how do you MOB?

A lot of good sense amongst the humour on this post. A good subject to air.

A point that has not been covered is getting the MOB back on board. Everybody(?) practises getting to the MOB, but how many realy know how to get him/her out of the water?

In a swell the back steps could kill him. Can he haul himself over the side rail? Do you have equipment to assist him?

While I was on the ARC last year, in heavy seas, a man went overboard from another yacht some 500 miles behind us. He was always hooked on, but the other sole crewman could not bring him back on board. He had some recovery gear, which broke. Sadly the man died. Many of you will have seen the report in YM.

The point is that you must connect with the MOB, but you must also be able to recover him on board. This is never covered on courses. Consider how heavy a 15 stone man will be in full wet weather gear, which is also full of water!

Practising the full procedure under different circumstances will lessen the risks and can be fun, testing the skills of all on board.

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Batteries off

what on earth is the benfit of switching off the battery to the engine? Unles the battery is utterly shagged, the circuit is closed. Does anyone switch off the batery on the car. Well, you would if you had a ferrari but there again that's cos they are crap and wil be flat battery two weeks later. Otherwise, not needed. Specially on a boat where it will be needed (unless it's zefender off the back, in which case, better follow his policy and leavim)

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Re: Realism

Think the real question you're asking is .. what is the min distance your going to be from the MOB after executing a crash stop and heave to.

Depends on two things
1)Reaction time
2)Point of Sail you're on

Reaction time 3 m/s

Point of sail
1)Wind aft the beam .. distance will increase all the time
2)Forward of the beam, you will get closer and if you're lucky you might be able to do a pick up if you were reasonably close to the wind.

so say 5 secs reaction time distance 15m. Should be able to throw the heaving line that distance .. the line in the wee orange bag.


<hr width=100% size=1>O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
 
Agreed, but in my understanding of this theoretical situation the guy has gone in without injury, wearing a life jacket of course, and will be able to take a line and assist himself to some degree. Until you are back on station the time spent making a mayday call (when you could well be out of range and need a relay etc) could well result in you losing contact with the casualty. Once you're, whoops sorry, the sleeping yacht master, is back in the world of the living you/he could make the mayday call before springing in to action and saving the day. Help mid channel is a bloody long way away, unless there is a warship with chopper or rib in vicinity. If there is an epirb on board i would activate and chuck it in immediately and follow up with a call asap practicable.

Keep the crew tied on and it should never happen.

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Two minus one handed MOB

Our engine battery and domestic batteries are only connected together during charging. Once the engine stops or shore power is disconnected, the starting battery is disconnected from everything except the engine.

The worst case (other than single-handed sailing, of course!) is sailing two-up, except that one of you has just gone overboard. Now one person has to do all the jobs; pointing, dealing with sails, starting engine, helming, securing MOB, stopping engine and recovery. Because many couples do sail two-up, I make a point of teaching a method which works in such cases.

The system we've found to work best on our boat (Jeanneau 37) is to immediately heave to, then throw dan buoy and lifebelt. Move forward of the wheel, haul in mainsheet as hard as possible. Check whether MOB is to windward or leeward. Release jib sheets, furl the jib. Check there are no sheets in the water, start the engine. Head out about three or four boat lengths on a beam reach, then turn the boat round and come back. If the MOB was to leeward, then turn round by gybing (remember, the mains hard in); if the MOB was to windward, then tack. If the boat is put on a beam reach both ways, then the MOB should be immediately ahead of you after you've turned. (You can take a compass reading and return on the reciprocal to make sure.) Bring the boat to windward of the MOB by about six to ten feet, and stop the boat by going astern. The boat should be stopped with the MOB somewhere between the shrouds and the dodger. Hold the boat stopped by adjusting the throttle while the boat moves sideways down to the MOB. Now leave the wheel and secure the MOB to the boat with anything that may be handy (genoa sheet, reefing line, etc.) Once the person is secured, get the main down so that the boat is laying a-hull and stop the engine. Our experience is that virtually any boat in these conditions will lay stopped at right-angles to the wind while you work out how to lift the MOB aboard.

It sounds complicated, but it works on most (but not all*) boats. Given a cockpit VHF, a Mayday could be fitted in as well. Without a cockpit VHF, I would delay the Mayday until the person is attached to the boat. Experience shows that getting back to the MOB and attaching takes less than four minutes, but lift-out takes a lot longer and may need help.

For liftout, we carry a 5:1 tackle made up to reach from the boom end down to the water. The tackle is plaited with a pin through the end; pull out the pin and the plait drops out ready for use. A snatch block lets us take the running end onto a genoa winch. Pelican hooks on the guard wires allow the MOB to come through the stanchions at deck level. The only extra that we are looking for is a stiffened helicopter-type strop to be used for the lift. (The strop needs to be stiffened so that it can be pushed under the MOB and so that the loop will stay open while the MOB gets into it.)

Better ideas would be welcomed.

* It doesn't work on a Westerly Fulmar. On most boats you can run the engine astern to counter the thrust from the stalled main, and the boat stays roughly at right-angles to the wind. The Fulmar, though, drops its head down almost on to a run; you may still be able to counter the sail thrust by going astern, but the boat doesn't move sideways any more. There may be other boats with similar behaviour.

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Re: Realism

Lack of english sailing vocabulary: What's a crash stop exactly?

Last time we practised fenderOB under sail our friend at the tiller wanted to show us a maneuver using an immediate heave-to. We were on a course with the wind abeam. He pulled over the tiller an arrived at the other tack - since nobody pulled the genny tight during the tack the boat was pulled over by the wind completely, time passed and the fender was a huge distance away.
These things will for sure happen in the real situation with non-experienced crew (maybe with the experienced too,if they didn't practise).

Concerning a wind-abeam to close reach course I still like the maneuver, since it's fast an brings you to a quite stable situation quite close to the victim. It's even possible single-handed.

Christian

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Chuck horseshoe and danbuoy, bear away (A well tuned YM will wake up here) and hit MOB on GPS.

Have YM hold red button on VHF and enter MOB on the menu (He is a YM and should have no problem with this during the violent tack that you throw in).

Now decide what to do.

Agree that you must get MOB out of the water, they will probably need hospitalisation if anywhere around the uk coast at this time of year.

The greatest thing I've got from this thread is actually the actions of parents/loved ones. Not normally covered in general courses, the crew I normally sail with will take notice but guests "Hmn"?

Dave.




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Re: Hotwiring a helicopter

Jim

This really surprises me, though I don't doubt at all what you're saying. I would never switch off the engine seacock or battery whilst under way and cannot think of any reason why one would want to. The only time I switch them off is in port, and this is because I read of an identical boat to mine being nicked from Cherbourg (there's no key needed to start). It was recovered because the tealeaf couldn't get below to switch on the nav lights, which the port police though suspicious.

Is this normal practice with anyone on the forum? If so why?

Tom

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I also thought that the reactions of loved ones was a very interesting point which I haven't considered despite doing a full weeks professional rescue course. Food for thought indeed!

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Re: Hotwiring a helicopter

Tom

I am the same as Jim - engine raw water seacock is closed when at sea unless the engine is running, and the engine battery is also isolated.

Apart from the aspect of just having all the raw water pipework isolated from the sea in case of something coming adrift, I also do it as there is less chance of accidental flooding of the engine due to motion, knockdowns, etc (perhaps kidding myself but have known of a number of boats who have had their non running engines flooded in knockdowns and turbulent sea conditions). The battery isolation is probably for obvious reasons.

The key for starting the engine lives on a lanyard hung over the handle of the seacock (for obvious reasons).

John

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Re: Hotwiring a helicopter

John

Since my post I've been giving this some more thought. In an extended (Ocean) passage I would shut off both battery and seacock. However, a channel crossing entails busy shipping lanes and I'd want to have the engine ready without having to dive below. Since most of my sailing is channel hops or coastal this has an influence. Where you sail, it probably makes a lot more sense to turn them off and I can see two sides to this.

I'm still very interested to hear what others (given similiar sailing conditions to myself) do.

Tom

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MOB - A Different View (longish)

Have never had the bad luck to have anyone go over the side (accidently, that is). While enroute (ie not pottering around in sheltered and smooth water) no one leaves the cockpit unless there is a very good reason to and never unless there is someone else in the cockpit to keep watch. If anyone stood at the rail to pee over the side, I suspect they would be given a helping hand into the sea and just reported as lost - that for putting the boat and others at risk.

I am of the view that all of the good words about MOB recoveries are only fine to moderate weather and daytime applicable unless one is on a very strongly manned boat, and that view is the result of a number of MOB's losses and also discussions with people involved in rescues and searches. Yachting ones worth considering in thinking about ones own reactions include:

- a MOB at night in heavy weather where the MOB was miraculously rescued by a helicopter right on hand going to another rescue (Sydney Hobart 1998). The MOB maintained that the best thing the boat could have done was to just stop. He could see them, they could not see him and they had virtually no hope of finding him. He felt he had some hope of getting back to the boat if it was not moving (from video interviews of the MOB)

- a yacht knocked down by heavy seas at harbour entrance (Nelson, NZ, approx 1996). One crew went over the side and never lost contact with the boat (he was on his tether). The other crew member accidently went over the side trying to recue him, also on his tether. Both were dragged by the boat and drowned (this loss was investigated by an associate)

- while this is not a MOB, the person was lost from a sunk yacht (Melbourne-Osaka race 1980's) and demonstrates how hard it is to find anything small in the sea once visual contact is lost despite it transmitting its position. When the boat was lost (keel fell off) one crew went over. The other crew threw the Argos buoy to him (quite large, used to be used for tracking the position of race boats by race officials) and was himself later rescued hanging onto the last 6 foot of the mast still above water. It took days to find the Argos buoy, despite it transmitting its location and a ship and aircraft searching. They just could not see it, despite it being quite large.

On the being able to see things bit, a friend was master of a ship searching for a distressed trimaran in very rough seas (Southern Ocean, near Cape Horn, but perhaps similar to looking for a person in moderate seas from a low deck). They found it, but had not seen it until they had by chance almost accidently run it down (in his words "it suddenly appeared on a wave beside us")

From these and other events, in a MOB I believe the first responsibility is the protection of those still on board. Apart from throwing LSA overboard, the first and only thing I would do is stop the boat as quickly as possible (in most cases straight into the wind unless a spinnaker is involved) and look and listen to establish/maintain sound and visual contact with the MOB (cannot hear them if the engine is running) and then decide what to do next on the basis of the actual situation. That might be, if contact with the casualty was lost and it was night or heavy conditions, not doing anything for at least 5 minutes as it could be that it is easier (but still not easy) for the casualty to find the boat. If calm, and I suggest that most of the good advice only applies in calm conditions, then it is a sedate sail or motor to the casualty. Use of the radio for outside assistance would depend entirely on visual contact with the casualty being able to be maintained while doing so.

While this may prove very, very hard to do, if the MOB occurs in situations where severe risk to others would be involved (say in rough bar conditions) then as another poster has said, the best thing maybe to throw a wreath over the side.

John


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Um, is it too obvious to add that at the chucking floating things overboard stage someone should make damn sure they know the course being sailed between MOB splash and dan buoy chuck? One of the things drummed into me...


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Re: Hotwiring a helicopter

Hi Tom. As I've said earlier I do isolate the cranking battery at sea, but only because I'm such a dipstick I'm likely to flatten it by leaving the fridge on (must get a splitter diode fitted). I shut all sea cocks but the engine and stern gland ones for the reasons you have given, Coastal and X channel there's often the need for a little engine to help a situation resolve itself (Jimi's racing post is a prime example), it would be a pain to have to dive below and rummage around under the aft cabin berth each time you wanted to start up the iron topsail (how about solenoid valves linked to the starting circuit). On a long passage, in less congested waters it would make good sense to close the lot and use some aide memoire to make sure that I didn't forget and seize the engine up.

Steve.

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Re: Two minus one handed MOB

On a training course earlier this year, when asked to do MOB practice, was given one hell of a bollocking for doing the "Bring the boat to windward of the MOB by about six to ten feet, and stop the boat by going astern" I was asked where I had got this idea from, and responded by 'reading around' . Then told in no uncertain terms it was not good practice, and the only way to approach a MOB was into wind where you can control the glide towards the target and avoid any possibility that the boat will be pushed by waves onto the person in the water

If you are teaching this to your students, where does that leave me. I was taught by an RYA trainer. You are an RYA a trainer. Who's right? and does the RYA actually have a policy on this?

<hr width=100% size=1>For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press three
 
personal flares

Sounds as though having some of these in the pocket would be a good idea from many your MOB examples - finding the MOB at all is the prob, not the clever clever manoevres.

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Re: Two minus one handed MOB

The way to approach a MOB (if having to do so under sail), is to preferably have little drive in the sails. Much the same as picking up a buoy, but easier since drift of MOB is similar.
(1) Drop or furl the headsail if possible (or let fly although this not good because of flogging sheets hitting the rescuer)
(2) Head back toward MOB & check wind direction on instrument. Ideally should be no more or less than 60 degrees. (less than 60 means too slow - danger of stalling & more than 60 means too fast - on a beam reach). If angle wrong, drop boat to leeward & try approach again.
The main should be full out to leeward, with slack mainsheet.
(3) Aim to pick up the MOB just aft of your leeward bow. (leeward side allows boat to drift down onto MOB & the deck will be lower allowing pick-up)
(4) Fill & spill your main to keep forward speed just below 1 Knt.
The boat should reach the MOB at a speed allowing a pick-up (at least attach MOB to Boat, for further recovery action)
I prefer the crash stop & heave too method + Gybe around, rather than the RYA sail away & return. It must be better to stay close to the MOB rather than sail away - don't forget @ 5 knts, the MOB will be 0.5 Nm away in 6 minutes. At this distance easy to lose sight of MOB & must be disheartening for MOB in water.
With engine on method, spill all sail when to windward of MOB, having crash stopped, drive engine in forward/astern & drift sideways onto MOB. This can be done singlehanded.

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Re: Hotwiring a helicopter

I don't either though I did forget to switch the engine seacock on once when leaviong with Para on the boat.. many guys I've sailed with do switch their nbattery isolators off ... including some revered forumites .. not mentioning any names .. Para and TK will be glad to know!!

<hr width=100% size=1>O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
 
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