Emergency ladders on marina pontoons - are they worth having?

[AntarcticPilot]

A few weeks ago, I went for an involuntary swim in Titchmarsh Marina. I was working on a new dinghy, didn't realize that water had got under the stern thwart, and it tipped over when I was working on the outboard (I've added closed cell buoyancy since then!) First of all, it was quite impossible for me to climb out under my own steam, and my wife (who is small and petite) could not get me out. Fortunately, it was daytime with several people around, and a friend was able to get a halliard round me and hoist me out. Second, despite it being a very warm day - it was during the recent hot spell - the water was cold, and I was slowly losing strength. Obviously, this would be a major factor if it was a time of year when the water is colder. I wasn't suffering from hypothermia, but certainly needed a hot shower to warm up as well as get marina muck off me! Third, Titchmarsh doesn't have obvious ladders around; with hindsight, I could have swum to the stern of an adjacent boat and used the swim ladder, but we didn't think of that. Fourth, I was wearing a buoyancy aid. Without it, I would have been in a MUCH worse situation; the buoyancy aid meant that I didn't have to expend energy staying afloat, and could simply hold on to the pontoon so as to remain safe until a means of recovering me was devised. Fifth, carry a complete set of spare clothing - I had everything except trousers! Fortunately, a kind neighbour lent me a pair until my own dried out http://www.ybw.com/forums/images/smilies/redface.png

 

[Elessar]

Slight thread creep but what is the point of a boarding ladder you can’t deploy from the water?

I agree it’s daft but it insnt unusual on mobos or yachts.
On mobos you often have to lift a bit of swim platform up and then the ladder hinges out, the lid goes back down. Impossible unless on the platform.
Yachts often have a swing down one on the transom but tied at the top. You stand a chance if you are fit I guess.
Modern yachts with a folding transom rely on the transom being down.
Baviarias with the folding transom have an emergency rope ladder in a 2” tube you can get to. Others probably do this but it’s a good idea if you really can’t get to the ladder.
My ladder is in a box on the back of the platform that is open. Slide the ladder back and it falls down. It looks ugly and is difficult to get back in when you are on the boat (I have to lay on the platform) but as it is safe I live with it.

Edit the bararia rope ladder would be an easy retrofit for those without a ladder or a deployable ladder. Don’t know where to source them though.

Edit 2. Force 4 do them for 40 quid. It’s called the Osculati flushmount safety ladder.

 

[Malish]

Looks like this thread has caused a worthwhile debate. I doubt we can do more as individuals than bend the ear of our local marina and hope they are receptive. I have e-mailed YM and suggested they may like to consider an article and encourage a response from the RYA and marina owners association (?BMF??)

 

[rogerthebodger]

Edit the bararia rope ladder would be an easy retrofit for those without a ladder or a deployable ladder. Don’t know where to source them though.

Edit 2. Force 4 do them for 40 quid. It’s called the Osculati flushmount safety ladder.

I fitted one like that to the stern of my boat but when its deployed and you put you foot on the bottom rung it swings away from you under the boat and tips you back into the water.

You need a rigid ladder that will not swing under the stern to be effective.

 

[Biggles Wader]

My marina is well equipped with emergency ladders but it occurred to me that without checking I don't know where they actually are. So signage and making the nearest ladder obvious is important for that awkward moment when you fall in but cant see the ladder.

 

[Stemar]

I'd add some decent lighting, too.As for the title, I'd suggest that a plentiful provision of well-maintained escape ladders is part of a marina's duty of care to its customers. Failure to provide them should certainly result in a major bollocking from the coroner, if not a corporate manslaughter charge if it could be shown that the lack of ladders led to a fatality

 

[jimbaerselman]

<snip>

You need a rigid ladder that will not swing under the stern to be effective.

And, it needs to project at least 60cm below the surface.

Rope ladders fail for most people. Which leads to the next point

Whatever the arrangement, on boat, on shore, or for dinghy rescue, it has to be tested in realistic conditions. That includes in darkness, and using a stranger to the boat/marina. For rubber dinghies, it's often face down, pull an arm and a leg over the tube first, then reach over for the other armpit. Sometimes thread the painter under the chest. Sometimes partly deflate the tube. Depends on the strength/weight ratios!

Go on, test the arrangement! You'll be shocked in typical English water temperatures.

 

[ianc1200]

Re Anticpilots post re Titchmarsh Marina I'm there on the outside pontoons. I wasn't present but my neighbour fell in last October and was rescued after floating some distance when (I'm told) just a nose and glasses were seen above the water. He had floated up towards the linking cross pontoon on a ( very luckily) flood tide. He was suffering from hypothermia and hasn't been seen since, and early summer his boat went, we believe he's given up boating.

 

[macd]

Let's look at this subject in perspective. ..

Wise words, Jim. The irony is that any compulsion that might be imposed on the matter would probably concentrate on the risks at sea, rather than where they most exist. As for marinas, it beggars belief that any honest risk assessment would not demand ladders on pontoons. (Or a prohibition on people actually walking on pontoons: the ridiculous face of H&S.)

 

[anoccasionalyachtsman]

So I hazard a wild guess that harbour MoB events outrank sea MoB events anything from 4:1 to 10:1. I'm sure there's a source to find out . . .

My experience says closer to the 10:1. I think that there have been enough contributions to the thread to prove that the YBW forums are a good enough source - perhaps a poll on here and the Motorboat section? I don't think that any of the events I've first hand experience of were ever reported (bar one where the RNLI were involved), so I'd imagine any official figures would be skewed towards falling from boats..

 

[Elessar]

My experience says closer to the 10:1. I think that there have been enough contributions to the thread to prove that the YBW forums are a good enough source - perhaps a poll on here and the Motorboat section? I don't think that any of the events I've first hand experience of were ever reported (bar one where the RNLI were involved), so I'd imagine any official figures would be skewed towards falling from boats..

There’s no doubt in my mind that a person who takes off their life jacket once aboard their boat and dons it before leaving for shore, is safer than the person who keeps them aboard and wears it to go sailing.

 

[Elessar]

My marina is well equipped with emergency ladders but it occurred to me that without checking I don't know where they actually are. So signage and making the nearest ladder obvious is important for that awkward moment when you fall in but cant see the ladder.

My home marina (shamrock quay) has a yellow sign with a ladder pic and an arrow in every finger and at least one fixed yellow ladder per main walkway than goes above and below the waterline. I think it is standard MDL but I’m not certain they are all the same. . Anyway it is good practice.
The fall in incident I described was not in an MDL marina.

 

[Deleted member 36384]

...... For rubber dinghies, it's often face down, pull an arm and a leg over the tube first, then reach over for the other armpit. Sometimes thread the painter under the chest. . ......

At survival school (many renewal courses I have attended for my work) we were taught that the person in the water is turned around, back to the dinghy, grab the stoles of the lifejacket, bob them them down and up a few times, and then on one of the up strokes, fall back into the dinghy and haul up the casualty.: they slip in. It works surprisingly well for hauling a person into a an inflatable dinghy / liferaft for any weight. I think the secrete is the momentum of the hauling person falling back and the upward buoyancy on the casualty.

 

[anoccasionalyachtsman]

At survival school (many renewal courses I have attended for my work) we were taught that the person in the water is turned around, back to the dinghy, grab the stoles of the lifejacket, bob them them down and up a few times, and then on one of the up strokes, fall back into the dinghy and haul up the casualty.: they slip in. It works surprisingly well for hauling a person into a an inflatable dinghy / liferaft for any weight. I think the secrete is the momentum of the hauling person falling back and the upward buoyancy on the casualty.

Front first for me please. Having been ignominiously hauled into a rib this time last year, I can't begin to imagine how it would have worked back first. Flexibility primarily, but I'd have been unable to help to pull myself inboard if laid on my back.

 

[Boreades]

Just received a Mayflower Marina newsletter, and noticed something relevant to this thread. They are improving their rescue ladders.

Portable Rescue Ladders

You may have noticed the short ladders on stands dotted around the marina. These are in fact portable rescue ladders to supplement the fixed yellow rescue ladders that are permanently deployed at intervals on the pontoon system. Sod's Law states that "No one will ever fall in next to a ladder" so to counter this situation the portable rescue ladders can be taken to the person in the water.

On the timber decked parts of the marina, the ladders sit on top of the pontoon cleats and are held in place by a 'keeper' that slides though the aperture in the ladder base and the hole below the horn of the cleat .... On the breakwater, the ladders are designed to sit on the outside of the timber fendering and are held in place by a bar that locates on the inside of the fendering.

If in doubt about how to deploy a portable rescue ladder, please ask a member of staff to show you.

I like the bit about Sod's Law states that "No one will ever fall in next to a ladder". But I have to confess I've walked past one of their rescue ladders about 30 times without ever realising what it is for. I've not noticed any sign on it to explain anything. I'm wondering if there's another Sod's Law that the only person on the pontoon (who finds someone in the water) will be someone who never read their newsletter?

 

[BrianH]

Just received a Mayflower Marina newsletter, and noticed something relevant to this thread. They are improving their rescue ladders.



I like the bit about Sod's Law states that "No one will ever fall in next to a ladder". But I have to confess I've walked past one of their rescue ladders about 30 times without ever realising what it is for. I've not noticed any sign on it to explain anything. I'm wondering if there's another Sod's Law that the only person on the pontoon (who finds someone in the water) will be someone who never read their newsletter?

"I like the bit about Sod's Law states that "No one will ever fall in next to a ladder"."
I like the complacency that assumes that the victim will conveniently fall in while accompanied by someone else. Both incidents that I was involved in occurred to someone alone on their boat and in the late evening in failing light. Two frail, elderly owners whose luck was that I happened to be available by sheer random chance.

The first that I mentioned above (post #32), was that I had arranged to go with friends for an evening meal and when I arrived early on their pier they were not aboard - I knew they were shopping and would soon return. So I casually strolled along the deserted pier looking at the boats and, purely by chance and at a limited angle between boats, noticed something floating under the stern of one. It looked like a plastic rubbish bag but on closer inspection was the hood of an anorak ... and when I knelt down, I could see a head in it.

The old guy was so totally exhausted he couldn't speak after the effort of climbing the stern ladder with me dragging him up by that anorak-hood and onto the pier, He couldn't (or didn't want to) say how long he'd been in the water, only insisting that he would now be able to get onto his boat, which he did while I watched, recommending that he go immediately to the toilet complex with a spare set of clothes for a hot shower.

The other case was one where we both were the only boat occupants on adjacent piers and I only heard his cries when I went up into the cockpit to lower the side and back panels of the enclosure I mount when in the marina - below with the TV running I could not hear him. No one else was in earshot.

No one was around and able to help the third example that I mentioned, again an elderly German liveaboard as both the others were. He drowned.

All rescue ladders should be already fitted; plenty of them and well-marked.

 

[prv]

"I like the bit about Sod's Law states that "No one will ever fall in next to a ladder"."
I like the complacency that assumes that the victim will conveniently fall in while accompanied by someone else.

I didn’t read it that way - they apparently already have fixed ladders, but are adding portable ones as well to mitigate the quite common case where somebody does try to help the person in the water but can’t actually get them out.

I’m more puzzled at the notion that someone could repeatedly walk past an emergency ladder on a stand and not recognise it...

Pete

 

[BrianH]

I didn’t read it that way - they apparently already have fixed ladders, but are adding portable ones as well to mitigate the quite common case where somebody does try to help the person in the water but can’t actually get them out.

I’m more puzzled at the notion that someone could repeatedly walk past an emergency ladder on a stand and not recognise it...

Pete

On re-reading I see you're right. I retract my first sentence.

 

[Seajet]

I had a very close call when on my YM exam, we were berthing at Ocean village at night, mid December; I stepped onto the pontoon with the forward line and shot straight for the other side, on sheet ice; it was only my having the line in my hand which prevented me going swimming.

When I last heard a good 20 years ago, THREE people had DIED at a marina local to my mooring - all said to be liveaboards and possibly alcohol was involved -the total is very likely more now and that place had no ladders, but the pontoons have been upgraded and I am not sure if there are any now.

I completely agree it should be mandatory for marina operators to provide plentiful, well marked ladders.

I do also think as a skipper I should add scouting around for such ladders when berthing and mentioning them to the crew should be on my checklist; it was for a while but now this thread has made me realise I'd let this slip...

 

[jimi]

I'd add some decent lighting, too.As for the title, I'd suggest that a plentiful provision of well-maintained escape ladders is part of a marina's duty of care to its customers. Failure to provide them should certainly result in a major bollocking from the coroner, if not a corporate manslaughter charge if it could be shown that the lack of ladders led to a fatality

Funnily enough, we were just remarking on Friday evening how appalling the pontoon lighting is at SYH. I recall ChrisE posting a number of years ago about an involuntary swim and the impossibility of getting out the water without help.