Disasters - the FEAR!

The fear of a disaster while cruising or racing should always be in the back of sailors' minds.  No matter how prepared a vessel and their crew are, the possibility always remains that something drastic will go wrong.

Lately (April 2012) there has been extensive media coverage of the tragedy on the Farrallones race.

Photo from Facebook - Wil Paxton

This morning I read an article about the dramatic rescue of a crew in the Melbourne to Port Fairly race.

And last night, a friend sent me a link to this video of the crew of an Atlantic 57 being rescued. (I'm waiting to do a delivery of a big cat from Sydney-NZ that has been delayed due to the autopilot flaring up).

The fact is - disasters can happen to anyone.  

Being Prepared

Racer, cruiser - it makes no difference - being prepared is important.   I know first hand how hard it is to get people to practice safety drills - particularly cruising.  Who wants to do a man-overboard drill on a Saturday when the weather is perfect (and more over, who wants to try it with a real man-overboard - someone in the water to have to get back on board in full foulies?).  

I 'tried' to get Megan to do drills before our first charter, and again once we started coastal cruising and ... I'm embarrassed to say ... we never did them because each time we were having too much fun and I caved to the "but it's such a nice day - let's do it next time" argument.

This isn't Megan's fault - it's mine.  I knew we needed to be prepared in the case of an emergency, and while we never faced one, the fact is I don't feel like we would have been adequately prepared if something drastic had gone wrong.  We had talked through everything a few times, but after our cruise back from Jervis Bay (when the mainsheet block came loose and flew around the cockpit), Megan began to appreciate the need for doing man-overboard drills (particularly in a scenario where she was the only person left on board).  It's all well and good once you've had a scare to realize you need to prepare, but I knew we should have been doing this from day one and didn't hold my ground.

I am being honest here - and know that some of you who read this will 'tut tut'.   But I would wager we weren't alone in not taking adequate time doing drills in advance.  

Most offshore racers I know do take the time in advance - practicing reefing, putting up storm sails & man-overboards - perhaps not so much on fire response/water ingress.

But I would guess many cruisers don't - and realistically the impact of a disaster on a short-handed crew (most cruisers being two-up) will probably be magnified.  One person trying to do a man-overboard rescue in rough seas would be almost impossible - steering, reducing sail, keeping an eye on the man overboard ... scary stuff.  Even scarier if the 'survivor' isn't on deck and doesn't notice for some period of time.  This is our biggest fear.

Something I hadn't previously considered practicing, but am now thinking about is practicing 'drift' rescue (i.e. practicing trying to plot the drift of a man-overboard).  The article I linked to above with the rescue by Grant Dunoon & crew makes clear that this navigational skill can be the difference between life & death for crew in the water.

For friends & family, please understand - Megan and I weren't completely unsafe when cruising.   We planned around the weather rather than trying to push through it (except one time when we returned to Sydney at the end of a weekend cruise and spent 9 hours slugging away upwind in 30+ knots & 3-4m swell!).  We wore lifevests/harneses offshore, had jacklines in the cockpit and running the length of the decks and were tethered in at night and in 'rough' weather (as defined by Megan - so pretty much any swell or wind above 15 knots) or when alone on deck, and we both 'knew' where all the safety gear was (I say 'knew' in quotes, as we had put it there, but may not have known where to go right away in an emergency).  We had an EPIRB and DSC VHF radio - but other than when we first bought the EPIRB, hadn't gone through the procedures to deploy it and I doubt we would have been able to do so without reading the instructions on the side.

Crew briefings, training sessions etc. may seem a bit pedantic and are definitely not how most of us would want to spend a weekend, but unless these are a regular part of your sailing regime, the skills and response time may not be there when you need it.

We've talked about this for our long-term cruising plans, and Megan and I have agreed that when we get our new boat, we are going to dedicate a day early on to doing rescues/safety drills in nice weather - and to 'test' those periodically thereafter (we're thinking every 3 months).  

It's so much easier to know you should be doing this stuff than to do it.  But, hopefully this post may remind someone (besides me!) to get their but in gear and do it! 

PS - Friends & family who may come on board with us along the way - please understand when I take the time to walk through safety with you WHY I think it's important and pay attention - even on a day trip things can go wrong!