Safety & Seamanship

There isn’t much that scares or worries me when it comes to all things about boats. Except two: large amounts of water coming in...

Social media seems to be stirring up fear that sunscreen is more than harmful than beneficial, without legitimate studies to support this fear mongering....

Peter Mott has been working with radio his entire life. But only upon retiring did he start to combine his love of sailing and...

No sailor can resist the temptation to look over another sailors work, and nothing draws the eye faster than your neighbors docklines. We like to know our boat and our neighbors boats will be where we left them when we return, not rubbing together or worse. Sometimes, however, a stroll down the dock makes us nervous. This gallery of rogue docklines represents only a taste of what PS tester Drew Frye found within a short walk of his slip. How many of these will come loose during the next storm?

This article is not a “how to” on COB drills or other procedures. There is lots of good training available on that subject and...

We often think of safety on deck in terms of PFDs, lifelines and jacklines, but the falls they protect against only happen after something...

Seamanship is about big concepts and small skills. They work together, but we see them differently and they represent different types of learning. Big...

Practical Sailor Technical Editor and in-house safety expert Ralph Naranjo tagged along on some recent man-overboard retrieval trials put on by the U.S. Naval Academys Sailing Master Dan Rugg and the Philadelphia Sailing Club. The lessons learned on those at-sea safety drills can benefit all who call oceans and waterways their playground. The trials showed that no single MOB retrieval method will suit all boats, all situations, or all crews. The wide range of variables that can come into play in a crew-overboard incident cannot be overstated. Factors ranging from crew skill and size to the vessels behavior under different sea state affect the challenges involved in a rescue and define the right maneuver to use. Among the COB techniques tested, the Quick Stop, which requires a quick reaction from the crew to keep the victim close at hand, was deemed best suited for fully crewed vessels moving at slow or moderate speeds. Other maneuvers that the sea trials evaluated included the Figure 8 MOB rescue method, the Fast Return, the Deep Beam Reach, and rescue with a Lifesling. Naranjos report offers a new look at some widely accepted techniques. Practicing these tactics aboard your boat will help you to determine which works best for your boat-be it a heavy-displacement cruiser or feather light race boat-and your crew-be they a team of professionals or your family and friends.

A decade ago a woman from Venezuela was hoisting her husband up the mast of their Amel Maramu 54. The winch was electrically powered,...

Leaving Rhode Island to sail to the Bahamas, I wanted to be untethered, for a while. Adrift at dawn and heading for rocks in...