without giving much thought to the consequences of their actions, in particular to the danger imposed on those tasked with rescuing them from their folly and the grief they cause to their loved ones.

The "Man Overboard" topic has been discussed many times on this forum and I am becoming weary of it.

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cisco said..

Chris 249 said..

Yep, but is the added danger to one person greater than the danger of exposing two or more people to the other dangers of offshore sailing? I honestly don't know and I suspect no one does.

I know what you are trying to say but I think your logic is flawed. The danger to one person being at sea is X so therefore the the danger to three people at sea is three times X??

No, my logic wasn't that the danger to each member of a "full crew" is the same as the danger to each singlehander. It is that unless the danger to each member of a three man crew is LESS than one third the danger to a singlehander, then there is no overall safety improvement.

My gut feeling is that the number of singlehanders lost off Australian coasts is so small that the dangers are not that high.

However, my comments centre around the people who DO practice a lot and have years of experience in the tasks they have to do. I think you're dead right that there could be too many people who are not in good physical condition and have not got enough experience going out there singlehanding. The fact that some people can't get back onboard alone even when their boat is one a mooring scares me!

Lets face up to the fact that what it all comes down to in the end is that it is personal responsibility and personal choice that decides how safe you are when sailing, nobody can force anyone else to do the safety things, when they are solo sailing, if they choose not to do them, then only they are responsible for the consequences of their actions, unless of course you buy into the need for more useless nanny state rules and regulations, which most people would ignore once out of sight of Big Brothers eye anyway. I certainly don't and if you do then do the world a favour, go out sailing and don't come back.

I read a report years ago that the most boating fatalities in the UK were from people in their tenders between the shore and the mooring.

Cisco
This thread is not MOB its solo sailing
Any bew relivant material is valard I think
New and different perspectives are worth reading I think personally