The most bizarre thing you've ever seen someone do on a boat.

This thread started with a video of a mast collapsing during a race in the Carib. In my very humble opinion, in the conditions shown in the video, with a strong fit and capable crew, several other boats in the immediate vicinity, land not far off and with warm waters and a hot sun the idea of going for an impromptu dip is completely risk free (0k, acceptably risk free). The only possible reason for any of those crew to wear a life jacket would be if they were a non swimmer. Looking (wistfully) at the crew in their T shirts and shorts I'd guess they would all be quite capable of giving an Olympic swimmer a swim for his/her money.

The initial comments were made in respect of the bizarreness of the crew of that particular boat in those idyllic sailing conditions not wearing Lifejackets. I totally disagree.

I think justifying the original pro Lifejackets comments with a deflection from the original Carib sailing conditions to European sailing conditions is like comparing apples with pears. I'd be interested to know how many posters would have been wearing Lifejackets as a matter of course in the sailing conditions shown in the OP's video?
 
Lakesailor said:
Yes Ian, you don't seem to grasp the concept of personal choice, unless it's for yourself.
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I really, really, really don't see how you can possibly get that from anything I wrote. I thought I had been clear: lifejacket wearing should be a personal choice but in general I think it's a sensible default to wear one.

If cyclists reserve the right not to wear helmets or Hi Viz, I will reserve the right to choose when I were an LJ (or buoyancy aid). I often do, but often don't. My choice. I am not wrong. Neither are you. Just different.
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Since I wrote "I don't always wear one myself" I am not entirely sure where you think the difference lies.
 
Wandering Star said:
...justifying the original pro lifejackets comments with a deflection from the original Carib sailing conditions to European sailing conditions is like comparing apples with pears. I'd be interested to know how many posters would have been wearing lifejackets in the sailing conditions shown in the OP's video?
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Damned right, I would've worn an LJ in the circumstances of that race! The dismasting showed how much greater the risk in a situation where the boat is deliberately pressed up to and beyond breaking point, by a crew who are conspicuously NOT thinking safety first.

I'm very glad the chaps in that dismasted boat weren't injured by the rig's collapse. But which of us would reckon that if dismasting was well within the realms of possibility, our crew ought NOT to prepare for that eventuality by the effortless precaution of wearing lifejackets? Certainly it's personal choice, but defying the real possibility of a dunking whilst seriously injured, seems cavalier to the point of daftness.

I've been in the sea shivering beside capsized dinghies in the Solent in springtime, and I've swum beside beach-cats in Australia where the water was gloriously warm. If the question needed answering, the sea was just as unpleasant to inhale at 28°c.

There was an interesting - and rather alarming - recent description of the behaviour of people who are drowning, which I read either here or in the papers. The awful incapacitating effect of initial inhalation of water, bears repeating, if I remember its general message, which almost owed something to Stevie Smith...

...people who are splashing & shrieking in the water are waving, not drowning. Once people begin to drown, their body movements are minimal and there isn't long to save them.

I used to be able to swim nearly 40 meters underwater, further than I could on the surface! I'm a lot better on the surface now, and not nearly as proficient beneath. I feel quite strong on the surface and at no imminent risk. But once I've inhaled a splash of spray or had my head momentarily swallowed by an unseen wave, it takes a few seconds to recover. At such a time, in the open sea, would I rather have personal buoyancy? What do you think? :rolleyes:

Long live personal choice! And long may you be lucky, if you make a bad choice. Me, I'll always rather trust a 50-Newton guarantee, than lady luck. Why take a chance?
 
Shakemeister said:
Incidentally, the most bizarre thing I've seen someone do on a boat was this bloke getting out of his tender onto his yacht on a mooring in about 15m of water. He was obviously concerned about the risk of losing his outboard overboard whilst transferring from the tender to the yacht so he took the precaution of tying a length of line from his wrist to the outboard whilst climbing onboard. :rolleyes:

And no - he wasn't wearing a lifejacket !
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oops er that could be my fault from YBW a few years back...
 
dancrane said:
I'm very glad the chaps in that dismasted boat weren't injured by the rig's collapse. But which of us would reckon that if dismasting was well within the realms of possibility, our crew ought NOT to prepare for that eventuality by the effortless precaution of wearing lifejackets? Certainly it's personal choice, but defying the real possibility of a dunking whilst seriously injured, seems cavalier to the point of daftness.
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actually I thought it more helpful that they had full range of movement and were able to act quickly and unrestricted. Everyone in the boat was aware of everything going on so even if someone went in and was trapped under the sail, someone could jump in, get under it and rescue them. Just like what happened. Had the helm been in an auto jacket it may have taken so long to get under that sail that the person trapped would have been in real trouble.
dancrane said:
I've been in the sea shivering beside capsized dinghies in the Solent in springtime, and I've swum beside beach-cats in Australia where the water was gloriously warm. If the question needed answering, the sea was just as unpleasant to inhale at 28°c.
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the trick is not to inhale, I'd suggest if you carry on like that you're wise to wear a life jacket. I don't inhale the water so am far less likely to drown. perhaps this is why our opinions differ, I actually feel safe in the water even in unexpected circumstances.
dancrane said:
Long live personal choice! And long may you be lucky, if you make a bad choice. Me, I'll always rather trust a 50-Newton guarantee, than lady luck. Why take a chance?
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If you think it's a guarantee of anything then you really need to think more. All a life jacket guarantees is that you have straps around your waist, possibly while you're drowning. They aren't all automatic, the auto ones don't always fire when needed, sometimes they fire when not needed, sometimes they fire and the bottle is empty or missing or unscrewed, sometimes they fire and inflate only to burst at the seams, sometimes they inflate and then deflate quite quickly, sometimes they trap you under something in the water, sometimes they hang you upside down head first in the water by the safety line. The ONLY guarantee you have while wearing a life jacket is that you have a life jacket on. Learning to swim and to cope in the water is considerably more useful to your personal safety.
 
lustyd said:
The ONLY guarantee you have while wearing a life jacket is that you have a life jacket on. Learning to swim and to cope in the water is considerably more useful to your personal safety.
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I don't have any lifejackets on board. I have safety harnesses, all of which just happen to have a secondary role as lifejacket. My briefing to new crew goes as follows: This is a safety harness. Used correctly it will stop you going over the side. It also has a flotation system which will make it easier to recover your body if you don't use the harness correctly.
 
JumbleDuck said:
I don't have any lifejackets on board. I have safety harnesses, all of which just happen to have a secondary role as lifejacket. My briefing to new crew goes as follows: This is a safety harness. Used correctly it will stop you going over the side. It also has a flotation system which will make it easier to recover your body if you don't use the harness correctly.
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That's still no guarantee as the recent drowning due to harness showed. As I said, your only guarantee is that you have a life jacket on, everything else requires a degree of luck and maintenance
 
lustyd said:
actually I thought it more helpful that they had full range of movement and were able to act quickly and unrestricted. Everyone in the boat was aware of everything going on so even if someone went in and was trapped under the sail, someone could jump in, get under it and rescue them. Just like what happened. Had the helm been in an auto jacket it may have taken so long to get under that sail that the person trapped would have been in real trouble.
the trick is not to inhale, I'd suggest if you carry on like that you're wise to wear a life jacket. I don't inhale the water so am far less likely to drown. perhaps this is why our opinions differ, I actually feel safe in the water even in unexpected circumstances.

If you think it's a guarantee of anything then you really need to think more. All a life jacket guarantees is that you have straps around your waist, possibly while you're drowning. They aren't all automatic, the auto ones don't always fire when needed, sometimes they fire when not needed, sometimes they fire and the bottle is empty or missing or unscrewed, sometimes they fire and inflate only to burst at the seams, sometimes they inflate and then deflate quite quickly, sometimes they trap you under something in the water, sometimes they hang you upside down head first in the water by the safety line. The ONLY guarantee you have while wearing a life jacket is that you have a life jacket on. Learning to swim and to cope in the water is considerably more useful to your personal safety.
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Hmmmmmm .. one would have thought that "unexpected circumstances" are usually the cause of ending up in the briney. One of my hobbies is surfing and I used to love the big winter waves and the buzz I got from from that, but I can assure you I have the utmost respect for the sea even in the most benign of conditions .. whilst in the water it does'nt take much to turn something into a survival struggle. You need to keep the odds stacked in your favour.

I can understand your argument if it was saying that you have no intention of going overboard and take measures to ensure that. But saying you don't care if you go overboard without a flotation device cos you feel safe in the water anyway is just plain stupid.
 
DaveS said:
This is a point of view which I have often heard expressed, but usually without much supporting evidence. With a bit of imagination it is possible to think of scenarios where wearing a seat belt might make things worse, but it does need quite a lot of imagination. It would be very helpful if you could reference any evidence.
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In my local area in my local paper just after the seatbelt law was introduced there were two crashes where the seatbelt was blamed

The details of the one I can remember was that just west of Cockermouth a Mini failed to negotiate a corner. There were passers by on the scene but could not get the people out because they were trapped by their seatbelts. The car caught fire they were burned.

I stopped noticing them after that.

There was a program on the tv that proved with the use of statistics that there were more deaths after the law was introduced than before, people drive more recklessly because they think they are safer and people are injured by the seatbelt.

I know it was done with a pinch of salt but it is not all positive
 
jimi said:
Hmmmmmm .. one would have thought that "unexpected circumstances" are usually the cause of ending up in the briney. One of my hobbies is surfing and I used to love the big winter waves and the buzz I got from from that, but I can assure you I have the utmost respect for the sea even in the most benign of conditions .. whilst in the water it does'nt take much to turn something into a survival struggle. You need to keep the odds stacked in your favour.

I can understand your argument if it was saying that you have no intention of going overboard and take measures to ensure that. But saying you don't care if you go overboard without a flotation device cos you feel safe in the water anyway is just plain stupid.
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And you don't think it mildly stupid using surfing as an example? I'm Cornish and surfed all my life, I never once wore a life jacket or floatations device other than the board, and was in considerably worse conditions than I sail in. I wasn't arguing that I'm safe, or that it's better to stay on board. As I said there was a recent death on a yacht where a tether contributed. My point was that when someone on a forum says that his 50N LJ guarantees his safety, he's talking ****. That was all I was saying in that post and I'm confident I wasn't wrong in saying so. The best safety is to be prepared, sometimes that means wearing a life jacket, sometimes a tether and sometimes learning to swim. None of the above are foolproof, but knowing which to try, when, and how effective it is along with (more importantly) how it will fail will put you in a better position. Am I stupid for suggesting that I don't always need a life jacket? No, certainly not. Do I usually wear one on a yacht in open water? You bet I do.
 
lustyd said:
...the trick is not to inhale, I'd suggest if you carry on like that you're wise to wear a life jacket.
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Good lord...has the penny finally dropped? Oh...no, it hasn't...

lustyd said:
I don't inhale the water so am far less likely to drown.
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I can hear the best brains at the admiralty and the RNLI, all slapping their foreheads as this brainwave occurs to them after centuries of completely unnecessary deaths at sea.

Lusty, I think you're quite a special case. You expect all the items carefully designed to prevent a loss of life at sea, to fail, and you prefer to rely on not inhaling water.

Obviously I hope you aren't proven wrong at any time... :)
 
JumbleDuck said:
True, though I had that very case in mind when I wrote "used correctly". I still think of the harness as the principal safety device, though.
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I think of making good decisions and understanding risks as the principal safety device. I clip on when it's necessary.
 
dancrane said:
Lusty, I think you're quite a special case. You expect all the items carefully designed to prevent a loss of life at sea, to fail, and you prefer to rely on not inhaling water.
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Yes, I do plan for the worst. Surely that makes me safer than those who expect their magic gizmos to save them? I know various ways in which each device will fail, and various ways they may help me. In calm warm water then yes I'm happy to completely rely on my skills to not inhale water - if you're genuinely worried by this you need some more training. In rough conditions I add wet weather gear, life jacket, PLB, harness, strobe, VHF radio etc. I carry a line cutter because I expect the tether to kill me, I learned to tread water as I expect a life jacket to fail. I carry a PLB because I expect the crew to lose sight of me in a MOB situation at night. Yes, I believe expecting failure is a good thing.
 
lustyd said:
I carry a line cutter because I expect the tether to kill me, I learned to tread water as I expect a life jacket to fail. I carry a PLB because I expect the crew to lose sight of me.
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I'm surprised you have a boat, mate! You'll encounter far fewer of these dangerous life-preserving devices, if you stay ashore. :biggrin-new:

No further good can be done by this discussion, I fear. Goodnight, all. :moon:
 
dancrane said:
I'm surprised you have a boat, mate! You'll encounter far fewer of these dangerous life-preserving devices, if you stay ashore. :biggrin-new:

No further good can be done by this discussion, I fear. Goodnight, all. :moon:
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Said the man who always wears a life jacket, expecting still water to kill him!
 
lustyd said:
Yes, I do plan for the worst. Surely that makes me safer than those who expect their magic gizmos to save them? I know various ways in which each device will fail, and various ways they may help me. In calm warm water then yes I'm happy to completely rely on my skills to not inhale water - if you're genuinely worried by this you need some more training. In rough conditions I add wet weather gear, life jacket, PLB, harness, strobe, VHF radio etc. I carry a line cutter because I expect the tether to kill me, I learned to tread water as I expect a life jacket to fail. I carry a PLB because I expect the crew to lose sight of me in a MOB situation at night. Yes, I believe expecting failure is a good thing.
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So the argument has changed from "Don't wear a lifejacket cos you don't need it" to "Don't wear a lifejacket cos it'll probably fail... and make sure you have all the gear to cover that eventuality"

Interesting switch of tack and point of view but I suspect Fred going to the pub in his dinghy will enhance his life expectancy more by wearing a LJ than by carrying a PLB.. which it would be easier to activate and hold in transmit position whilst supported by a functioning LJ rather than whilst trying to keep ones head above water sans LJ...
 
jimi said:
So the argument has changed from "Don't wear a lifejacket cos you don't need it" to "Don't wear a lifejacket cos it'll probably fail... and make sure you have all the gear to cover that eventuality"

Interesting switch of tack and point of view but I suspect Fred going to the pub in his dinghy will enhance his life expectancy more by wearing a LJ than by carrying a PLB.. which it would be easier to activate and hold in transmit position whilst supported by a functioning LJ rather than whilst trying to keep ones head above water sans LJ...
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What a strange response. I said the PLB was because other crew on a night sail might not notice me falling in. I never said it would help on a pub trip in a dinghy or that I recommended it for such a trip. I also didn't say that more kit is better, or safer. What I actually said was that choosing the right kit for the conditions is the best course of action, and that sometimes simply learning to swim is sufficient to ward off the daemons.
 
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