Safety & Seamanship

Good seamanship is the cornerstone of safety at sea, and its best allies are a seaworthy vessel and an able crew.

Most sailors are familiar with Thor Heyedrahls adventures aboard his balsa raft Kon Tiki. Some may remember the self-rescue line that they dragged behind the boat. Since the raft travelled so slowly, this last chance line gave a fit sailor a sporting chance to haul himself aboard.

Is an auto-inflate PFD the right answer for solo offshore cruisers?

When we buy rain gear, deck shoes, or binoculars, we assume theyve been tested, not just in the factory and in the lab, but just as importantly, in the field in the normal manner of use. If a climbing company develops a new carabiner, rope, or harness, you can bet they give prototypes to their sponsored climbers, with instructions to take them out in the mountains and fall on them.

Regarding your recent Inside Practical Sailor blog post Drysuits vs. Survival Suits, I raft the Colorado river in Grand Canyon where water temps are around 50 F, even in the summer. The whitewater down there is furious and sometimes dangerous. I wear a 3 millimeter neoprene wetsuit under a full drysuit. If the drysuit rips, the wetsuit should slow down thermal loss. The problem is heat buildup in the sun. The solution is to jump in the cold water now and then to keep from over heating. On a sailboat that would be harder to do. There have been a few times sailing solo when I wore both garments, but it was pretty clammy inside. There is no perfect solution, just reasonable compromises by which to stay alive. Something to remember is that once a drysuit rips, it will take on hundreds of pounds of water. A high flotation PFD is mandatory, at least 26 pounds I would think.

Many years ago, when I was shopping for a boat to sail around the world, I sought out wiser sailors for advice. A recent college graduate, I had a ridiculously low budget but lucked into finding a boat that appeared fit for the task. It was a 32-foot gaff-rigged William Atkin ketch, a double ended Thistle design based on the Colin Archer lifeboats.

Considering the short comings of existing leg loops for harnesses, we designed an add-on set of leg loops that can transform any ISO 12401 chest harness into a harness capable of safely distributing the force of a epic fall, without adding significant weight and without inhibiting wearer moment.

The very first project tackled on my new-to-me catamaran a decade ago was to wrap the helm wheel with line. Our delivery trip home took place in late December on the Chesapeake Bay, and I didnt want to spend the next three days with an icy stainless steel wheel sucking all of the heat from my fingers. Instead, I spent a productive hour before dinner wrapping the wheel with line.

Back in 2010, Practical Sailor and others raised the alert that a conversion to LED navigation lights can have some unintended consequences, including distorted color shifts. And weve long been concerned about LED lights, both interior and exterior, interfering with VHF and AIS radio transmissions.

The widely publicized death of Jon Santarelli, an experienced racing sailor who went overboard during this years Chicago Mackinac Race should serve as a wake up call to everyone in the sport of sailing. We need a checklist. But more importantly, we need to follow it.