Safety & Seamanship

This is the final installment in Practical Sailor’s four-part series on medical kits for sailing. This article looks at Group IV pre-packaged first-aid kits, which are expected to sustain the crew during an extended cruise or ocean passage. Previous articles tapped the best medical kits for daysailors, coastal cruisers, and offshore cruisers. The Group IV kits must provide supplies and medications needed not only for first aid, but sometimes for extended treatment of even the worst injuries and the most serious illnesses. They must enable sailors to cope with anything that can happen to a person at sea for days on end. Test kits included the Adventure Medical Marine 3000, Filedtex Trans-Ocean Pak, and Ocean Medical International’s Class A medical kit. All three kits were stocked with most of the first-aid components that testers outlined as necessary for an offshore cruise. Although the OMI kit was clearly the most comprehensive, its price was prohibitively high. The Trans-Ocean Pak from FieldTex was well-stocked and well-organized, but PS found the kit by Adventure Medical to be the best choice.

Practical Sailor’s annual wrap-up of the year’s best sailing equipment looks at our favorite top-rated products from November 2007 to November 2008, including the Facnor furler for light-air sails, Scad Solo external holding-tank sensor, Pelican Recoil LED flashlight, and Adventure Medical’s first-aid kit for coastal cruisers. In the boat maintenance category, Interlux’s Micron 66 bottom paint and Spray Nine’s waterline stain remover garnered Editors’ Choice picks. Foulie sets (jacket and bibs) by Gill and Helly Hansen were tapped as Practical Sailor Editor’s Choice in apparel, and a host of marine electronics made the list, including the Icom CommandMic III remote mic and Garmin GPSMap 545s 5-inch chartplotter sounder. Jeppesen was recognized for its top-notch electronic chart updating services. Other top gear picks were the Acco proof coil mooring chain and the Achilles HB315-LX fixed-transom inflatable dinghy.

Cold-weather sailing apparel needs to be more waterproof, more windproof, and much warmer than gear for most other cold-weather activities. To find the best glove for cold-weather sailing, two Practical Sailor testers took 14 pairs with them on a three-season cruise of the Chilean channels. The cold-weather sailing gloves fell into four distinct categories: mid-weight, water-resistant gloves; heavyweight, neoprene gloves; insulated gloves; and layered gloves comprising an outer waterproof shell and an inner glove liner. The test gloves included the Gill Extreme, Gill Dura-shark Winter, Gill Three Seasons, Gill Helmsman, the Henri Lloyd Offshore Racer, Henri Lloyd Stealth Winter, Musto Frostbite, SealSkinz gloves, Stearns Arctic Water, Gul Anatomic Cut Helmsman, Zero Featherlite by Fairfield Line, L.L.Bean Vortex, Lined Nitrile (heavy-duty rubber gloves), and Montanna Hyvent by The North Face.

A decade ago, Practical Sailor editors began scouring boat shows for the perfect emergency tiller and an ideal stowage system for it. Little more than a simple lever arm that attaches to the head of the rudder stock, the emergency tiller is the device a sailor relies on in the event a steering cable parts or theres some other steering system failure. Our seemingly simple search turned out to be a nearly fruitless enterprise. Boat after boat fell far short of delivering even an average emergency tiller. Heres a look at our favorites and favorite offenders as well as our criteria for a good emergency tiller and where to keep it.

The test field includes devices with 5-inch display screens that provide chartplotting capabilities and information and show detailed bottom contours on a single display screen. These combination fishfinder-chartplotters are fitted with high-powered sounders. Practical Sailor tested units for day and night visibility. Each plotter was tested with live GPS fix information. Chartplotter user-interface was tested by examining actions such as creating waypoints, building routes, and changing map ranges. Units tested were the GarminGPSMAP 545s, which uses Garmin’s Bluechart g2; the Lowrance LMS-525C DF (a Navico brand), which has an NMEA 2000 GPS sensor, uses Navionics cartography, and is capable of interfacing with a Lowrance radar; the Raymarine A60/DSM25 combo; the SI-TEX Colormax SE; and the Standard Horizon CP180.

In a follow-up to last months review of fixed-transom rigid inflatable boats, Practical Sailor looked at three 10-foot, folding-transom dinghies: the Walker Bay Genesis 310 FTD, Avon Rover 310 Lite, and the Zodiac Zoom 310SR. These three have the advantage of being easily stowed on deck, without taking up as much space as their fixed-transom counterparts. We tested each RIB dinghy for top speed, planing speed, overall performance at high and low speeds, spray deflection, and rowing. We looked at design, quality of construction, details, extras, price, and warranty-with an emphasis on price and warranty versus construction materials. PVC inflatable dinghies are not as durable as those made of Hypalon and generally carry a shorter warranty, but they are less expensive and can meet the needs of those in more temperate climates.

Your recent assessment of the locator service SPOT (Practical Sailor September 2008) was spot on. We recently took it along on a Pacific Coast, offshore delivery of a 50-foot sailboat. We hit bad weather and had several mechanical failures. Our families ashore were able to follow our progress on the SPOT website throughout our trip. The problem came when a panicked crew, unknown to me, hit the "911" button. I was able to cancel the 911 call a few hours later. Our families were simply alerted that we had a serious problem but did not know anything more for a couple days. The SPOT command central repeatedly called my cell phone, which was with me, 250 miles offshore and obviously out of range. They claimed they could not determine our position despite several days of track records.

Anyone who has ever run before a gale knows how exhilarating it can be. On the right boat, in the right conditions, the adrenaline rush is as intense as any we’ll feel in this world. Bull riders, surfers, and skydivers get a few seconds of excitement. An ocean gale can last for days ... and that’s where the problem lies. With your senses completely in tune with the boat, wind, and sea, the experience of hurtling down an ocean wave stirs the soul. But as the hours pass and day turns to night, the thrill gives way to exhaustion. Mostly, you’re too busy to be afraid, but each mountain of green water that fills the cockpit brings doubt. How high will these waves get? How long can I last? Even with a drogue streaming off the stern to slow down the boat, running before storm-driven waves entails a great deal of risk. There’s danger enough aboard a fully crewed boat, as the rig, sails, and steering gear get pushed to the brink.

Anyone who has ever run before a gale knows how exhilarating it can be. On the right boat, in the right conditions, the adrenaline rush is as intense as any we’ll feel in this world. Bull riders, surfers, and skydivers get a few seconds of excitement. An ocean gale can last for days ... and that’s where the problem lies. With your senses completely in tune with the boat, wind, and sea, the experience of hurtling down an ocean wave stirs the soul. But as the hours pass and day turns to night, the thrill gives way to exhaustion. Mostly, you’re too busy to be afraid, but each mountain of green water that fills the cockpit brings doubt. How high will these waves get? How long can I last? Even with a drogue streaming off the stern to slow down the boat, running before storm-driven waves entails a great deal of risk. There’s danger enough aboard a fully crewed boat, as the rig, sails, and steering gear get pushed to the brink.

Practical Sailor’s ongoing evaluation of medical kits continues with a review of pre-packaged first-aid kits designed for offshore cruising. These kits address a full-range of medical needs, from minor cuts, lacerations, abrasions, bruises and sprains to sunburn, seasickness, head trauma, fractures, hypothermia, and burns. Offshore first-aid kits are designed for sailors who might not have access to medical personal for more than 24 hours and contain equipment and medicines capable of sustaining badly injured crew. They also enable a trained caregiver on board to monitor an injured crew member while seeking advice of professionals via electronic communication. The three pre-packaged medical kits reviewed were the Adventure Medical Marine 2000, Fieldtex Coastal Cruising Pak, and OMI Class B Daytripper by Ocean Medical International.