Are lifebuoys useful?

I have a friend who would probably not be living today if it wasn't for a horse-shoe lifebuoy promptly thrown after he went overboard.

I was helming the boat at the time and it wasn't an enjoyable experience.
 
mbroom said:
I am currently refitting my boat for a trip to the Azores from the Clyde. My horseshoe lifebuoy has seen better days, and I am tempted to replace it... However, apart from the "feel good" factor; just how useful are they in a real MOB situation in heavy weather?

By the time I leave the cabin or centre-cockpit and throw the thing, the boat will be a considerable distance from the MOB. Throwing it into the wind would be well nigh impossible I would think.

Leaving aside any legal niceties, does anyone have real first-hand experience of using a lifebuoy in anger? Are there any other systems that work? I really suspect that they are almost useless, but have no actual experience to back up my guess.
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I have two experiences of unplanned deployments. I had a horseshoe, light and drogue deploy in heavy weather from the lee rail, when a jib sheet pulled it over board. The horseshoe was clearly visible and the even in the day light the small incandescent bulb flashing away was easy to see. I can't remember the wind speed or waves. The other time was on a North Sea passage mid way between Bergen and Banff. An inflatable dan buoy deployed, inflated in a Force 6 with associated wave height. The dan buoy was very visible in the large seas, it had alight as well.

I have also practised MOB regularly, both scheduled and unscheduled drills, in a former professional sailing life in many conditions, coastal and ocean. You will lose sight of the person in any sea above a F3, in the unscheduled drills people forget to push the MOB button, in small crews you will not be able to lay a 'bread crumb' trail, flashing lights and dan buoys work - they identify a position.

I have a centre cockpit and the horseshoe is reachable from the cockpit being mounted on the rail just outside the cockpit coaming. It is a bit of a pain as it catches on the jib sheet but I can live with that inconvenience as it does not happen often. Yours are in the wrong place if they can not be reached by the helmsman.

I can guarantee that the temptation to remove the lifejacket when it gets warm will by high, so the probability of a MOB not wearing a life jacket as you get further south increases. However, it does not matter why a lifejacket is not being worn a MOB needs a high visibility floatation device to both mark a position and to give them at least a chance of grabbing something that will help them float.

I sailed on a centre cockpit yacht that had it's dan buoy sit inside a yellow bit of pipe (ex gas line type of pipe). The pipe was attached to the push pit and the dan buoy rested on a U shaped pin that passed through the plastics pipe. The pin was connected to a line that ran along the guard rail to the cockpit coaming where a sharp pull extracted the pin and the dan buoy dropped into the sea on a long line. The length of line gave sufficient time to release the horse shoe.

My wittering aside, the point is, you need a marker that is independent of any electronic function that can be launched quickly. At the very least you need an inflatable type dan buoy that can be thrown into the water from the cockpit.
 
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Quite the funniest post I have read in a very long time. Thanks.
Resolution said:
Yes. Once in forty years sailing. Racing in a regatta in Hong Kong on a UFO 34, we spinnakered over the finish line with one crew sitting on the boom (as one did in those days). After the line the helm lost concentration and accidentally gybed. The boom crew was catapulted wonderfully cleanly out into the sea. Another crew, who had spent most of the race nursing a hangover on the aft corner suddenly came to life, grabbed the horseshoe and threw it hard at our MOB, hitting him in the face and breaking his glasses. The horseshoe undoubtedly enabled the boom crew to stay afloat long enough to be recovered back on board, and then provide him with something with which to hit the hangover man .
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Coupled and connected with a Dan Buoy it gives the casualty a better chance of catching the Dan Buoy and hence being located.
 
KellysEye said:
You can't avoid legal niceties skippers have a legal duty of care to their crew so safety equipment must be carried even if its not used.
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Where would you like to go with that one? If you're not careful you're going to end up in the position where every available safety device will have to be on board just to keep the claim vultures at bay. The more and more you pander to that aspect of society the more vulnerable you leave those that rely on common sense.
 
There are stock phrases like 'with due regard to safe practice', but you begin to wonder if there should be a disclaimer before going on a jolly with someone.
If I had not the regulation lifebuoy I would have had difficulty picking up a mob (from his own boat not mine), it would have been crew in the water with him, he was nearly gone. Only thing, I threw the one without the line attached and could not get him to transfer so we could pull him in. All this equipment sits there unused, mostly, for years. Some people never use their anchor, who doesn't have one?
 
capnsensible said:
Extremely useful, if not even vital. On the rare occasion you may get a person over the side, having something to hold onto is key. Whizz the boat round, go close by and chuck them the ring.
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I presume this is when they are in the water without a life jacket? With one then a lifebuoy doesn’t add so much?
 
Triassic said:
Where would you like to go with that one? If you're not careful you're going to end up in the position where every available safety device will have to be on board just to keep the claim vultures at bay. The more and more you pander to that aspect of society the more vulnerable you leave those that rely on common sense.
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Would not worry about it. He makes this glib statement regularly and when asked to explain what he means or more importantly cite case law to support it he goes strangely silent.
 
At 7 knots you are approximately 120 ft away in 10 seconds. How long will it take you to get the life ring out of its bracket and throw it? If you are sailing as a couple you are down to one person onboard who now has to do everything. For me the first thing to do is hit the MOB button on the cockpit plotter. Second thing it so throw the two beanbags from the cockpit into the sea. They dont need releasing from a bracket. They are what we have to sit on. Full of polysterene beads. They have grab handles on them. They float high in the water. For one thing they provide a mark to see larger than a human head. They can more easily be seen by the person in the water than a life ring. They will be in the water far quicker than a life ring. We dont have a life ring onboard but we do have a recovery sling to pull the MOB to the boat
 
Triassic said:
Where would you like to go with that one? If you're not careful you're going to end up in the position where every available safety device will have to be on board just to keep the claim vultures at bay. The more and more you pander to that aspect of society the more vulnerable you leave those that rely on common sense.
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I'm quite happy with Triassic's take on this - if for no other reason than that he sails singlehanded.

.....And he occasionally buys me beers.

On that topic, about 18 months ago I had the good fortune to be invited aboard half-a-dozen big French multihulls before the start of the Singlehanded Transat Bakerley race, to help with their paperwork. Among the Rules' requirements was 'a pair of horseshoe lifebuoys complete with....'

I asked each of those hugely-experienced skippers, who had contributed to the Rules' updating, how on earth carriage of those things could be justified. Each of them shrugged and offered the opinion, loosely translated, 'who knows what idiocy goes on in the mind of a committee member'..... So each of them, singlehanded, carried those things across the Atlantic to New York, then later all the way back from Quebec.
 
capnsensible said:
Extremely useful, if not even vital. On the rare occasion you may get a person over the side, having something to hold onto is key. Whizz the boat round, go close by and chuck them the ring. best if it has a light and drogue too. Sort yourself and the boat out then motor back upwind to pick them up.

With practice, can take as little as two minutes.

But there again, nothing is worth having on board if you dont learn how to use it effectively and practice, practice, practice. :encouragement:
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Admittedly I've only them used for practice from my own or any other sailboat. I'm with Capnsensible essential bit of kit for MOB in some form or other.
I carry a dan buoy and life sling on my boat. I hope to never need them for real. I have practiced the use of them and can say they work.
Just because I haven't needed one for 40 years. Doesn't mean I wont ever need one.

On a non sailboat.
I have used the traditional life ring in practice. It works, Particularly if you loose sight of the casualty its a marker to come back to.
Unfortunately although the life ring worked, As intended. The casualty found quickly. The ending was unhappy. I do have friends who have had better luck.
Required equipment for good reason. When its required.

I'm not good at posting links.
Try looking up the story some silly woman a few months ago, who is lucky to be alive. Jumped off a Horseshoe Bay to Nanaimo Ferry at night. Found hours latter after the search had been called off. By the Coast Guard Cutter, picking up the Life Ring the Ferry had deployed. After search called off.
She was in the Life Ring. Still Alive.

It's up to you if you need one or not.
It would sure suck to need a life ring one day, not have one.
 
I've chucked one 'for real' once. We we moored to a harbout wall, someone fell in.
He probably would have lived without it, but it's the thought that counts.

Like most peopl I take our shiny new liferings (complete with lights and drogues and all that..) below when we moor the boat.
But we leave a tatty old one 'good to go' on the pushpit.
 
I asked each of those hugely-experienced skippers, who had contributed to the Rules' updating, how on earth carriage of those things could be justified. Each of them shrugged and offered the opinion, loosely translated, 'who knows what idiocy goes on in the mind of a committee member'..... So each of them, singlehanded, carried those things across the Atlantic to New York, then later all the way back from Quebec.
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Always wary of folks using these super heros as examples, nothing went wrong ........this time.

Experience can sometimes lead to complacency.. give me a skipper with tiny bit of doubt in the back of his mind every single time.

Old and bold pilots comes to mind. :)
 
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oldgit said:
Always wary of folks using these super heros as examples, nothing went wrong ........this time.

Experience can sometimes lead to complacency.. give me a skipper with tiny bit of doubt in the back of his mind every single time.

Old and bold pilots comes to mind. :)
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I think the point being made was that they are singlehanded with no-one left on board to deploy anything.
 
When two of us went o/b years ago, (scrapping on deck) we were lucky in that the skipper, who was 'courting heavily' at the time, was for once awake at the wheel. We admonished him for not chucking the life ring, he said 'the tide would have taken it away from you' idiot. We argued a bit, then did a test where we threw a float over at about 6kts and he had to leave the wheel, walk round the wheelhouse and chuck the ring. It was about ten feet away.

Edit, a moot point is that we went over forward, so fifteen feet ahead of him.

I was very thin-looking, but solid, and weighed more than my antagonist thought as he held me overside by the neck of my oilers, I stuck my leg under his crutch and he sailed over my head.
 
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