MBY kill cord campaign – what do you think?

Which of these suggestions do you favour?

  • Wireless kill cords

    Votes: 17 17.2%

  • Helm sensor

    Votes: 6 6.1%

  • Spring-loaded throttle

    Votes: 15 15.2%

  • Legislation

    Votes: 5 5.1%

  • Better training and awareness

    Votes: 50 50.5%

  • No change

    Votes: 30 30.3%
  • Total voters
    99
l'escargot said:
Perhaps because just like a wired kill cord if someone chooses not to use it they can. What would there be to stop someone from just clipping the sender to the ignition key because they haven't got a pocket in their shorts to put it in or some other such spurious reason?

It would be just as easy to circumvent and have more potential for technical failure than the current system.
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2 reasons:

First because the main reason for forgetting or choosing not to wear a kill cord all the time is so that you can move around the boat without constantly clipping and unclipping an awkward piece of coiled wire around your leg. If it was something you could stick in your pocket, clip to your shorts or wear around your wrist once at the beginning of each journey and then be able to move around the boat at will without cutting the engine or unclipping people would be much more inclined to use it.

Second, I would suggest some form of built in reminder. Perhaps the fob could act as cover for the key blade so it would clip over the key for convenient storgae when not in use but you would then have to remove it in order to insert the key in the ignition. Having gone to the trouble of removing it from the key it is then just as easy to put it in your pocket or clip it to your shorts as anywhere else.

Nobody that I know deliberately avoids wearing a kill cord just for the thrill of it, they do so because it's inconvenient or they forget. If you can eliminate those two reasons the chances are they will happily use it.
 
gjgm said:
Thanks for the update.. I wondered why you refered back to 2000.
Let us say it is one death a year -and we can agree that is one wasted life. I am not sure how one ascertains killcord related injuries, but...)
I dont know how many people use and how often a kill cord could be used a year, but this seems a remarkably small death rate given the number of churning props and GRP hulls. The point for me is that there is a very effective mechanism for stopping the engine already. Agreed, it might fail, but just put the damn thing on. You might argue that there is a risk of oversight or forgetfulness, but we all undertake risky events each day and I am going to make a wild guess that none of all the events you cite were not caused by someone with severe mental difficulties. So, you make a deliberate decision to wear or not to wear a killcord, and you and your crew face the consequences of that decision. That alone should make people keenly WANT to wear one, I think.
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I referred to the 2000 incident because it is probably the next most infamous accident (after Padstow) and therefore received the most press attention. I used it to demonstrate that however bad the incident in time people forget and slip back into bad habits.

The so called kill cord related injuries or deaths quoted are all MAIB statistics which almost certainly would not have occurred if the kill cord had been worn or had worked as intended.

Agreed that people are either forgetting or choosing not to wear a kill cord but shouldn't we therefore look at the reasons why this is happening and try to find a way of reminding them or making the device more user friendly so that they have no reason not to wear one. I don't believe anyone takes the risk just for the hell of it.
 
Lazy Kipper said:
How is it an unpleasant assumption?
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You make the assumption that he deliberately chose not to wear the killcord. All we know-unless you know more- was that is wasnt fitted (I assume, to him) at the time of the accident. Do you actually know WHY it wasnt fitted?
 
Stork_III said:
Available here http://www.killcord.co.uk/. Not cheap, £550 with a single key.
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They are a Norwegian company called Coast Key and have just appointed this new distributor to the UK. Having one fitted to my boat on Monday week. Will let you know how I get on with it.

Can't help thinking that it would be a lot cheaper if a smilar device was fitted as standard to all outboards over 50hp and a significant marketing advantage to the first brand brave enough to take the lead. There's very little to chose between a Yamaha, Suzuki, Honda, Mercury of similar power so something as useful as this could give one of them a siginificant extra sales boost.
 
Hugo_Andreae said:
2 reasons:

First because the main reason for forgetting or choosing not to wear a kill cord all the time is so that you can move around the boat without constantly clipping and unclipping an awkward piece of coiled wire around your leg. If it was something you could stick in your pocket, clip to your shorts or wear around your wrist once at the beginning of each journey and then be able to move around the boat at will without cutting the engine or unclipping people would be much more inclined to use it.

Second, I would suggest some form of built in reminder. Perhaps the fob could act as cover for the key blade so it would clip over the key for convenient storgae when not in use but you would then have to remove it in order to insert the key in the ignition. Having gone to the trouble of removing it from the key it is then just as easy to put it in your pocket or clip it to your shorts as anywhere else.

Nobody that I know deliberately avoids wearing a kill cord just for the thrill of it, they do so because it's inconvenient or they forget. If you can eliminate those two reasons the chances are they will happily use it.
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I am not as confident that those are the reasons, it is quite easy to come alongside and then undo the kill cord - if you're not at the helm I would question whether you should even have the engine running, let alone be in gear. Likewise it is hard not to be reminded by the big bit of red dangly plastic hanging from the ignition key when you start the engine. I think people are more likely not to wear the kill cord just because the don't appreciate the risk of not doing so, just as people won't wear a lifejacket because they don't think the risk warrants it.
 
Hugo_Andreae said:
I don't believe anyone takes the risk just for the hell of it.
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I could suspect that the incident rate is so low, or perceived to be so low, that some boaters do not see the risks of not wearing a kill cord as significant. Depending on your approach to risk, they might statistically be right.It would be interesting to know more about the type of boat and horsepower that are involved in the fatalities (and injuries).
Even if it were,say, 6m+ ribs with 150+ hp, then still a kill cord does the job, and an effective step forward would be to highlight to those specific boaters that they are indeed at higher risk.
Of course I have no objection to someone finding alternative solutions, but am wary of a blanket approach rather than addressing the specific risk to specific instances. It seems from some of the responses, some are already considering these alternatives.
 
Hugo_Andreae said:
Why do you not think a wireless kill cord is realistic? Aftermarket solutions already exist, I've tried them and they work fine. However, I can't help thinking that if an outboard engine or major sprotsboat manufacturer decided to make its own system as a standard or optional extra it would be even slicker and more affordable
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Because it still allows the helm to leave station, and is far easier to forget than a normal killcord. They work, but IMO as a complement to a normal killcord. It's far too easy to forget its in the pocket of the jacket you take off, or to drop etc etc. The boat will go a hell of a lot further using a wireless killcord before stopping than it will with a conventional cord as well-possibly far enough that you're not going to be able to self rescue. We're talking about 50 knot boats here, not tenders that do 3 knots.
For the record, I own an 8m rib with 200+hp. I keep the killcord attached to my lifejacket. Every lifejacket has a killcord on it, and nobody gets aboard without a LJ. If the motor is running, someone is at the helm.
 
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I'm ashamed to say that in the past ive not always securely worn the kill cord on my RIB.
Not because the boat didn't have one, but because at the time i didn't have a Velcro wrist strap to attach to my wrist!
Seems plain daft looking back now, and seeing what can happen in fraction of a second.

The only answer IMHO is education, not legislation.
As has been said, the kill cord is a simple proven solution which when used WORKS!

So, what about MBM giving away free kill cords with a Velcro wrist strap with their magazine as a promotion?
Thats got to be a win win?
 
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Oscar24 said:
I'm ashamed to say that in the past ive not always securely worn the kill cord on my RIB.
Not because the boat didn't have one, but because at the time i didn't have a Velcro wrist strap to attach to my wrist!
Seems plain daft looking back now, and seeing what can happen in fraction of a second.

The only answer IMHO is education, not legislation.
As has been said, the kill cord is a simple proven solution which when used WORKS!

So, what about MBM giving away free kill cords with a Velcro wrist strap with their magazine as a promotion?
Thats got to be a win win?
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Not sure Hugo would agree as he is MBY !

Nice idea but we could never do it for all sorts of reasons..

This coming from a man whose daughter is in Padstow as we speak on her step fathers RIB
 
Education, education, education. The existing kill cord works well provided it's used.

More complex solutions could ultimately be expensive to retro-fit and more dangerous when they fail. Improvising a means of holding in the kill-switch in the event of emergency isn't rocket science, but bypassing a wireless system would be pretty much impossible and could leave a vessel dead in the water. Hi-tech safety systems to cut engine are fine in a car but not convinced they are the answer in an unforgiving environment like the sea. Keep it simple.

Oscar - kill cord is probably better around ankle than wrist - less inhibiting and less likely to get wrapped around wheel etc... :)

All IMHO of course!
 
gjgm said:
Training and awareness.
RNLI have their lifejacket slogan..why not one for killcords. "Kill the engine".
People can still end up not using it, but perhaps it then becomes more of a deliberate,personal decision, rather than ignorance.
I dont think much a device more technically clever will help much, and as you say in the mag, the change probably needs to start in USA, and they arent going to take the risk of a new system re liability.
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I like the slogan idea - perhaps a series of them like the seatbelts ads: " Cut the engine not someone's limbs", " Kill the engine not your child" or "Kill cord for overboard" etc I'm sure panel can think of loads... :)
 
rbcoomer said:
I like the slogan idea - perhaps a series of them like the seatbelts ads: " Cut the engine not someone's limbs", " Kill the engine not your child" or "Kill cord for overboard" etc I'm sure panel can think of loads... :)
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I did ponder this and thought it got a bit gruesome.. hence simply- kill the engine..... with the rest implied.
 
rbcoomer said:
Education, education, education. The existing kill cord works well provided it's used.

More complex solutions could ultimately be expensive to retro-fit and more dangerous when they fail. Improvising a means of holding in the kill-switch in the event of emergency isn't rocket science, but bypassing a wireless system would be pretty much impossible and could leave a vessel dead in the water. Hi-tech safety systems to cut engine are fine in a car but not convinced they are the answer in an unforgiving environment like the sea. Keep it simple.

Oscar - kill cord is probably better around ankle than wrist - less inhibiting and less likely to get wrapped around wheel etc... :)

All IMHO of course!
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Existing wireless solutions (and presumably any future ones) have a means of bypassing them for emergency purposes. Obviously this is a lot less convenient than using the kireless key fob so you only ever bypass it when you need to.

Nobody would have to retrofit anything and personally I would be against any kind of onerous legislation which forces a particular technology on anyone.

What I would like to see is engine and/or boat manufacturers voluntarily looking into the issue and seeing if they can use their skills and resources to come up with a more effective, more user friendly and ultimately safer solution, which would stand a better chance of preventing the kind of accident which happened in Cornwall as well as improve the day to day useability of their engines/craft.

I believe the technology already exists to do this without much additional cost to the end user, however I suspect (but do not know) the reason they are reluctant to do so has more to do with the possible repercussions of admitting there may be a better solution than a genuine belief that the kill cord is the best of all possible options.
 
Hugo, by all means discuss killcords generically if you wish but it is quite wrong imho to have this discussion in the context of the tragic Padstow incident. It is even more wrong imho for people to make the disparaging remarks that have been above made about the skipper of the Padstow RIB. What happened in Padstow will I guess be revealed fully by the MAIB report but you will I think find that it was not a case of a RIB being driven fast by a driver not wearing the killcord, and was instead a very unfortunate accident that "could have happened to anyone". You'll also find I think that none of the options in the poll at top of this thread would have made any difference to what happened. In fact, the Padstow tragedy will I expect result in no criticism of current killcords as a concept but might well result in criticism of a different bit of boat equipment that is fitted to several boats but not most boats. (I mean < 1% of boats kinda thing). You really do have to wait for the MAIB report on this one and as I say please don't criticise the boat crew/father now based on the (wrong) assumption that they were deliberately driving fast without a killcord being worn because that's just inappropriate for a family suffering such grief
 
jfm said:
Hugo, by all means discuss killcords generically if you wish but it is quite wrong imho to have this discussion in the context of the tragic Padstow incident. It is even more wrong imho for people to make the disparaging remarks that have been above made about the skipper of the Padstow RIB. What happened in Padstow will I guess be revealed fully by the MAIB report but you will I think find that it was not a case of a RIB being driven fast by a driver not wearing the killcord, and was instead a very unfortunate accident that "could have happened to anyone". You'll also find I think that none of the options in the poll at top of this thread would have made any difference to what happened. In fact, the Padstow tragedy will I expect result in no criticism of current killcords as a concept but might well result in criticism of a different bit of boat equipment that is fitted to several boats but not most boats. (I mean < 1% of boats kinda thing). You really do have to wait for the MAIB report on this one and as I say please don't criticise the boat crew/father now based on the (wrong) assumption that they were deliberately driving fast without a killcord being worn because that's just inappropriate for a family suffering such grief
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Worth noting that MAIB did put out an early safety briefing

http://www.maib.gov.uk/cms_resources.cfm?file=/SB1_13.pdf
 
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