Are your topsides climbable?

[sighmoon]

Yes sighmoon - my setup exactly sans outboard.

You say in calm condiions - so in anything of a sea state the stern would be up and down too much - high risk of it landing on top of you?

Well I haven't tried it, and neither would I want to for the reason you state.

Probably hard to heave yourself up on to too, as you can only grab it at the bottom of a bounce, and then it's accelerating upwards. A ladder makes it easier to hold on, but doesn't entirely remove the risk of the boat landing on your head.

I still think sea to dinghy (possibly partially deflated), and then dinghy to big boat amidships might be best in a real situation.

 

[Didi]

That ladder on your stern misterg is what I was thinking of fitting - a swing down s/s ladder stowed vertically that pivots on a s/s U bracket fixed to the platform - deployable from the water by a line like yours. Seems to be a common fitment on sugar scoop sterns. Sounds like it's good for getting out of the water after a swim in calm conditions but difficult/dangerous to use in MOB recovery when it's rough.

However, it does at least give a singlehander a chance to get back on board - assuming one can stop the boat.

 

[misterg]

...Sounds like it's good for getting out of the water after a swim in calm conditions but difficult/dangerous to use in MOB recovery when it's rough...

It is mighty handy for swimming, and has been used to recover a somewhat dazed MOB from an out of control RIB in less than ideal conditions (somebody else caught the unconscious, bleeding one ).

I would rather have it than not.

I think rough conditions need their own consideration - not least avoidance of going OB in the first place.

I think if you go OB whilst underway when single-handing that your chances of returning to the boat are pretty much zero. I sail single handed - I'm probably not as careful as I should be. You've got to live a little, though, haven't you?

Andy

 

[Didi]

Good to know it's proved it's worth in a real crisis Andy!

Agree you have to live a bit .. although $hit does happen and I like to plan for it.

Agree priority has got to be not going OB in the first place but ..

when singlehanding on a long passage - read somewhere about setting up a trailing line - can be light and would need to be pretty long to allow reorientation after going over to give you a chance to grab it - which then disconnects your auto pilot/windvane/bungy cord or whatever - causing the boat to round up. Sounds like a nice thing to have on a long solo passage.. is this fantasy or could it work?

 

[sighmoon]

Good to know it's proved it's worth in a real crisis Andy!

Agree you have to live a bit .. although $hit does happen and I like to plan for it.

Agree priority has got to be not going OB in the first place but ..

when singlehanding on a long passage - read somewhere about setting up a trailing line - can be light and would need to be pretty long to allow reorientation after going over to give you a chance to grab it - which then disconnects your auto pilot/windvane/bungy cord or whatever - causing the boat to round up. Sounds like a nice thing to have on a long solo passage.. is this fantasy or could it work?

To give you 30 seconds to grab it at 8kts, it would have to be 120m long.

I wonder if you could get away with shorter by having a byte led from the widest point of the boat on each side. In that way, if you fell, you'd most likely be in the loop, and so very likely to catch it.

 

[Greenheart]

Nice to see the thread hasn't lagged in my absence...

Imagine being caught in a loop towed by a 35-footer moving at eight knots! It'd either be deadly, or the dawn of a new extreme sport. I can almost hear Ride of the Valkyries as I imagine it.

I began this thread, soliciting for possible imaginative solutions to the dilemma of the characters in the movie 'Adrift'. I'm glad that the film's nail-biter plot contrivances, have here evolved into two rather separate themes - a) how to get from the water to the deck without aid from the deck, and b) is one invariably doomed if one goes o/b whilst singlehanding?

I found in a Force4 chandlery mag, that a fairly solid telescopic ladder exists, which might easily be cut-down to provide a stable footing well below the waterline whilst in use, while remaining discreet and unobstructive when 'compacted', presumably with the top rung bolted to the transom. Must be worth a try, in preference to some of the frightening near-thing scenarios described here.

Presumably such an arrangement will be necessary for any un-harnessed singlehander who finds himself swimming; the primary question there being how to catch up with the boat. For transoceanic work with no timetable, towing a 600' line might pay...if the additional drag of a swimmer on the cable triggers a luff-function to stop the yacht. The yacht will need to be stationary anyway, for the swimmer to regain the deck.

Not that any of this can beat not going in, to start with. Surely there's a strong feeling in anyone who bothers to consider the matter, that (notwithstanding every crewman's freedom of choice), secure harness points and double-harnesses that preclude even a moment's detachment from the boat, ought to be available aboard every vessel built today?

Such a system can't be unaffordable, and must save lives longterm, even if 'Average Sloops' tend not to be world-girdlers' first choices. Wouldn't Ben/Jen/Bav constructors relish recognition for the particular safety of their products? It's done no harm to sometimes-mediocre auto marques like Renault.

 

[prv]

Surely there's a strong feeling in anyone who bothers to consider the matter, that (notwithstanding every crewman's freedom of choice), secure harness points and double-harnesses that preclude even a moment's detachment from the boat, ought to be available aboard every vessel built today?

Such a system can't be unaffordable, and must save lives longterm, even if 'Average Sloops' tend not to be world-girdlers' first choices. Wouldn't Ben/Jen/Bav constructors relish recognition for the particular safety of their products?

You say this as if every modern production AWB (at least, every one I've ever been on) didn't already have harness points in the cockpit and webbing jackstays along the side-decks.

Pete

 

[ghostlymoron]

How about an articulated boarding ladder? Tie up out of the water (to avoid drag) with a horse hitch with the tail long enough to reach the water. Seems simple enough to me. Previous threads about never falling overboard/always being tethered etc. are unrealistic (and not a lot of fun either). I'm a careful sailer, but have fallen in when reaching for the boat from the tender. I was only a short distance from the shore so not life threatening but was able to deploy the boarding ladder.

 

[Didi]

The mention of extreme sport puts me in mind of a time in my yoof when I used to go waterskiing at Thorpe Park on what was called the "rickson" as I recall. It was basically a moving overhead wire so you sat on the jetty with your ski on the water holding a ski rope - there was a click meaning your ski rope had engaged with the wire and you stood on your ski on the water - if you timed it right you were skiing - being pulled by the wire.

Anyway the experts used to set the rickson at maximum speed - must have been between 40 and 50 knots - then jump from the top of a single story building landing on the water on their backs while holding a ski rope - they were then dragged along on their backs feet first until they gradually got up - barefoot skiing.

As a means of MOB recovery however I do acknowledge it leaves much to be desired and apologies for the drift...

 

[Greenheart]

Always fancied barefoot water-skiing myself. But I've got rather long toes - prehensile, they've been called. I'm still in pain after walking into a dictionary this morning. Isn't the barefoot waterskier in danger of digging his toes in and having them snapped back?

 

[westernman]

To give you 30 seconds to grab it at 8kts, it would have to be 120m long.

I wonder if you could get away with shorter by having a byte led from the widest point of the boat on each side. In that way, if you fell, you'd most likely be in the loop, and so very likely to catch it.

30 seconds is a long time to react to something. It is 5 times longer than the average fire extinguisher will squirt for, for instance.

And 30 seconds is no time at all if you have to swim somewhere......

 

[Greenheart]

On the trailing-line idea, it seems we're mostly objecting to the length of the line necessary to allow time to find it/secure ourselves to it, plus the drag and obstruction of such a long piece of rope, in the vessel's wake.

Couldn't a very visible dan buoy with a drogue to keep it near the swimmer be ejected automatically in the event of the singlehander taking a tumble, the buoy being on a very long line stored in compact reels on board, so no trailing line exists except when needed? Thus, (assuming the same automatic mechanism has made the yacht luff and slow or stop) the danger of separation from a fast-drifting vessel is eliminated.

Of course, as you spend an hour pulling yourself towards the yacht and it remains 50 yards away, you may regret the 2000m of cable carefully spooled up inside...I guess the Rolls-Royce version will employ a winch to haul the victim back aboard...

...and this still relies wholly on signals from electrical gadgetry. Though, most of us already do, in many ways, on board.

Maybe the answer would be, for the autopilot (which whilst a fine piece of kit, risks leaving us for dead in the water as it performs its task without need of human aid) to become remotely controllable, even from in the water? I'm sure at least one of the manufacturers has long since enabled this wireless 'fly-by-wire' control.

So, with the exception of the singlehander who is dropped in the drink by a boom that concusses him, doesn't buying/fitting/understanding/always carrying the remote autopilot controller, eliminate the problem that the trailing line mightn't be equal to?

 

[Greenheart]

The frightful film that led me to start this thread, just started on Film4. Enjoy...(though the characters are so hideous, I'm not sure I care about their fate.)

 

[tom_sail]

First time I watched it, it's udder cow sh!t!

 

[ianabc]

line astern

So to summarize...

- floating line astern ( perhaps attached to self steering gear)

AND

- ladders
with underwater rungs ( mine drops 3 feet underwater)
rigid or rope type with quick release reached in the water
steps folding or rigid attached to rudder
steps molded into stern, bolted to transom
or welded to metal transom

and
inadequate for singlehanded situations or when others asleep....

rope ladders or metal hook ladders

also inadequate any boarding device that does not reach underwater to aid those who are tired and / or cold

 

[Greenheart]

Perhaps one answer (in anticipation of the Adrift-style dilemma, where the boat isn't in motion) would be to glue a slender, strong, hull-coloured cord, discreetly, somewhere astern, from deck to below the waterline.

Keep the inboard end of the cord permanently bonded to a fixing-point within the coaming, and the other, watery end can form a bight that will make a foothold, measured such that in use it will be two or three foot below the waterline...so...

...on falling in, swim to the stern, locate the line, (which is gelled tightly but not immovably to the topsides), rip it free, put one foot in the loop and use the line's sudden tension as a 'pole' to grip as you hoist yourself up, your other hand reaching the deck.

I wonder where the movie-writers get their ideas? Just last week, Dead Calm had murderous Billy Zane returning aboard Sam Neil's boat, using a line left dangling over the gunwale. This week, the absence of such a line is the killer...

 

[reginaldon]

Never had any intention of falling in, but the potential problem has always been at the back of my mind. Once daughter & granddaughter went swimming from the boat, tried to get on board using a shortish rope ladder - no joy, fortunately I was towing my inflatable
V. recently bought a telescopic boarding ladder, that can reach over 3 feet below the waterline - mind at ease!

 

[Poignard]

I have a Monitor windvane so I could climb up that.

 

[alanwilson]

On my Nauticat 33, sailed single-handed: simple rope ladder coiled up in the stern, with rope tied on & dangling over the stern, reaching to just above water level; with knots in to grab. Get to the stern, pull the rope, pulling the ladder down. Easy & works.

 

[Greenheart]

I suppose prior to lightweight inflatables, all singlehanders and shorthanded crews invariably towed their tenders. From the rarity of this practice today, I infer that the drag of a dinghy following the yacht was felt unarguably to be regretted...

...though I can't say I ever noticed even a substantial rowing boat requiring more than a few kilos of thrust to keep it coming along behind. And in offshore swimming situations, or even overboard at the mooring, the tender in the water would be a great relief.