MOB experiences.....

Worst one was Bembridge Hbr .... stepping from boat to tender ... tender moved away from boat as I went over ! Took 2 hefty guys and another helping to get me back on board. Always remember that first thought in mind was "Bloo8y Mobile Phone" clipped to my belt !

Another was on a lake in Latvia, wife and I in a Russian Military inflatable fishing ... her brother hadn't fitted the valve stop properly and we didn't notice it was slowly deflating. I leaned back to cast and fell out back !! I had heavy boots on which I could feel dragging me down ... I grabbed dinghy side and promptly tipped it over and wife in as well ! We then doggy-paddled it to shore !! She touched bottom .. said "Nigel - I can stand ...." I tried and promptly went under !! There was a ledge !

Third was another lake where I kept a small weekender boat ... it was tied alongside the pontoon and I decided it was time to scrub sides and deck. So half laying on the deck, half on pontoon ... I started .... boat decided to move out from pontoon - leaving me spread-eagled hanging on to boat and pontoon .... only one thing you can do ! Let go of one !

Ex wife in Langstone Hbr getting from boat to dinghy ... standing up in dinghy - she was hanging to gunwhale ... dinghy moves out ... she carries on holding ... ends up horizontal with feet in dinghy, frontal appendages dipping into cold water ... arms and hands out hanging onto gunwhale. I couldn't stop laughing ... her screaming help me !! All I could say was Let Go !! (she had a buoyancy aid on ....). She was adamant that she was NOT going in .... she managed to get dinghy back again by sheer will !!

Yep - it happens !!

Final one is when looking back very funny. But at time could have been very serious !

Getting back to berth at HYCo, nose boat in stbd side to ... Wife just aft of bow ready to step ashore with bow line. I'm in cockpit ready to put stern line over and stop engine ... She steps off ... I look at line and throttle ... I hear ARRRRRRR!.

I look - no wife ..... I put line on cleat ... hop onto pontoon - there she is hanging onto pontoon finger having stepped off ... finger tipped and in she went ! She STILL has bow line - Good girl.
I try lift her out but hard ... and then notice boat swinging back toward her with the wind. So I put her back down in water - ignoring the insults ! (in russian of course) .... grab line and tie of to next boat to hold our boat of her.
Meanwhile another guy has appeared and helps me lift her out.
I couldn't understand for rest of day why she wouldn't speak to me ?
Later when tide went out - I showed her - her footprints in the mud where she'd fallen in ... hit bottom and come up again !! She didn't appreciate the artistic quality ...
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I fully agree with that.The guard wires have to be quickly removable even with cold wet fingers .One solution is to lash the pelican hook to the wire with cord.Gives best of both worlds .If you cant open the hook for any reason you can still cut the lashing.
 
Couple of points:
The cable tie doesn't need to be cut, it should slide out of the way if necessary, as the pelican fitting is generally slightly tapered.
Plastic coated guard wires as seen in the photo corroding nicely... I had the same, was quite shocked when a friend convinced me to hack the plastic off and see the state of the wire. The plastic coating is strongly discouraged by RORC for good reasons. Also if you have lashings, watch for corrosion where the line frets at the stainless.
 
Thanks for sharing your experiences. I too have had a couple of near misses getting on and off the boat in the marina. I didn't end up in the water but could easily have done. In both cases it was the result of carrying stuff, so not looking where I was going and not holding on properly ... lessons learned, I hope.

The real MOB was when removing the outboard from the inflatable. The tender was secured to the stern and I was in it with my brother in law up on the boat. I intended to pass the the outboard up to him. The tender became unbalanced, the wind flipped it and I and the outboard went into the water. The outboard was secured by a line to the stern and I was able to climb up the stern ladder. All was well but it was a sharp lesson. The outboard was hosed off, the carb cleaned and it was OK. I was wearing a lifejacket by the way but did not pull the toggle. I was aware how heavy I was with waterlogged clothing when climbing up and would not like to try that if I'd been in the water for a while. However my brother in law has not come sailing again because he then got sea-sick while I towelled down and got changed. The wind had got up so the boat was tossing wildly on the mooring. So there has been a price. Sorry ... this has turned into a confessional.
Morgan
 
I've had one very near miss. Coming out of Brighton Marina a few years ago as the first mate on a charter I was stood on the foredeck with one hand on the forestay explaining to the novices in the cockpit that there would be something of a swell as we passed the harbour wall. I was right, there was. The deck and I lifted but then came down in seperate places and I was hanging on for dear life to the forestay. Happilly, in those days I was exceptionally fit and I managed to haul myself back onboard in time to hear the hoots of laughter from the cockpit.

The other one I was involved with was when bringing a heavy old single screw fleet tender alongside a pontoon with about seven knots of tide. The AB on the foredeck had the bow line and was ready to step ashore. Bizarely he only gave himself a yard of warp and then stepped ashore far to early. The result being that the warp went taught and he went in. Happilly the BoatO in charge was alert and picked him out by the waistband of his lifejacket before he got crushed between boat and pontoon or swept off downtide. Again, everyone else thought it was very funny.
 
I attended a practice MOB session run by Red Ensign training at Cowes and the Moody Owners Association. There were a number of divers in the assn who put on their dry suits and volunteered to go over the side and be rescued.

Lessons learnt were:

1 It is extremely difficult to attach a MOB to the boat again. The lifejacket D ring is often thought of as a good place to start with a boat hook, but when the jacket is inflated you cannot see the ring.

Effectively you rely on the casualty to attach themselves.

2 Hoisting them back aboard is also difficult. Hoisting by means of life jacket harness hurts, if they have broken or bruised ribs it will be agonising; the patent triangular type life slings into which you pull them need to have been sorted out first, so that a) you can hoist them over the guardrails and b) they don't fall out of the thing as it is hoists them clear of the water.

3 Ultimately, the thing to do is NEVER go overboard unintentionally. (Memo to self, now will you clip on?)
 
Fire Fighting and Survival Courses - Plymouth School of Maritime Studies / Camels Head Fire Station :

One comment pushed at us again and again .... save life ! Broken bones, etc. are nothing if person is still alive.
 
I obviously should have made myself clearer with the use of the cable tie. The pelican clasp normally closes with a sprung bit that sometimes does not fully engage. It seems closed until loaded and then comes undone. The cable tie is simply a ring that one can slide along the pelican clasp. It is easy to slide it along to keep the clasp closed. To open one simply slides it along and off the clasp. No cutting is involved!

TudorSailor
 
I've always managed to keep my crew on board, but I've had two unexpected swims.

1. On a buoy in Langston. I got into the dinghy to do something and when I went to get back on Jissel, the dingy went out from under me. Thinks I, "Oh, I could get wet here....Bugger I am going to get wet here...Glub."

BIG LESSON: Make sure you can get your boarding ladder down quickly and without a knife! Mine was tied up. I had oilies on and the knife was in my trouser pocket, where I couldn't get to it quickly. As the water wasn't cold and I wasn't alone, it was no worse than embarassing. If it happened today, 1-2 C, with no crew I might not have been able to function for long enough to get back on board.

2. I was on a crewing on a cruise for blind folk. After a good dinner, we returned to the boat, and heard shouting. One of the blind crew and his escort were in the water. We pulled them out and I spent a while drying out the contents of the blind person's wallet. As I went to his boat to return the contents of the crew, I went in in exactly the same place!

I was completely, though wrongly, confident of where I was walking until I stepped on a bit of pontoon that wasn't there! Looking at it afterwards, the lighting on the pontoon was poor, and there was a spring on the next boat that gave a false edge to the finger pontoon, which was quite a bit narrower than the others. If I'd used a torch, it wouldn't have happened, but I thought I could see where I was going. It wasn't alcohol, I was fit to drive. I think it was just a stupid accident caused by a combination of circumstances

BIG LESSON: Making my way along the pontoon to the safety ladder, I came across a dock fender several feet long. It was far too smoth and slippery to hold on to, so I had to let go of the pontoon to get round it. I'm a good swimmer, the water was warm and it was slack water, so there was no problem, but add a knot or two of tide and/or subtract 10 degrees and it would have been a different matter altogether.

If you fit a pontoon fender, PLEASE put a safety rope along it - you could save someone's life!
 
Interesting thread; vast majority are off marina pontoons or the dinghy in harbour. Are these just the ones that survive to tell the tale, or is it really where most accidents happen?

My view is that the harbour/ marina is the most dangerous place, simply because we are not really on our guard. If you are working on the foredeck or at the mast - with or without L/J & tether, would you ever not keep one hand for the yourself?
 
Totally agree Searush ... it would seem that many of us are less on our guard when on pontoon / in dinghy. taking your reply - I can easily see myself hanging on more when on SA deck out there handing sails etc., but sitting on Avon tube side - no problem !
 
Not all happen in marinas.
A breezy day in the R-T-I-R 20 odd years ago, scudding along in a Nich 32 mixed up with the Contessa 32’s. Dead downwind, too much sail up and rolling like hell. The boat immediately in front gybed involuntarily and broached. As the boom went over, it hit a crew member on the head and knocked him over the side. The skipper immediately leapt in, leaving two novices in control of a Contessa with a spinnaker and full main.

As we saw this happen we chucked a horseshoe lifebuoy to them and started MOB procedures ourselves. I was on the helm with 5 crew (most of whom would have considered themselves experienced twenty years before) and we went into a sailing by numbers approach detailing each crew member what to do and when to do it bearing in mind we too had spinnaker and full mainsail.
In the melee we lost sight of the casualties and it took nearly 20 minutes to get it under control and back to where we thought they were. As it happened the boat with the novice crew had flopped about and ended up drifting onto the skipper and casualty so he just hauled himself up the stern ladder and they dragged the semi conscious crewmember back onboard somehow. A helicopter soon took him off to Haslar for treatment. Thankfully he was fine.

I was shocked at how little I could see of the men in the water. The sea wasn’t rough but with the breeze blowing we lost sight of them very quickly. I should have detailed one crewmember to keep looking at them but had thought I could do that as I wasn’t doing anything else but steering – how wrong was I! We lost the spinnaker halyard as I said let it go – and they did! That caused a problem in getting all the sheets and ropes on board and added to the time taken in getting back to them. As a direct result of the incident, I now carry a danbuoy that extends quickly into something that can be seen. When sailing in those sort of conditions, I now make sure I brief the crew better and avoid sailing with a boatload of people that I am unfamiliar with – or at least not knowing how they would react when told to do something.
We asked the race committee for redress – my first time in a protest committee – how scary was that! They gave us 45 minutes which despite being what we asked for, was nowhere near as long as we took to get back racing and we had no spinnaker for the rest of the leg to Bembridge.
It certainly changed my approach to MOB and how I treat my crews. I avoid racing with novices unless I have a number of regular racing crew on board. I have no issues in wearing a LJ when I deem it appropriate and recommend that anyone on deck wears one when we are racing like that.
 
Sight of MOB

MN training makes specific reference to detailing a person to one task - KEEP sight of MOB ..... never to stop until Master orders. That person is 'untouchable' ....

It may be that he keeps sight of light on lifebuoy - it does not matter - HE keeps absolute sight of marker.
 
Re: Sight of MOB

Quote

KEEP sight of MOB ..... never to stop until Master orders. That person is 'untouchable' ....
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Fine in theory, but I found just spotting a bobbing dark head in the water extremely difficult, at anchor it was nigh impossible but most surprisingly equally difficult in a brightly lit marina.

At night on passage, with any sea running I would look at being 'the spotter' with trepidation, as the difficulty of the task would be extreme. Throwing in a danbuoy or any other flotation would only give a reference, you would have to hope the casualty was both concious and able to swim to the marker.
 
Re: Sight of MOB

Totally agree, I was on ST Linga when we had a MOB and the job was impossible. Sadly we never found or recovered the steward who went over.

The marker may not be at persons position but it gives a starting point, it also gives an idea of drift.
 
Angola
jetty on the congo river, 150 ft work boat tied up, waiting for a load, deckhand was doing a bit of painting from a dinghy. Dave, the port engineer for Seahorse, comes to me, hey stu have you seen paulo, was painting from the dinghy and hes disappeared. It was a typical hot african day, blue skies, very benign. Hmm, go down to the jetty, a little paint smeared dinghy tied up along side the bow of the work boat, paint brush lying in the bottom, uh oh. We did a frantic search and then the inevitable conclusion. All the lads were scouring the river banks, mean while, me on the walkie talkie, "Drill rig Sedco 135g, this is unit 2, man missing by river, can we have a diver please? chopper on way"
30 mins later diver in water, me on end of the rope in the dinghy, didnt take long, up pops diver with one dead man, he was stiff, his fingers clenched where hed tried to hang on the dinghy. Turns out he couldnt swim, a Ghana mariner who couldnt swim.
Bottom line, most benign conditions and you can die
Stu
 
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