Saving Lives at Sea

[cherod]

You should have smiled more ?

 

[Spirit (of Glenans)]

In Bradwell a few years ago I had my VHF on and heard someone calling the Coastguard to say that he had lost his finger in the anchor winch. The CG called back to check on the location which he hadn't understood but no reply. I interrupted and told CG he was in the Ray Channel at West Mersea and a couple of minutes later the maroons went off for the lifeboat. This was in the days when the CG would have known where West Mersea was!

This was in the days when they used maroons!
I was present in Baltimore the last time the maroons were used there, I think about ten years ago.

 

[Spirit (of Glenans)]

Each time I see the programme, I am surprised that RNLI doesn't seem to have a technique to get a large MOB into an ILB. It appears to involve a lot of effort on the part of at least 2 hefty lifeboat crew and an uncomfortable ride for the casualty. With them all leannng over one side of the boat, it looks precarious.

I'm always left musing"There must be a better way" but I don't know what it might be.

I saw a demonstration and they seemed to have a coordinated technique which whips the casualty onto the tube pretty smartly, whereupon gravity does the rest.

 

[Spirit (of Glenans)]

I think the offshore lifeboats have a winch. But, after being dragged over a hard transom on my back during a sea cadet MOB exercise, I wouldn't do it again.

When diving, I've always found that one arm from the casualty on the sponson, body horizontal and then one leg. It's always worked for me.

I once fell off the club punt. My lifejacket propelled me upwards so forcefully that I was able to throw an arm and a leg over the gunwale. The other two people on board were able to swiftly pull me the rest of the way. I only got wet up to my knees and from my head down to a "V" at the opening of my oilskin jacket!

 

[Graham_Wright]

I once fell off the club punt. My lifejacket propelled me upwards so forcefully that I was able to throw an arm and a leg over the gunwale. The other two people on board were able to swiftly pull me the rest of the way. I only got wet up to my knees and from my head down to a "V" at the opening of my oilskin jacket!

Eh?! You wear your lifejacket round your ankles?

 

[Spirit (of Glenans)]

Eh?! You wear your lifejacket round your ankles?

Because I had closed the bottoms of my salopettes tight around my boots the water did not have time to penetrate upwards much beyond the tops of my boots, and because I had my lifejacket adjusted correctly, including the crotch straps, the pressure of the inflated bladders prevented the water from wetting anything other than the neckline of my teeshirt. I did also get wet up to my elbows. I just had to go and change my teeshirt, shoes and socks
As it happened, I was on a Keelboat Instructor course at the time, and because, in the classroom, the trainer noticed water dripping from the bottom of my salopettes onto my deckshoes, she insisted that I go and change the rest of my clothes

 

[fisherman]

Each time I see the programme, I am surprised that RNLI doesn't seem to have a technique to get a large MOB into an ILB. It appears to involve a lot of effort on the part of at least 2 hefty lifeboat crew and an uncomfortable ride for the casualty. With them all leannng over one side of the boat, it looks precarious.

I'm always left musing"There must be a better way" but I don't know what it might be.

I do. I think. Rails across the boat atop the hulls with a rigid plastic stretcher on runners, it goes out either side until it tilts down into the water at, say 45degs. Drag casualty on, haul stretcher back in and it sits across the boat where he is safe and stable and can be tended to, wrapped up, not sitting in the wet bilge ect ect. I wrote to the RNLI after seeing yet another casualty dragged in facing outwards, no reply. It's very hard and very dangerous to try to bend a human backwards over the side of a boat, much easier to haul up, arms, shoulders and seat of the pants, face in.

 

[fisherman]

Two people have lost finger ends using whipping drum winches to haul boats up the beach here. Some of us who used to haul pots all day with a drum try to tell them how to do it. Basically you grip the rope in fingers not thumbs, hand on the end of the drum and wind the rope on, as many turns as you need. I used to work a drum in 45fm of water, with seven turns while hauling, down to four when a pot lanyard or 'leg' arrives, which you throw over the end four times....difficult to explain. So old fashioned now there is no vid of it.

 

[awol]

A "mayday" for the loss of a finger ? Doesn't sound like imminent danger to life especially with 3 others on board. Just dip the end into hot tar ?

 

[Boathook]

he also delayed the mayday (not calling it when he took his finger off but calling it when he felt he could no longer keep off the rocks). Certainly with crew who could not take command of the boat that was a poor decision.

the Weston rescue was amazing persistence and hats off to that RNLI crew.

I have sailed with 'crew' who couldn't sail let alone take control of my boat. I do try to make sure that they know how to operate the vhf and we are normally in mobile phone range.

 

[Hallberg-Rassy]

A Venezuelen woman ...

Lewmar‘s safety notice said...

What on earth happened?

 

[AntarcticPilot]

This was in the days when they used maroons!
I was present in Baltimore the last time the maroons were used there, I think about ten years ago.

When I was a lad, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, my dad kept our Halcyon 27 moored next to the lifeboat in Dunbar harbour. It wasn't at all uncommon for us to be woken by the maroons being fired from the coastguard hut on the castle ruins next to the harbour entrance. Those things are LOUD!

 

[rotrax]

I well remember the 'CRACK' of the RNLI maroon at Selsey in the early 50's. Dead right, very loud.

If we were not asleep we would go to see the Lifeboat sliding down the slip.

My Grandmother rented a bit of a smallholding to Jim who was in the crew.

Jim got me permission to fish off of the slip. I caught my second fish there, a six inch Red Gurnard. I though it was huge!

 

[Dave100456]

A "mayday" for the loss of a finger ? Doesn't sound like imminent danger to life especially with 3 others on board. Just dip the end into hot tar ?

You're the sort of skipper I like to sail with; sympathetic, compassionate and understanding , however, I trust you do charge crew for the tar!!

 

[PilotWolf]

Anyone tried the Jacobs or Jason’s (can’t ever remember which it is!) cradle.

Just hope you’re unconscious or can’t feel pain...

Never used It in anger but one of the company’s deckhands offered to try it a couple of years ago. I’m sure he still has the scars!

He was a naughty boy at one point and I’m sure the demo was what saved him.

W.