Shetland - no life raft, no EPIRB/PLBs, no survival suits - would you?

[Tranona]

dsc

- bumma - yet another bit of safety gear I lack

however, I think that so much gear falls into both camps

But everything in your original post is firmly in the second category. You don't need any of it if you strategy keeps you safe. Key to that strategy is sailing well within your capability given the environment you are in. Going beyond that capability in creases the potential need for the second category.

 

[jwilson]

"Safety gear" or "Life saving gear " there is a difference

This is my big annoyance: most of what is sold as "safety equipment" is actually "emergency equipment", and a lot of (though not all) emergencies can be avoided with skill and forethought. A bit like avoiding being a passenger on aircraft where the pilot thinks whether or not he dies is the will of some omnipotent god.

Safety equipment:
Charts, compass, leadline or echosounder.
Anything that needs occasional maintenance, ie seacocks, hatches, rigging, sails, engine....

Emergency equipment:
Lifejackets, radios, EPIRBS, liferafts, lifebuoys, danbuoys, etc.

 

[Sybarite]

why do you think you need it?

are you going to travel further and longer?

D

Over here if you go more than 6 miles from a haven, a life raft is obligatory.

 

[dylanwinter]

Over here if you go more than 6 miles from a haven, a life raft is obligatory.

so do they enforce it?

D

 

[Sybarite]

so do they enforce it?

D

That I don't know. Theoretically they can.

 

[pagoda]

so do they enforce it?

D

I can't imagine how?

Son no 1 and I recently came back from near Stavanger to Peterhead. We are both fairly experienced sailors, though more coastal than 250-300mile trips. As we were out of touch with SWMBO for most of 3 days, we pacified her a little with the knowledge that we had a liferaft in the cockpit, and flares and handheld VHF/ handheld GPS etc etc. Two antennas on the boat, plenty of food/water etc. We ended up sailing 318NM, but the first 100 was utterly empty of traffic. No ships in sight at all. Heard not a squeak on 16.

It's all a risk, but a considered risk. We felt the boat and ourselves were up to it (and collectively were,again ) so we set off and did the crossing.

Having more gear would only have had more value (to us) in dire circumstances, so we did not carry it. We experienced most of F6 NNW all the way over, nothing worse. Nothing worse was being forecast by any of the various sources consulted beforehand, so that we just coped with.
If they had started talking about 7 or 8 - I would have canned it for another week.

I plan to do Orkney / Shetland next year, so some of the same questioning process will be gone through again.

As long as you are confident in your own abilities, your boat's fitness , and listen to forecasts, go ahead and work with that and go to sea. That's what most people do?

Coastal day sailing (inter -island) is a different ball game from offshore. Easier on everything.

Graeme

 

[SteveSarabande]

dsc

- bumma - yet another bit of safety gear I lack

however, I think that so much gear falls into both camps

that is an excellent justification. We met some norwegians who expressed surprise that I had no life raft. I said that I would feel bad about drowing Jill because she was there not as a result of love of sailing but because I was there. had I drowned Jon or Roger on the way up the North sea then I would not feel nearly as bad as they knew the risks.

Lobster pots continue to be my worst fear - the best defence against those is a decent boat hook and a sharp knife

D

how many lobster pots did you have to cut free?

 

[Searush]

That's the beauty of your kind of day sailing, Dylan. If your boat isn't up to it, the weather is dodgy or you just don't feel like it, you can stay safe in port.

Most problems are a combination of small errors accruing into a biggy. If you are day sailing & not on a "must move on" timetable you can nip any small issues in the bud by stopping a bit longer in port until it is sorted.

That's the best safety equipment of all, time to deal with the small issues plus the inclination to deal with them rather than letting them accumulate.

 

[OceanSprint]

I sail in Moray Firth, sometimes with six year old daughter, in 24 foot boat.

I bought a life raft, although now it is an expensive weight on the cabin top that catches the Genoa sheet when tacking.

If I ever get into a situation where I need it, I would pay all my worldly goods to have it.

Hence, it's like insurance. Mostly wasted cash and possibly always wastedcash, except for some people sometimes

 

[dylanwinter]

how many lobster pots did you have to cut free?

just the one this trip

it was off Orkney and I had to cut the pick-up bouy

the boat came to a really sudden stop with a following sea

man the adrenalin runs fast

but over the past seven years I have had three seriously frightening enounters

and several where the things went under the boat but bobbed up no probs

we came across pot markers in 60m of water on the way up to scotland

I have no idea how to avoid them at night as they are invisible and some run just below the surface

no probs on the Minstrel as she has a very unsnaggable hull , kick up rudder,pivoting centre plate and a tiltable outboard.

Nearly all the lobsters and most of the crabs go to Spain - the smaller crabs are liquidised shell and all to make a suace for the paella

I have also had several chunks of stray bits of polyprop rope around the prop - not enough to stop it but enough for me to notice the lack of balance

I would have said that in orkney and Shetland 90 per cent of the beach detritus was from discarded fishing gear

D

 

[Seven Spades]

of course we have no idea how many vikings perished on their way across the Norwegian Sea to bash a few Brits on the head

Didn't the first Viking just walk across before the plains were flooded and we became an island about 8000bc?

 

[Fantasie 19]

of course we have no idea how many vikings perished on their way across the Norwegian Sea to bash a few Brits on the head

...neither do we know if the Vikings would have got a liferaft if they'd been available at the time....

 

[OceanSprint]

Didn't the first Viking just walk across before the plains were flooded and we became an island about 8000bc?

NO !!

Vikings arived by sea about 800 AD

 

[OceanSprint]

...neither do we know if the Vikings would have got a liferaft if they'd been available at the time....

The sagas record that Bloodhammer the Impetuous shunned liferafts, while Olaf Shakingknees carried 7 per long boat.

 

[Fantasie 19]

The sagas record that Bloodhammer the Impetuous shunned liferafts, while Olaf Shakingknees carried 7 per long boat.

 

[dylanwinter]

The sagas record that Bloodhammer the Impetuous shunned liferafts, while Olaf Shakingknees carried 7 per long boat.

Thorlag Splitzskull was a great fan of DSC though

 

[oldvarnish]

It is odd how fearful some of these places seem until you go there and meet local sailors happily toodling around their home waters in tatty run down old boats..

Very, very true. I don't know how many times I've braced myself for survival conditions, issued harnesses, contemplated heaving-to under storm canvas, only to find a windsurfer crossing the bow and having a great day out.

 

[pmagowan]

What about spending the money making the boat 'unsinkable'. If you spend the money on buoyancy chambers and watertight bulkheads is there any point in having a liferaft? The Fastnet disaster confirmed that you are nearly always better on the boat with the exception of once it has sunk. There seems to be a lot of DIR (doing it right) about sailing, i.e. if you are not doing it my way you are DIW. I wonder what people would think about a boat going transatlantic with no liferaft but having a positive buoyancy even in the event of a hull breach. The risks do get smaller when you invest in them and therefore the benefits of investing more also get smaller.

 

[TimBennet]

What about spending the money making the boat 'unsinkable'. If you spend the money on buoyancy chambers and watertight bulkheads is there any point in having a liferaft? The Fastnet disaster confirmed that you are nearly always better on the boat with the exception of once it has sunk. There seems to be a lot of DIR (doing it right) about sailing, i.e. if you are not doing it my way you are DIW. I wonder what people would think about a boat going transatlantic with no liferaft but having a positive buoyancy even in the event of a hull breach. The risks do get smaller when you invest in them and therefore the benefits of investing more also get smaller.

However attractive the 'unsinkable' boat theory might be, it doesn't help if there is a serious onboard fire, which from my empirical findings after being around the cruising world for a long time, would seem to be at least as serious a risk.

But ultimately, whether a boat does or doesn't do anything 'adventurous' is simply a function of the skipper and crew. Generally (having catered for these people for years and years), those that get obsessed about metal hulls, watertight bulkheads, liferaft launch facilities, extra thick rigging, etc, etc are already having their decisions driven by fear. And fearful people don't go adventurous cruising.

 

[pmagowan]

However attractive the 'unsinkable' boat theory might be, it doesn't help if there is a serious onboard fire, which from my empirical findings after being around the cruising world for a long time, would seem to be at least as serious a risk.

But ultimately, whether a boat does or doesn't do anything 'adventurous' is simply a function of the skipper and crew. Generally (having catered for these people for years and years), those that get obsessed about metal hulls, watertight bulkheads, liferaft launch facilities, extra thick rigging, etc, etc are already having their decisions driven by fear. And fearful people don't go adventurous cruising.

No, each risk must be assessed on its own merit. There is nothing unusual about deciding to limit a risk as much as possible and with fire that is done through good electrics, detectors, extinguishers etc. It would be an odd person who never wears their lifejacket because it does nothing to prevent a chip pan fire!

I don't get your second statment as it seems a rather odd and general brushstroke. Essentially you are saying that anyone adventurous is gung-ho and negligent. I have been on a number of 'adventures' and know people that have been on more extreme ones but I have yet to meet one that has not planned to minimise the risks to a reasonable amount. For instance, I have virtually no fear of sinking or burning alive in my boat and I live with a minor imortality complex yet I still plan to reduce the liklihood of both in the design of my new boat. I fully expect that neither would likely happen in any case and that my precautions will never be necessary but I think it is both sensible and wise to make reasonable efforts to mitigate risk.