On my recent trip aboard Spirit of Adventure (1,700 nm from Nova Scotia to Antigua) we generally followed Antoine's rule about being tethered except to say we were always tethered, even in the cockpit. At the start it seemed a bit of a nuisance but after a few days we just got used to it. Several waves which came over the side of the boat were reminders of the power of a wall of water. The notion of grabbing onto something while one is being washed overboard is unlikely. The trailing line seems even less likely to work. The skipper advised us that if you go over do not count on being rescued. You may be rescued but do not count on it especially at night. That's with a crew of 12 on board. And I don't think he was being overdramatic.
I think the theme to focus on is prevention rather than remedy. I like the idea of running the lifelines down the center of the boat. The low side doesn't seem that appealing when you're only a couple of feet from the rail and your tether is 4 feet long. On Spirit of Adventure there were also attachment points in the middle of the cockpit floor, as well as on the steering wheels. Very handy. Cheers, Steve Hood S/V Diamond Girl C&C 34 Lions Head ON ------------------------------ Message: 4 Date: Thu, 02 Jan 2014 11:59:22 -0500 From: Antoine Rose <antoine.r...@videotron.ca> To: cnc-list@cnc-list.com Subject: Re: Stus-List methods of self-rescue? Message-ID: <86551b26-fb4d-4a6b-97f3-aa66e6cf9...@videotron.ca> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" At sea, you never go out on the deck without your harness attached to a lifeline, period. When the weather gets rough, you have to be attached in the cockpit too. The idea that someone would rely on a 100 feet line to grab is, sorry, wishful thinking. At six knots, the boat is doing 10 feet per second. The 100 feet line is gone in ten second max. Picture this, go overboard, get back to the surface and get oriented a bit. Better start swimming damn fast, you got only one try, if any, even in daytime in calm sea. I wouldn't rely on this even with a 300 feet line. Actually, when single handled, not only are you attached, but most of your thinking goes into insuring that you don't even get thrown overboard. Because, even when attached to the boat, the prospect to get back on board is far, far from being granted. Your mind goes into finding ways to ensure that, in the case you loose your balance and fall, you wouldn't fall overboard: shorter tether line, attaching the tether on windward side, installing a lifeline that run in the center of the boat rather than on the sides... In all due respect, please forget the idea of trying to grab a line. If you have any doubt please do the following: next summer, fully clothed with all the weather gear and the inflatable vest, through yourself over board at anchor and try to swim just ten feet in ten seconds. Personally, I prefer to rethink the lifeline system such as lines running over the cabin top. runways on the side are nice in fair weather. In my view, runways are not the only places where lifelines should be installed. Ensure that your inflatable vest is really comfortable and adjusted, easy to put over your weather cloths. Happy New Year. Antoine (C&C 30 Cousin) Le 2014-01-01 ? 21:28, Eric Frank a ?crit : > With the recent interest on this list-serve about inflatable vests and tethers, and the comments that going overboard when single-handed is unlikely to have a good outcome, I have been thinking about possible ways to improve the chances of self-rescue. My father always trailed a 100 foot polypropylene line (so it would float) off the stern, with a knot at the end. He hoped to be able to grab that and then haul himself back to the stern transom. Of course a ladder off the stern would be crucial, which he did not have. But as this list-serve has noted, it is very unlikely that one would be strong enough to pull along the line back to the boat unless the boat were nearly stationary. > > Would it be possible to rig a drogue (sea anchor?) in a bag on the stern so that when you pull the line trailing off the stern, the drogue would deploy? I have no experience using drogues or sea anchors, but are they capable of slowing the boat, with sails full, to a knot or two? That might be slow enough to enable one to pull oneself back to the boat. The stern ladder would also need a cord to pull so that it would fold down, and be deep enough so that 1 or 2 steps would be underwater. The larger drogues are 6 ? 8 feet in diameter, so that might be sufficient. One could also rig a trip line to the engine so if it were running, it would stop. > > This idea must have occurred to many others, but I have never seen it proposed. Obviously one would rig the drogue bag and stern line only when single handing ? not racing. But the bags I have seen for full-sized sea anchars are not huge, so it would not take up a lot of space behind the helmsman. Has this been tried? Do any of you have experience with deploying large drogues and seeing how slowly the boat moves? If I had one, it would be interesting to try it out on a warm day and with plenty of help around. > > Eric Frank > Cat's Paw > C&C 35 Mk II > Mattapoisett, MA > > _______________________________________________ > This List is provided by the C&C Photo Album > http://www.cncphotoalbum.com > CnC-List@cnc-list.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://cnc-list.com/pipermail/cnc-list_cnc-list.com/attachments/20140102/86 d4467b/attachment-0001.html> ------------------------------ Subject: Digest Footer _______________________________________________ CnC-List mailing list CnC-List@cnc-list.com http://cnc-list.com/mailman/listinfo/cnc-list_cnc-list.com ------------------------------ End of CnC-List Digest, Vol 96, Issue 6 *************************************** _______________________________________________ This List is provided by the C&C Photo Album http://www.cncphotoalbum.com CnC-List@cnc-list.com
