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Mr Milk said..
I find it's hard enough to pull a mast out of a mast sleeve on dry land. And that's without using cammed sails. Unrigging as part of self rescue belongs to history.
On bhc's comment about paddling on a wave board.....
January 2018 I broke my ankle sailing way out in Jervis Bay. 86l Kode overpowered with a 4.5m Ezzy. The chop was short knee to waist high and the wind was just at the point where gusts start tearing sheets of water off the top.
A quick look at my ankle told me I wouldn't be sailing in. Common sense told me that I had to ditch the rig and start paddling the board alone. About 2.7km as the crow flies, but I had to angle upwind to get back to Callala Bay. I can confirm that you get knocked off the board from time to time, but it's easy to pick the steeper, larger bits of chop to be ready for. Probably happened at least 20 times during the hour and a half or so paddling.
That afternoon was the only time I have ever wished that a jetskier was buzzing around being an offensive twit, but there weren't any. Not even any fishing cruisers came past on their way to the boat ramp despite it being in the middle of summer holidays. They must have all heeded the weather forecast and headed in early.
I finally got to the beach about 1km south of the boat ramp and got somebody on the beach to call an ambulance.
Dunno if anybody ever found my rig, but I expect it has gradually broken into small bits of plastic and will have a long future of killing fish, birds and invertebrates.
I had a different experience 3-4 weeks ago in Elwood, Port Phillip Bay that I will share later but first let me start with the lessons learnt from the experience as well as the research I did after that.
The below is based on my subjective consideration of value vs practicality:
Safety Gear:
- a helmet...if you are knocked unconcious you have very little chance to survive
-a PLB if you need to be rescued asap due to an injury, drifting offshore, risk of hypothermia or a combination of them. I bought a RescueMe PLB1 around $300, smaller than a pack of cigarettes that fits comfortably under the chest flap of my wetty.
- a good wetsuit suitable for the water temp. Without a wetty you will get unconcious in 10-15 degree water within 1-2 hours and die within 1-6 hrs. I swam for 3.5 hrs and covered roughly 3kms when the water temp was 10.5 degrees, wearing a good 5/3 wetty and booties. My feet got called but I had no sign of hypothermia e.g. shivering, loss of grip strength and dexterity
-
an impact vest to protect the ribs ..low probability but you won't survive a puctured lung by broken ribs for more than 10-20 mins
-
a storm whistle: easy to carry and much more effective than shouting at the passing boats or people on the beach
a paracord bracelet: again easy to carry and 3.5-4m strong rope can be very useful when tying things etc. I carry one on my harness hook. It has a knife and whistle in the buckle.
- a PFD (type 2 or 3)...not critical in my opinion but mandatory if you are sailing more than 400m from the shore (the rule is a little more complicated)
Other considerations:-Know your limits...how long can you swim, tolerate cold water? Don't go further than you can swim or paddle back.
-Keep calm, you won't survive if you panic.
-Remind yourself that
your judgment maybe impaired depending on your physical and emotional condition. Carefully plan steps e.g. tying the board to your harness etc before disconnecting your rig, etc
-
Learn self rescue techniques for various gear failure scenarios e.g. use your harness for fin failure, reverse broken boom if needed to sail back, etc
-
check your gear before getting on the water
-Practice paddling techniques. As I mentioned above, paddling backwards with the rig still connected was not intuitive but can be pretty handy. As Mr Milk said, you can also paddle a smallish board effectively even with a broken ankle.
-Make sure
somebody is aware that you are out sailing and can call the police if you are not back
Now the story:I went out sailing on a Northerly that is side-off in Elwood around 9am. I am 85 kg, was sailing with a 93l Ultrakode, 5.0 sail in 20-25knots very gusty wind.
I was sailing close to the boating channel where the wind is cleaner, roughly 3km away from the shore. I heard a creaking sound and stopped to check my rig. My mast was breaking at the joint - I probably rushed rigging and left a gap in the mast joint. I tried to waterstart but it obviously didn't work. I decided to derig carefully and dump the broken mast and sail but keep the extension and my carbon boom. I did it carefully by first derigging the boom and tying the outhaul rope to the backstrap, then removing the top of the mast, undoing the downhaul and ditching the sail and the bottom of the mast. While derigging the sail, I put my leg through the boom that is in the water but tied to the backstrap. I secured the extension and the base to the boom, put my harness back to front and tried to get on the board to paddle but it was too hard. Decided to swim and tow my gear. Put the mast base and extension back in and tied the downhual rope to my harness hook, put the boom on the board and swam backstroke from 11:30 to 15:00 - backstroke was more practical then freestyle. I was happy to see that I was covering a good distance despite the offshore wind and was on track to make to the Brighton Marina. This was my primary objective as with the offshore wind, had I missed the marina, next stop would be Rosebud :)... I saw a few sailboats passing by some as close as 100-150m but they couldn't see me because of the chop and couldn't hear me in the wind. Finally, when I was a few hudred meters away from the marina a yacht saw me and picked me and my gear up. When I told them I had been in the water for 3.5 hrs they thought I must be getting hypothermia but I managed to convince them that I was OK by spelling a few words backwords and showing my pink and warm hands :). They took me back to the marina and offered a hot shower but I declined. They put me on an electric golf cart to drive back to Elwood while I was holding onto my board that didn't fit in the cart. It was a little unconfortable. I thank the older gentleman driving the cart and decided to walk back to Elwood, approximately 1.5km away.
When I got back to Elwood Beach Kiosk around 16:30, I was greeted by two police officers and a few of my friends. Steve the owner of the kiosk was closing but the coffee machine was still hot so I had a nice cappuccino :).
Apparently a couple of my sailing mates from Elwood Sailing Club saw me sailing around 10am but lost sight of me later. They went to my house and asked my wife to call the police. My wife wasn't too worried as she has confidence in my survival skills from past experince and she had also made sure that my life insurance didn't lapse :). After a few more visits by my friends and not to look as a bad wife, she finally called the police and when I arrived at he kiosk they were about to send out a search and rescue boat and a helicopter.
I was pretty much in control during the whole thing and I know I wouldn't have used a PLB even if I had one. BUT later I thought, had I been injured and wasn't able to swim or paddle, it would have been a far more serious case. That's why I immediately ordered a PLB and since then I never go out sailing without it.
Every situation is different but I hope you find some useful info in the above.
sboardcrazy
> 9 months ago, 4 Oct 2019
Never had one of these come undone on my adjustable outhaul. What knots are you using, a bit of a worry if its happened a few times.
( probably not but scary as 
).
