Cross channel - without liferaft?

[chanelyacht]

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Survival time floating in the sea (witha lifejacket), at current water temperatures of 9 degC you are good for acouple of hours (just) but unable to announce your location and call for help.


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Are you sure?

May be in flat calm conditions, with sprayhood operating correctly, you might manage 2 hours without drowning, but by which time hypothermia would have done the job anyway...

More accurate survival time around 30 mins, assuming you were pretty fit when you went in.

 

[reginaldon]

Sailfree, I'm pleased that not everyone seems to have been infected by the H & S bug

 

[WindFinder]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Survival time floating in the sea (witha lifejacket), at current water temperatures of 9 degC you are good for acouple of hours (just) but unable to announce your location and call for help.


[/ QUOTE ]

Are you sure?

May be in flat calm conditions, with sprayhood operating correctly, you might manage 2 hours without drowning, but by which time hypothermia would have done the job anyway...

More accurate survival time around 30 mins, assuming you were pretty fit when you went in.

[/ QUOTE ]

A fit man (even an unfit very man) can easily stay alive in the water for two hours without an LJ! I know someone who picked a casualty out of the water after 3 days of swimming with no flotation device of any kind!

I surf and windsurf and I don't die after 30 minutes - in very disturbed water without an LJ!

I've never seen any evidence that in UK waters the primary danger is anything other than cold.

In fact, it's pretty rough out there now. Anyone fancy trying it? I'll swim out in my wetsuit, someone else swim out with an LJ and oilies. I wouldn't just survive I'd actually be comfortable for a significant time! In theory the LJ guy could be dead in 5 minutes!

I'm convinced that if you stay warm and get help quick, you've got a great chance of survival. If you can't get help (Ouzos) or you aren't protected from the cold (the lad off Newhaven last year) you're in big trouble.

PS: Well said Sailfree! Sailing's safer than a walk to the newsagent!

 

[bedouin]

But not at 9degrees.

Survival times decrease dramatically as the water temperature drops. 2 hours is not an unreasonable estimate for an average man wearing oilies at 9 degrees - but once you get to 15 degrees survival times are much longer, up to a day.

Of course things are very different if you are wearing a wetsuit. Excuse me if I doubt that you would go windsurfing in the English Channel without one in March.

 

[WindFinder]

[ QUOTE ]
But not at 9degrees.

Survival times decrease dramatically as the water temperature drops. 2 hours is not an unreasonable estimate for an average man wearing oilies at 9 degrees - but once you get to 15 degrees survival times are much longer, up to a day.

Of course things are very different if you are wearing a wetsuit.

[/ QUOTE ]

Errr, isn't that exactly my point?

"I'm convinced that if you stay warm and get help quick, you've got a great chance of survival."

 

[Mudisox]

One point yet to be made is whether you would give up the opportunity to experience the joy of making your own crossing because you have to save up to buy/hire a liferaft. Personally I'd rather live life to the full and not worry too much about what might, and I repeat might, perhaps maybe, in 1:1m cases go wrong and I need to jump in an inner tube. I do accept however that I have a duty of care to those unable to make a decision.

 

[bedouin]

I am only aware of two or three occasions in recent years when a liferaft has had to be deployed in the English Channel. One a racing incident and the Wakuna. In both those cases a partly-inflated dinghy would have done the job just as well.

I can also recall two cases recently when crews took to the water with neither, the Ouzo and the cat that capsized in the Solent last year. One crew were lucky (because it was a cat that stayed afloat) the other was not.

So to have a means of keeping yourself out of the water should the worst happens seems to be essential. For that to be a liferaft rather than a dinghy seems much less important.

I should add that one of the key reasons I bought a liferaft is that on a boat the size of Bedouin it is virtually impossible to carry a part-inflated dinghy in such a way that it is secure yet can be deployed easily.

 

[Woodentop]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Survival time floating in the sea (witha lifejacket), at current water temperatures of 9 degC you are good for acouple of hours (just) but unable to announce your location and call for help.


[/ QUOTE ]

Are you sure?

May be in flat calm conditions, with sprayhood operating correctly, you might manage 2 hours without drowning, but by which time hypothermia would have done the job anyway...

More accurate survival time around 30 mins, assuming you were pretty fit when you went in.

[/ QUOTE ]

Two points here - drowning caused by inhaling spray will be a quicker source of death than hypothermia caused by water temperature.
The work done by Dr Mengele at Auschwitz for the Luftwaffe on survival times in cold water suggests that 2 hours at 9 degrees C is viable but you are correct that a sprayhood is a key factor. Unfortunately no (as far as I know) yachting lifejackets have a sprayhood. The internationally recognised document "SAR Graphs and Tables" gives 2 hours as a viable time. However I accept that long before that the casualty is floating "dormant" and not able to contribute towards their rescue.

 

[jimi]

most people assume liferaft deployment will be due to bad weather .. wrong .. stay in the boat! It will be due to either fire or catastropic failure of the hull (ie collision) in these circumstances a dinghy will be just as good as long as help arrives soon .. EPIRB makes sense to me