Please wear lifejackets when you are in your dinghy...

Reading this post has made me realise how dangerous sailing is I am sure someone from the HSE will be along to ban it shortly!

I do wonder as it was mentioned about accidents in the home what safety gear people wear, totector fluffy slippers, dayglo yellow pajamas perhaps (any other suggestions)

Seriously tho I do wear a LJ with harness when I feel it is sensible, rough weather, night sailing and sometimes in the dinghy (when the jetskis are tearing round the moorings usually) but I reserve the right to make my own decision.

Of course I carry out a risk assesment, I prefer to think of it as using a bit of common sense but if I get it wrong then it is nobodys fault but mine.

I do think we should be careful not to make our pastime look too dangerous as there are flocks of vultures out there just waiting to make a career out of regulating something. Next thing you know there will be speed cameras, breathalysers, CCTV wathchig us, black box on all boats......Hang on a minute!!!!
 
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Separate rudder (but it has a bit of skeg honest!)


[/ QUOTE ] We haven't even got a bit of skeg! I don't want to thrift the dread but I have read some of the pronouncements on these fora in the last few weeks with mouth wide open (metaphorically! I was brought up proper see). I have no qualms about planning to sail off across the oceans in our slightly older AWB. It appears that I need my head examining.

Or is it simply that I have sailed across oceans that makes the difference....?

I wonder how the hundreds of boats with fin keels, great living accomodation and spade rudders get across oceans? Thousands must die every year in the process?

Back to the subject of lifejackets. All ours have crotch straps, automatic lights, and the childrens now have spray hoods. I am thinking of adding spray-hoods to ours for next year. I still won't wear them all the time, but I will wear them when I think its necessary.
 
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I wonder at which boat size people STOP wearing lifejackets? Once you accept that you wouldn't wear one on the QE11 it implies there is a boatsize above which you consider it isn't needed so all we have to determine is what that size is!

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Don't confuse them by cornering them into giving an answer that can only be based on good seamanship and knowledge /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif.

But I will suggest around 6-7 m as a boat length above which one should not need to wear a lifejacket under most circumstances. Under that may be needed but only according to the conditions and the capabilities and usage of the boat, and whether can swim or not.

Once one gets to near 12 m is hard to imagine lifejackets being necessary in almost any conditions.

Myself, definitely not necessary on QE11 except when abandoning ship, but I sense that some will disagree /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif.
 
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Once one gets to near 12 m is hard to imagine lifejackets being necessary in almost any conditions.


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Our boat is 12.5m and your comment fits our practice.

We have had two downwind Channel gales, several F7s downwind and a couple upwind in this boat and never felt any need. All reefing is done from the cockpit (slab reefing not in mast too) so we are not wandering about the deck by day or by night. Commonsense rules that IF it were necessary the appropriate gear would be used and never without the other person keeping watch, we always sail as just the two of us. If we were sailing a small MAB with reefing at the mast and/or hanked headsails it would probably be different.

As a teenager I used was brought up mountain walking and rock climbing and the principal of 3 point attachment was well instilled, only have one bit free to move at a time. One hand for the ship is probably the marine equivalent and it is surprising how nimble even an overweight wrinklie like me can be whilst doing it.
 
Tis true Ken, but like a lot of Freds, it's drifted around a bit! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
I would like to add. Please refrain from wearing Back-packs in dinghys. The benefit of a good lifejacket could be so easily lost by the backpack on your back.
I also have a friend who is lucky to be alive after falling in the water with Welllington boots on.
 
Adding to the thread drift, I always wear a lifejacket when sailing (it's just an automatic thing) but I feel now it's purely habit and not always necessary because the cockpit in our Cat is very sheltered (I'd have to do some impressive gymnastics to fall out) and the boat doesn't heel. On our previous 34' monohull I had occasional fears I might fall out (being partially disabled I can only hang on with one hand, pretty scary when heeling) so used to be clipped on even when sitting in the cockpit on a not-particularly-windy day. So it's horses for courses again, but I do tend to feel that I am setting something of an example to the hordes of children who watch over the lock walls as we leave Sovereign Harbour.

Oh, the dog now ALWAYS wears a lifejacket as she'd be incredibly difficult to scoop out of the sea when underway without it. Needless to say, when she fell in off the pontoon the other week she wasn't wearing it as we weren't going out to sea that day... and she went a surprisingly long way underwater before coming up again. And I and a chum got completely soaked fishing her out.
 
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Just a wee reminder that the title of this thread asked that you should wear an LJ when in the dinghy, not when on an ocean liner.

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Yes you are indeed correct Ken and I did comment on that elsewhere, but this bit of thread wandered after I recalled a visit (by dinghy) to the poster's boat for a very pleasant malt or two in a South Brittany anchorage.

My earlier comment was that there are different circumstances requiring different solutions. When we had an exposed mooring we did at least carry the LJs (actually an old set) in the tender. We had two tenders, a 10ft rigid double skinned unsinkable jobbie and a 10ft Avon inflatable, usually we used the rigid one to go to and from the mooring. Both dinghies were very stable so it was only on very rare rough trips out that we used the LJs because mostly we avoided that situation simply because it meant all our gear could get wet before a trip had even started. Our tender now is a Zodiac Fastroller with rigid air floor and keel and spends 90% of it's time either in a cockpit locker or stowed on the foredeck inflated as we are on a marina berth. It's use is for casual trips ashore where we can better chose the conditions and time so LJs are less likely to be needed and would pose problems of what to do with them. I'm thinking about not leaving anything nickable in the dink whilst not wanting to wander the islands of Brittany or even Lymington market on a hot summer's day still wearing them or carrying them.

We lost 2 members of a club we used to belong to many years ago in a dinghy accident going to their mooring so I am aware of the risks. However they were in a 7ft or 8ft ply tippy thing that I wouldn't have set foot in even with a lifejacket on, it had no buoyancy and sank. That however is a different scenario to our tender use these days and even back then when at least ours were 10ft, unsinkable and very stable. For the record the tippy thing they had was made to stow on the deck of an old wooden MAB and rubber ducks were considered 'unsuitable' attire.

Robin
 
Always do, but then I have gone from swimming 2 miles each evening at the baths on the way home from work, to currently not knowing if I can swim at all.
 
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