Sailing injuries ('tis dark, we've had a drink, time for seamen's tales)

Greenheart

Greenheart

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Sorry, that title was meant to evoke Fisherman Quint's wheelhouse in Jaws, and the humorous comparison of injuries. :rolleyes:

Admittedly I was younger, the last time I was routinely heaving dinghies up slipways...but good grief! I haven't seen bruises like these since I was a kiddie:

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The odd thing is, I don't know how I get them. I suppose sudden impacts and scrapes go unnoticed if I'm urgently taking care of steering/ropes when I'd normally yelp and have a look at the damage.

I get weird blackened inside-forearms - by lifting the stern of the dinghy to align it better on the trolley...arms locked in an 'L' shape to lift, then a few seconds of 70 or 80kg pressure, and it's done...and next morning, I look like I'm the weedy half of an abusive relationship.

I'm definitely getting nastier injuries from the Osprey, than smaller boats used to give.
 
dancrane said:
Admittedly I was younger, the last time I was routinely heaving dinghies up slipways...but good grief! I haven't seen bruises like these since I was a kiddie:

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My wife can show MUCH better bruises than that - she is on anti blood clotting agents and bruises worse than that from tiny little knocks. After one operation she was blue all down one side of her body for several weeks!

I did once break a rib falling down the companion-way; I was sober at the time, too. Spent a two week holiday sitting in the saloon waiting to heal so I could drive home!
 
I reckon one of the most dangerous parts of sailing is the slipway.

I can think of a broken wrist - my Mother - a factured skull - a friend - and numerous nasty slips and bruises over the years.

Add to the slipperiness the effort of pulling a dinghy up the slip and it's a dangerous recipe...
 
Once slipped on my old boat whilst carrying some mixed resin-up in the air and landed on one of the chain plates-mast was down.
Not only severe bruising to my ribs but a face full of setting polyester resin which I somehow managed to remove(no goggles or facemask of course!)
Then there was the time near Lightening Knoll at the mouth of Morecambe Bay where a large wave threw me off the cockpit coaming and across the cockpit.
 
Got an enthralling set of bruises when I went over the side once. Grabbed the guard rail as it was rushing past my back, managed to stop myself from going all the way in, and pulled myself back up with one arm. Seemed unlikely I could do it at the time, would seem frankly impossible now at my current fighting weight, but adrenaline is a performance-enhancing drug.

Anyway, my whole upper arm and shoulder was one bruise. And my Peter Storm waterproof jacket ripped open along the shoulder seam.
 
A good friend of mine was playing netball during the week after doing bow on a very windy weekend. At the end of the game one of the opposition players came up and told her she didn't have to stand for it, she should leave her boyfriend and gave her a card with the number of an abused woman's helpline. My friend was really perplexed until one of her team pointed out her bruises. The well meaning opposition player simply refused to accept that she wasn't being beaten up, even when my friend pointed out she was single!
Sailing really can produce some amazing bruises that you just don't ever remember collecting!
 
I don't seem to bruise much at all from a of my knocks and scrapes.

The worst I've done to myself was a cracked rib after being slammed against the stem head of a boat when on the bowsprit. We went over a wave, the boat fell away and I followed half a second later and met the stem as it was coming back up. It wasn't the most comfortable Atlantic crossing I did after that.
 
Probably the some of the worst I know from on board a cruising yacht involve anchoring. One single-handing yachtswoman I know managed to get her hand caught in the gypsy whilst trying to free a fouled link, and then got the other hand caught trying to free off the other ...... her frantic cries for help were heard so she was rescued fairly quickly. She went to hospital, but apart from some torn ligaments and cuts and bruises she was okay.

Another single-hander who routinely anchored his 45' catamaran from the stern with about 30' of chain and the rest nylon rode. He tried to re-anchor in a hurry and caught his ankle in the rode ... which broke. Luckily he managed to stay on board, but he could do nothing to help himself apart from scream for help. As far as I am aware he okay, but walks with a limp.

My worst injury was a broken hand caused by slipping on land when I was wearing worn out Croc look-alikes ...never worn Croc type shoes again!
 
SamanthaTabs said:
Toe stubbing opportunities on yachts are endless..
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I've noticed that folding a fingernail back is horribly easy as well, if I forget to cut 'em. Softened by damp, then forced to separate the ring on a clevis pin or elsewhere...ouch.

Not quite the same as "He'd been bitten in half, below the waist", but very unpleasant.

Very occasionally I wish I'd found a singlehander like a Contender, but how low is the boom on those boats?! At least when the Osprey's boom gives you a clunk, you know it's your own fault.
 
We were in the BVI and few years ago and the foresail furler broke...

So the charter guys sent out a lad to fix it for us... A nice guy, ex royal marine just out and in his first gig...

As we were chatting on the foredeck I mentioned to him that the pickup had a bunch of razor sharp coral growing on it And he should be carefull...

As he is dismantling the furler he drops a part overboard... Quick as a flash he is over the side to catch it.. Which he does unbelievably... But as he comes up he grabs the pickup and levers himself back onto deck.... Slicing his palm clean through to the bone for about a 5 inch length....

Vast blood everywere... Get him back into the cockpit get it cleaned up and put a big dressing on it, and then wrap it in a towel... I am all for getting him straight to hospital... But by now he has got his colour back and insists on finishing the repair and driving his rib back to base...

Ended up with loads of stitches and 6 weeks off work apparently. Toughest guy though.. He was white as a sheet for a while and started to get shocky... But after 15 minutes was up and going...

I would have been in casualty.
 
I once had athletes foot from wearing the same sailing wellies for a long time; ironic really as I am short, fat and bald
 
I once knacked my wrist in whilst dinghy sailing in a F4/5. Bit sore but nothing to worry about.

Week later I'm in a Class C yacht for the Tall Ships' Race. Bit of a social ashore in Cherbourg, and whilst climbing back onboard at night my hand grasped the mast shroud, and the poorly wrist gave way.

I fell outboard, between our boat and the one next to it that we had just walked across. Luckily I didn't go in the oggin cos my armpit connected with the guardrail on the way down. I bashed my knee on the way down too.

I was given a hand and clambered back onboard, and limped off to my pit.

In the morning my armpit was very sore - and I couldn't bend my knee!

I limped around Cherbourg for two days. The day before departure the skipper decided I really ought to seek medical advice - I was the mate after all.

I went to a Red Cross tent. They got very excited and decided I should go to a doctor. I said I'd walk/limp, but instead they insisted on taking me in their ambulance which was a glorified transit van with a stretcher. They took me to the fire station, where a doctor looked at my leg and said the magic word 'radiologie' which I correctly assumed meant X-ray. So I got bundled into a fire station ambulance to Cherbourg hospital.

Whilst waiting for the X-rays, an old French lady patient spoke to me. Not having a scooby what she said I replied "Je regrette Madame, mais je suis Anglais - je ne comprend pas" and she looked at me like I was a paedo and turned her back on me.

Anyway, when it was X-ray time they tried to force my leg into position to get a good picture - absolute agony, I was shouting at them to stop in schoolboy French and advanced English. The pain was even worse than the injury. I later found out that they thought I fractured my tibial plateau just under the knee. Which I hadn't - no fracture, just soft tissue injuries.

I was given a prescription for some serious opiate based painkillers - which I didn't take as I was the mate onboard a large yacht.

My knee got better, after two weeks I was running again - no probs.

A couple of months later I got a large envelope from France. Somewhat intrigued, I opened it to find three X-ray pictures of my leg, and a bill for 120 euros!

Given that I'd presented my European Health Card I was a bit taken aback - and I chucked the invoice in the bin.

Not heard anything back!
 
dancrane said:
Great (appalling) story...but what's "the pickup"?
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The pickup line for the mooring bouy... It was In fat hogs bay on tortola.. And the bouys aren't used all that much so the pickup strop had coral growing on it... You need to be very carefull...
 
even RORC Admiral's Cup navigators are not immune from plain stupidity :blush:

I was allowed on deck to help pull in a wrapped spi, and promptly tried walking on thin air where the hatch should have been.

Gravity took its customary course, and I ended up with a fractured kneecap, severe concussion, three months off work (so lost my job - there was no generous sick pay in those days) and a determination to never tangle with the foredeck gorilla crew again.
 
I did some cooking on a Bavaria 40 when it was rough. They are cavernous inside and the galley is linear with no hand holds, so I was constantly being thrown backwards into the saloon table. I also spent some time when the boat was well heeled over with my leg round the jib winch to avoid sliding into the cockpit. Then I came home and my other half asked suspiciously what I'd been doing with these sailors to get my bum and thighs all bruised!
 
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