Safety Moments

Anchoring Follies

Administrator — Tue, 19 Feb 2019 01:43:02 +0000

Anchoring Follies

Chuck Hawley

Administrator Tue, 02/19/2019 - 01:43

Anchoring can be intimidating to sailors, especially if one has to anchor in front of an audience, or with an unfamiliar boat, or with an inexperienced crew. Chartering a boat in some gorgeous place can bring all three of these aspects together, for some rather unfortunate results. To prevent the inevitable shame from crushing some egos, all names and other identification has been removed from the following stories.

Clutch Play
On Moorings 4600 catamarans, which have more in common with volleyball courts than sailboats, the anchor windlass can be pressed into service to raise the mainsail, which otherwise takes about 10 minutes with the possibility of having a stroke. To use the windlass as an electric halyard winch, it’s necessary to de-clutch the chain gypsy so that the warping drum can be used. A quick flip of the windlass handle and you can raise the main with nary a coronary.
On this particular day, we sailed all morning and then ended up in a cute little harbor on the north side of the Island of Solta, near Split, Croatia. My trusty crewmember, who I will call “Matt”, offered to drop the anchor so we could have lunch. He swung open the hatch to give him access to the windlass, pressed the “down” button, and thus began a cacophony of flailing chain as the anchor fell into the clear water, followed up 250’ of chain. “Stay away from the windlass!” I bellowed, as it had appeared the Matt was going to try to tighten the clutch and the chain raced past his hands. About 40 seconds later, with all chain having been dropped, the bitter end of the rode was reached and thankfully the piece of line holding the bitter end to a padeye held.
Lessons Learned:
1. If you ease the clutch on the windlass, tighten it up again.
2. Once the chain starts flying into the water, stay clear of it.
3. You might just check that the clutch is actually firmed up before you use the windlass, Matt...
Castles in the British Virgin Islands
Not the kind of castles you’d find in Britain, but rather the type that form in narrow, shallow, and inadequate chain lockers. We discovered this while trying to raise the hook in about 25 knots of wind, with the wind coming from multiple directions, seemingly at once, and many expensive cruising boats within reach.
“What’s taking so long?”
“The windlass breaker keeps on tripping!” Initially I thought this was an allusion to Michael Pollan’s latest book, when in fact my crewmember, whom I will call “Andrew”, was dealing with a blown breaker. The breaker, incidentally, was cleverly hidden under the sink along with the pots, pans, garbage bags, and some noxious food that was well past its sell-by date.
“Let me know when there’s no tension on the anchor rode so it won’t trip!” I replied.
“It’s tripping all the time, with no tension on the rode.”
This problem sounded familiar. “You’ve got a chain castle in the rode locker!” I suggested, not realizing that this had a 10% chance, at best, of helping to resolve the problem.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with chain castles, this amusingly-named syndrome occurs when the chain stacks on top of itself until it reaches the “roof” of the chain locker, and backs up so that the chain gypsy can no longer disgorge it’s chain downward. This can cause the gypsy to grind to a halt, and thus was the reason for the tripped windlass breaker.
I left the helm, jogged forward to the starboard water tank locker, and lifted the hatch cover. Barely visible over the tops of the water tanks a gray castle of chain climbed to the top of the locker. All it took was a swat with my hand to knock the castle sideways, and the problem was solved.
Lessons learned:
1. Windlass operation instructions should include telling everyone where the circuit breaker is located.
2. Explain chain castles in advance of their formation, and indicate how to resolve them.
3. If possible, don’t leave the helm to solve problems. Had the anchor broken free of the bottom, or if something else had slowed my return to the helm, we could have been in deep yogurt.
Two propellers gives you twice as many opportunities...
Since the two hurricanes hit the BVI in 2017, moorings have been easier to get because the charter “traffic” is way down compared to the previous years. At least we were able to get moorings at Cooper and Norman Islands, which are frequently all taken by the time we arrive. After staying on a mooring during a blustery night, it was time to cast off on Tuesday, and it was “Andrew’s” day to be Captain. To help ease the strain on the mooring bridle, he powered forward with gusto towards the mooring ball to “cut us some slack”. However, he overshot, and we ended up running over the mooring buoy and pennant, resulting in a stalled port engine and an inability to leave, as the mooring pennant was wrapped around our port propeller.
Luckily, the water was warm and clear, and it only took a few minutes to free the line around the propeller using some sharp jerks. The technique that seems to work is to take the free end of the pennant and to jerk perpendicularly to the prop shaft, since the line tends to jam between prop and strut, or in our case, prop and saildrive. Regardless, in a few minutes we were on our way, egos mostly intact.
Lessons Learned:
1. Back away from moorings, allowing the prevailing wind to blow you away.
2. If you cannot see the mooring and pennant, put the engine(s) in neutral. Don’t
  “power out of it”.
3. Having a “swimmer of the watch” can resolve small issues in a hurry, but make sure that the engines are off and that you have a spotter for the swimmer.
Happy cruising!

Overboard Recovery: Avoiding Running Over the Victim

Administrator — Fri, 05 Oct 2018 16:59:56 +0000

Overboard Recovery: Avoiding Running Over the Victim

Chuck Hawley

Administrator Fri, 10/05/2018 - 16:59

Overboard

Safety Moments

After several fatal short-handed crew overboard incidents involving members of the Sailing Foundation in Seattle, three of the members (Fred Hayes, Dick Marshall, Doug Fryer) began to search for a solution to short-handed overboard accidents. Their research into accidents, both successfully and unsuccessfully executed, found that a consistent theme for recreational boaters was that the skipper or the more experienced sailor was likely to be the one who went overboard. Thus, the technique for rescuing the PIW (person in water) needed to be consistent with the capabilities of crewmembers with limited sailing abilities; the second-in-command.

They concluded that one could not depend that the rescuer could maneuver a boat consistently to within swimming distance of a person in the water. Experienced sailors know that this takes a lot of judgment, especially with different boats, different wind conditions, and different sail configurations. Imagine that your life depending on a sailing companion sailing close enough that you could swim to the boat, consistently, in all conditions. The need to accommodate less than precise approaches led to the idea of towing a buoyant collar behind the boat, as if bringing a towrope handle back to a fallen water-skier.

As the rescuing vessel circled the PIW (Person In Water), even in large imprecise circles, the tendency of the Lifesling to “cut the corner” and seek out the swimmer in the center made it possible to reliably deliver the Lifesling and its life-saving flotation. And, presuming the first attempt to circle the victim doesn’t get the job done, it’s a simple matter to make a second pass, or a third pass, without losing the gear. This effective skill simultaneously provides flotation and connects the PIW to the vessel; a “two-fer” that can be lifesaving.

We know of several instances where extremely competent sailors who, in a heroic attempt to recover a PIW, have accidently struck the sailor, possibly exacerbating an already grim circumstance. Sailors frequently fall overboard when conditions are not conducive to precise boat maneuvering, and the tendency for racing sailboats to have the maximum amount of sail bent on makes a bad situation worse. Modern maxi boat crews have realized this and now customarily have a “swimmer of the watch” identified at all times, and s/he utilizes specialized clothing and gear so that he can affect a rescue nearly instantly. These boats don’t use a Lifesling per se, but they do avoid close-by maneuvering by approaching the PIW a boatlength or more away, and using the rescue swimmer to bring a small spectra line to the PIW. As soon as the rescue swimmer has the PIW in his grasp, a halyard it snapped onto the retrieval line, and it is hoisted, bringing both the rescue swimmer and PIW alongside the maxi. This eliminates the need to maneuver a 70 or 100’ sailboat near someone in the water, and the subsequent risk of striking them or running them over.

If you don’t have a swimmer of the watch or a Lifesling, a simple and inexpensive throw rope bag is effective for connecting the swimmer to the vessel. These are able to be thrown 50-70 feet, and are even able to be thrown upwind if necessary. The line floats which makes it easier for the PIW to locate on the surface of the water. While it takes a while to repack a throw rope bag, having a second one, perhaps on the other side of the cockpit, gives you a second try when seconds count.

Whether sailors use the Lifesling technique, the Swimmer of the Watch technique, or simply practice their skill at using a throw rope bag, they need to have a way to consistently make contact with a PIW, without actually making contact with them. It’s a skill that demands practice, communication, and the right gear.

What If the Sheet Hits the Pram?

Administrator — Tue, 03 Apr 2018 13:36:12 +0000

What If the Sheet Hits the Pram?

Chuck Hawley

Administrator Tue, 04/03/2018 - 13:36

Planning

Safety Moments

Chuck Hawley ran into CCA member and sailor extraordinaire Skip Allan at the marine flea market this weekend, and he suggested the following Safety Moment:

The recent 14-hour pit stop at Cape Horn of the Volvo Ocean Race leader MAPFRE well demonstrated what I like to call the game of "What If?" MAPFRE had a detached section of mast track and shredded mainsail and desperately needed to make repairs to continue the Volvo. MAPFRE's management had anticipated this possibility months before, and had stationed in Southern Chile a three-man repair crew with available materials and tools, as well as a boat on standby ready to meet MAPFRE at a small, well sheltered cove in the lee of Cape Horn itself, only a few miles off course.

The rendezvous happened without incident, repairs were made, and MAPFRE resumed the race as she was allowed to do under the Volvo Rules.

"What If?" is an excellent game to play onboard or ashore, with both experienced and inexperienced crew

"What If?" is an excellent game to play onboard or ashore, with both experienced and inexperienced crew, day or night, at anchor or underway. I admit I had not considered the ULDB 70 CHARLEY losing her keel on a Transpac return. But situations like this, and others, are not out of order for discussion and often lead to the fact that once discussed, they tend NOT to happen. "What if we wrap net in the prop?" (Put the engine in neutral.) "Hit a whale" (put the engine in neutral), "See 3 vertical white lights ahead?" (Look for the tow and don’t sail between them.) "Have to jibe in breeze with possible danger to the boat and crew?" Tack, preferably with extra way on using the engine for assist.) "Fill a mainsail deep reef pocket with water from a breaking wave? (Have a drain hole installed in your main.) “Break the steering?" (Think about this in advance and have a plan, or at least a drogue at the ready.) "Drag anchor in an unfamiliar and dark anchorage at night?” (Know the compass course to safety and have it posted near the helm.) "Break the spinnaker halyard?" (Turn up quickly so you don't run over the spinnaker.) "If we’re 5 seconds early for the start with no where to go?" (Speed up, don't slow down.)

Many of these ideas sound like what our parents used to tell us about driving defensively: that we should be looking down the road and anticipate what might happen so we can react to it. “What if that car pulls into traffic? What if the kid on the bicycle turns in front of us? What if the light turns red? What if we are stopped on a railroad crossing and the gates come down?”

It’s also related to the concept of “forehandedness” that the Navy is fond of training its officers and seamen. CCA member and former head of Navy Sailing John Bonds used to encourage us to be “forehanded” during his lectures at safety at sea courses: what could happen, how could we deal with it, how could we have avoided it? We could all benefit by following his excellent advice.

Fire in the Boat – Lithium Batteries - Prevention: an Update

Administrator — Wed, 28 Feb 2018 22:18:02 +0000

Fire in the Boat – Lithium Batteries - Prevention: an Update

Dick York

Administrator Wed, 02/28/2018 - 22:18

Fire

Safety Moments

Lithium batteries are a fact of life in this day and age, and, like so many other things aboard, we must treat them with care. When I wrote the CCA article on Fire in the Boat – Prevention, I gently danced around the issue of fires in smaller Lithium-Ion and Lithium-Metal batteries. There I talked about the issues of charging them (don’t let that happen in a bunk or under a sail), and the high heat they generate when shorted.

I have become a bit more alert to this issue, especially as the airline industry is setting new standards for us regularly. They remember the flaming computer batteries and the Samsung Galaxy Note 7s, as well as the larger lithium battery problems in the Dreamliner.

The current TSA rules include the following, which you should think about aboard.

Only have them where we all can see them and smell smoke: Li-batteries can only be in carry-on luggage, never checked.
Aboard – make all Li-batteries readily accessible; do not hide them in the back of lockers or under other gear.
Small Batteries only: You can carry on only 100 watt-hours or smaller batteries (covers standard computer batteries). Some airlines may let you carry on the larger, extended-life laptop batteries.
Aboard – make sure your navigator does not bring many extra, oversize batteries.
Make sure they do not short out, causing flames: tape or otherwise isolate the contacts.
Aboard – do this, but also, DO NOT let them get wet, especially with salt water, as that will short them quickly. If you have a leaking deck, keep the batteries away from there. Keep all spares in well-sealed plastic bins. Figure out how to keep computers and other devices dry.

These points cover only the smaller, personal batteries we have in our laptops, smartphones, etc. But watch out for new gadgets, like “smart luggage”, which airlines do not allow as checked luggage unless the batteries are removed, and which we should probably ban from boats.

The larger lithium batteries used for house banks, etc. have totally different issues, and we cannot cover all of those here. For example, many of them have devices to disconnect themselves if they begin short or otherwise heat up; however remember even Boeing did not get it right on the 787 Dreamliner. I did heard a story told by a Mini-Transat skipper about seeing one of his lithium house batteries heat up. He had to quickly disconnect it and heave it overboard, at which point it burst into a major conflagration. He was very happy to have gotten it off the boat in time.

……Richard York, CCA, NY Station Safety Officer; CCA, Seamanship and Safety Committee.

Anchor at the Ready

Administrator — Sun, 29 Oct 2017 16:48:44 +0000

Anchor at the Ready

Chuck Hawley

Administrator Sun, 10/29/2017 - 16:48

Anchors

Safety Moments

Several decades ago, entering Morro Bay around sunrise, I was at the helm of a 30’ wooden ketch while the rest of the crew slept below. It was near a full moon, and the boat was bucking about a 3-knot ebb with her 4.5 knots of speed through the water. The red #4A buoy was well to starboard, but it became more and more obvious that the boat had slowly come to a halt, while the Atomic Four continued to hum encouragingly. The water was clear enough, and shallow enough, that I could see the ripples in the sand 4’ below the cockpit, and since the ketch drew 4’, it was an interference fit.

Not wishing to be known as the guy who ran aground, I backed off on the throttle slowly, so as not to wake the crew. Slowly, the ketch backed up as the current pushed it, stern-first, back out to sea. When I thought I had backed up enough, I altered course to port and sought deeper water. The rest of the trip into the bay was uneventful. It was an important lesson: no matter how accurately the channel markers may be placed originally to denote a channel, harbors slit up and the channel may be elsewhere.

Fast forward 30 years or so, and I was entering the same harbor on a blustery afternoon, only this time in Randy Repass’s Santa Cruz 40, ProMotion. As we reached into Morro Bay, I told the crew in the cockpit about my lesson learned when I was 18. My story was interrupted by a sudden deceleration, as the boat hit the same sandbar and swung around into the wind. The #4A buoy stared at me from about 100 feet to starboard.

My crew quickly brought a lunch hook on deck consisting of a 5# Danforth Hi-Tensile anchor and about 200’ of 3/8” nylon line. We were able to flag down a returning fishing boat and they obligingly pulled the anchor to windward (and, thankfully towards the center of the channel), where they dropped the little anchor. We took up tension on the anchor rode, and even though it stretched dramatically, the boat made a small amount of progress towards deeper water as each swell passed by. In less than 10 minutes we had kedged off the sandbar, boat intact, but egos in tatters.

Having a small anchor and rode that is ready for immediate deployment is wonderful seamanship rule for any vessel.

Having a small anchor and rode that is ready for immediate deployment is wonderful seamanship rule for any vessel. In fact, the anchor doesn’t have to be small, but it’s often handy to have an anchor that can be rowed, or swum, or even thrown into deeper water; options that may be impossible with a 45 or 60 pound anchor. The stretch in the anchor line can work in your favor, even if it seems overly elastic, since each time the boat lifts off the bottom for even a second, it will be tugged forward a small amount, and then the rode can be adjusted again.

On ProMotion, which didn’t have the convenience of a windlass, we ran the anchor line through a snatch block on the bow, then back along the side deck to a primary sheet winch in the cockpit. Not ideal, perhaps, but we could keep tension on the rode, and keep the bow headed towards deeper water, with each passing swell.

Which anchor to use? There are few arguments that are more divisive among sailors than which anchor is better, but I think many would agree that some anchor designs just don’t scale well when they are too small. A small CQR, for example, is pretty ineffective. My experience has shown that small Hi-Tensile and Fortress anchors, as well as the small Manson Supreme and Rocna designs are effective, even when they weigh 10# or less. What’s more important, though, is your ability to get them into the water, in the correct direction, in the least amount of time.

Sharpening the Saw: Prepare before you cast off

Administrator — Sun, 29 Oct 2017 16:38:16 +0000

Sharpening the Saw: Prepare before you cast off

Chuck Hawley

Administrator Sun, 10/29/2017 - 16:38

Safety Moments

Preparation

In Stephen Covey’s best-selling self-help book, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, one chapter is titled “Sharpening the Saw”. The point of the chapter is that it is incumbent on all of us to learn continually, to improve ourselves, and to challenge ourselves to do better. Take a class, read a book, practice; do what you can to improve your skills, whether mental or physical.

I thought about this as I taught a Safe Powerboat Handling class this weekend. Most of my students were parents of junior sailors, whose goal was to be safer and more confident when operating small powerboats around kids who might be in the water. US Sailing has emphasized powerboat training in the last decade or so in their sailing instructor classes, since so much coaching and instruction is done from small powerboats. The ability to safely operate a RIB or Boston Whaler in close proximity to swimmers is an absolute necessity if you’re going to teach sailing.

In addition to parents of junior sailors, and a few juniors who were intent on earning their Level 1 sailing instructor rating, there were also 3-4 “old salts” who had extensive sailing and powering backgrounds. One was a circumnavigator, who sailed with her husband on a 35’ sloop over the course of seven years. Another had done the “Great Loop” of America in his Grand Banks 42. Certainly they were far too advanced in their boating knowledge to get anything out of a beginning powerboat class.

However, as both of them informed me, they were in the class because they felt that they could always learn something new, or refine their existing skills, or try a variety of boats so that they could gain confidence the next time that they needed to operate an unfamiliar boat. They didn’t feel it was boring, or beneath them, to operate a 13’ Whaler and improve their docking or their ability to operate at minimum control speed. They picked up information about invasive marines species, new fuel tank regulations, how VHF channel designations are changing, and what’s considered negligent boat operation.

Your “saw sharpening” doesn’t have to involve an instructional class.

Your “saw sharpening” doesn’t have to involve an instructional class. It can simply be to sail with skilled sailors, who do things differently, or going out on a type of boat that you’re not familiar with. I’ve been blessed to sail with some of the world’s greatest sailors, including Paul Cayard, Steve Taft, Brian Thompson, Stan Honey, Gino Morrelli, Butch Dalrymple-Smith and others. Each moment spent onboard a sailboat with these sailors is an opportunity to observe how they steer, how they jump a halyard, how they plot a line of position, or how they conduct themselves with their crewmembers. Whether cruising or racing, we all have something we can learn from others to make our time on the water more fun, and safer, and frequently faster.

So, commit to sharpening your personal saw. Take a class, observe better sailors than yourself, and apply your new skills when you’re on the water. There’s no end to this process, and it’s what makes every day on the water a little more interesting.

AIS Updates and Thoughts

Administrator — Wed, 27 Sep 2017 16:56:46 +0000

AIS Updates and Thoughts

Chuck Hawley

Administrator Wed, 09/27/2017 - 16:56

AIS

Safety Moments

After two major collisions with substantial loss of American lives between US Navy destroyers and merchant ships, many of us went to websites that provide histories of the movements of the ships in the area up to the minute of the collision. Using the AIS transponders that are on all of the commercial vessels, and some of the recreational vessels, you can clearly see the paths of the vessels heading in and out of some of the most constrained and confusing waterways in the world. It seems like it would be possible to assign blame solely on the evidence provided by the AIS tracks of the vessels, since the vessels’ speed, course, position, rate of turn, and other information is known on a nearly continuous basis.

If you examine the tracks of the vessels headed into and out of Singapore on August 21, virtually all of the vessels appear to be following the traffic separation scheme that restricts where vessels can operate. It appears to be an orderly 10-knot flow of ships towards and away from one of the world’s busiest harbors. Alnic MC, the tanker involved in the collision, is headed SW at a speed of just under 10 knots when she suddenly turns to port and grinds to a halt. The problem with understanding this collision, however, is that you cannot see the track of the 600’ vessel that she had collided with because the USS John S. McCain is not transmitting her AIS information, in accordance with US Navy policy. https://gcaptain.com/uss-john-s-mccain-collision-ais-animation-shows-tankers-track-during-collision/

Just as not using your radar when operating in restricted visibility is bad seamanship, will we consider the non-use of AIS to be bad seamanship in the near future?

I’ll leave it to the maritime attorneys and professional mariners to determine who is at fault, but my point is that we’ve come to rely on tools new electronic tools, and especially AIS, to understand the moments that led up to a collision, or a grounding, or a near miss. Just as not using your radar when operating in restricted visibility is bad seamanship, will we consider the non-use of AIS to be bad seamanship in the near future?

Incidentally, we have been used to dividing the world of AIS products into three broad classes: Class A for commercial vessels (primarily), Class B for recreational vessels who want to be seen by others, and Receive-only models that allow you to see others but not vice-versa. Recently an additional class of product has become available, known by the initials Class B SO-TDMA, which uses some of the more sophisticated technology (SO=Self Organizing) to decide when to transmit like the Class A models, but which does not require a dedicated display. The advantage is that this new class of AIS transmits at a higher power (5W) and, depending on the vessel’s speed, as frequently as every 5 seconds.

endless hours were spent seeing which boat was creeping ahead or behind, based on their AIS transmissions.

Finally, AIS is widely debated by Organizing Authorities of races as to whether it should be used by everyone, used under certain conditions, or be allowed to be turned off for periods of time as a tactical tool. This will no doubt be debated like the use of GPS, autopilots, and external weather routing services have been in the past. What is for certain is how this has changed racing on those events that require AIS to be used. During a stopover in the Volvo Ocean Race in 2014, I was privileged to tour the Volvo 65 Alvamedica in Abu Dhabi. The boat had a 7” multipurpose display that could show all sorts of navigation information, including radar, GPS information, depth, wind speeds, etc. According to the navigator, though, the display was virtually always showing the positions of the other competitors, and endless hours were spent seeing which boat was creeping ahead or behind, based on their AIS transmissions. We’ll have to leave it to the Organizing Authorities to decide if this is how they think navigators should spend their time, especially during 30,000-mile races.

Themes from Incident Reports

Administrator — Wed, 03 May 2017 00:57:13 +0000

Themes from Incident Reports

Chuck Hawley

Administrator Wed, 05/03/2017 - 00:57

Safety Moments

When we think about boating safety, all of us can come up with a specific story, perhaps several, that previously taught us about the ocean, how sailboats perform, and how to avoid trouble. Frequently, these stories involved trouble of one sort or another, since the school of hard knocks provides a pretty effective education.

When I look at how to craft a safety message, it’s a similar to a choice that I faced as a student of Economics: do I choose the macro economic approach, or the micro economic approach? Both are valid, but one deals with individual choices, incentives, and optimization, while the other looks at the masses and what their collective actions produce.

In marine safety, the “macro” view is encapsulated in an annual publication from the Coast Guard called Boating Statistics, which is a compilation of boating accidents from the 50 states, District of Columbia, and trust territories. From this volume, we discover how many fatalities were reported in the previous year, and how those people died while boating.

US Sailing and CCA have no part of this, other that, on rare occasion, one of their members becomes immortalized as a statistic in this document. But US Sailing and CCA do have a strong interest in investigating individual boat accidents that occur while people sail, generally in a race of some sort. While only 3.5% of the boating fatalities in a given year are on sailboats, the very rareness of these incidents grabs our attention as we ask, “Why in the hell did those guys die?”

Each accident has a string of decisions, and conditions, and failures that conspire to wreck a nice day on the ocean.

Analyzing any one incident is like looking at a traffic accident and trying to extrapolate how to make cars safer. Each accident has a string of decisions, and conditions, and failures that conspire to wreck a nice day on the ocean. More data leads to actionable results.

In the last five years I have been involved, at one level or another, in the investigation of nine accidents in which 20 people lost their lives. In some cases, I was the lead author in the investigation, while in other cases I was asked to recommend sailors to serve on the incident panels. The vessels and the events and the locations that were investigated are familiar to many active sailors: WingNuts, Aegean, Low Speed Chase, Rambler 100, The Dauphin Island Race[1], Vestas Wind, Uncontrollable Urge and others. In each case, without trying to pin the blame on an individual, the investigators tried to uncover what happened and how a similar incident could be avoided in the future.

So, in some ways, our micro view of each accident aggregates into a macro view of sailing safety. Common elements show up in many of these accidents, regardless of whether a 14’ dinghy was involved or a 100’ ocean racer. Without rehashing the lengthy stories being each of the incidents, although the reports make excellent reading and can be found on the US Sailing web site under Safety, let’s examine the common themes of these 12 incidents.

Stability: in five out of nine incidents, vessels either lost stability or, once inverted, stayed inverted. In some cases, boats suffered structural failures that caused the inversion, while in other cases the vessel simply turtled and stayed upside down. Three lives (and possible four) were lost because the sailors could not escape from being underneath the vessel, and drowned.

Life Jacket Performance: We understand what happens when someone is accidentally thrown into the water and they are not wearing a life jacket; we get that they should have worn one. What is more difficult to understand is when someone drowns while wearing a life jacket, or when the life jacket is implicated in not preventing the death. In the majority of cases, buoyancy is good, and more buoyancy is better, but when sailors are trapped underwater, buoyancy can be a killer. It can also be a killer when the device either malfunctions or does not operate like the wearer expects.

Navigation: Four of the incidents involve a collision with an island. This led to the deaths of half of the sailors in these incidents because of the rough coasts and high seas that accompanied the groundings. All four islands that were involved were shown on paper charts, but the electronic depiction of the islands varied in, what, believability? Obviousness? Apparent dangerousness?

Four skippers and/or navigators chose to sail close by obvious navigational hazards, and in two cases, suffered incapacitating failures just at the wrong moment that led to the loss of the boat. Islands, especially lee shores, are not forgiving and make picturesque but potentially hazardous racing.

High Tech Designs: At the risk of sounding curmudgeonly, I note that five of the nine incidents involved boats that could be considered “high tech” or perhaps “radical”. Four of the five were constructed primarily of carbon fiber. Two of the boats had canting keels. All five had some aspect of being extreme, either relativel to the time in which they were built, or continuing to this day. So what is the sport to do if we see a trend of newer, high tech boats, built of exotic materials that are putting sailors in jeopardy?

Probably nothing. Each time we have a slew of failures (the 1979 Fastnet and the 1980 Kauai Race come to mind), there’s a case made for either outlawing the boats that failed, or at least giving them such a stiff penalty that they’ll never be competitive. Cal 40s probably faced similar condemnations (except they had very few failures on which to base the condemnations) in the late 1960s, and lo and behold, they have proven to be excellent sea boats. All of us tend to draw a line of our desired slope through a single data point. “My baby slept through the night, so therefore that will happen tomorrow night” sayeth the optimistic parents. Alas, new parents, a single night doth not guarantee for sweet slumber in the future. But when three rudders fail, spectacularly, in a single long distance race, on a relatively new class of boat, we can arrive at the conclusion that we have a problem, and a problem with a solution at that.

So, examine the macro data in the Boating Statistics publication. There’s good meat there, mostly about people in small powerboats who ignored that drowning was a possibility. But also spend some time reading the details of how our sailors have died, or lost their vessels, and what they might have done differently to avoid situations involving low stability, misunderstood life jackets, navigational mistakes, and inadequate designs. There are lessons to be learned in each incident.

[1] US Sailing did not investigate the Dauphin Island Race, but did cooperate with the Coast Guard on their investigation.

Life Jacket Changes Ahead

Administrator — Wed, 03 May 2017 00:48:45 +0000

Life Jacket Changes Ahead

Chuck Hawley

Administrator Wed, 05/03/2017 - 00:48

Safety Moments

In the early 1970s, a new method of categorizing life jackets was introduced by the Coast Guard and Underwriter’s Laboratories, using five “types” and a new, strange name for life jackets: the Personal Flotation Device.

The five types fell into recognizable styles: Type I were for commercial use and had the most buoyancy; Type IIs were inexpensive “yoke” style; Type III were vests that were more comfortable, but had relatively low buoyancy; Type IV were “throwable devices” for man overboard; and Type V were anything that didn’t fit into the previous definitions.

These categories served boaters reasonably well until the introduction of inflatable personal flotation devices in the mid-1990s. The Coast Guard and UL attempted to add inflatables to the existing “types” and despite two decades of education, the marriage never made much sense to sailors. This included the requirement that some life jackets had to be worn to be counted in the vessel’s inventory, yet other virtually identical life jackets did not have to be worn. In West Marine’s 2002 Master Catalog, the Coast Guard identified about a dozen errors in how the personal flotation devices were described, and this was after several rounds of proofing by both West Marine and its vendors.

After two years and trying, and close to a half-million dollars in Coast Guard Boating Safety grants, the researchers decided that the current system was so complicated that only a complete overhaul of the PFD classification system...

Due to the confusion caused by the mix of personal flotation devices on the market, a study was made by Applied Safety and Ergonomics in 2004 to analyze how to make the PFD labels more user-friendly so that, theoretically, a person could walk up to a pile of PFDs and figure out if the one that was selected was appropriate for the user. After two years and trying, and close to a half-million dollars in Coast Guard Boating Safety grants, the researchers decided that the current system was so complicated that only a complete overhaul of the PFD classification system would allow for simplified, comprehensible labels.

In the meantime, the rest of the world created ISO 12402 standard for life jackets, and 12401 standard for safety harnesses. The ISO standard provided for four different levels of buoyancy, measured in Newtons, from a swimming aid with 50N (11.2#) of buoyancy to massive inflatables for workers with 275N (62#) of buoyancy. The personal flotation devices offshore sailors use fell in the 150N (33.7#) buoyancy range. To allow ISO devices to be legal in the US, and to allow US-specification devices to be legal in the rest of the world, a harmonization committee was formed around 2006 to try to come up with a world standard, either by adopting the ISO standard in the U.S., or by blending the ISO and U.S. standards. However, the standards had so many differences that a harmonized standard proved to be beyond the reach of the harmonization committee. The effort was shelved.

This brings us to the fall of 2014, when the Coast Guard announced that “types” were being relegated to the dustbins of PFD standards, and that from that point forward, life jackets would either be “wearable” or “throwable”. This was in anticipation of a new PFD standard that would incorporate as much of the ISO standard as possible, including the use of Newtons as a measure of performance. In fact, the committee at Underwriter’s Labs that is responsible for the new North American standard even used the ISO number designation when the created UL 12402.

Like the ISO standard, the new North American standard will use performance levels based on the buoyancy of the device, with Level 50, Level 100, Level 150, and Level 275 designations. Also included will be a Level 70 standard, to account for the millions of old type II and III devices that had 15.5# of buoyancy, or 70 Newtons. So, instead of shopping for a Type I, II, or III, you’ll soon be shopping for a Level 50, 70, 100, or 150 life jacket. Oh, and the good news in all of this is that the term “personal flotation device” is also being retired, at least in the U.S. The more common term, lifejacket, will be how the industry and Coast Guard refers to these devices in the future.

Guidance for buying and using the new lifejackets will be based on five concepts that simplify the message for the 70 million or so Americans who go boating in a given year:

Wear your lifejacket whenever you’re on the water.
Make sure everyone’s lifejacket fits properly.
Don’t take off your lifejacket when you fish or do other on-water activities.
Wear an appropriate lifejacket for the conditions (rough waters = more buoyancy) and type of boating that you’re doing (especially watersports)
Read the label and understand how the lifejacket you have is intended to be used.

It remains to be seen whether the new UL standard will allow newer, more desirable designs to come on the market, and whether the boating public will be able to understand lifejacket selection without Coast Guard “types”. Ideally, the combination of more desirable lifejackets and better education will help decrease the number of deaths due to drowning in the U.S.

Anchor Test Results

Administrator — Wed, 03 May 2017 00:44:11 +0000

Anchor Test Results

Chuck Hawley

Administrator Wed, 05/03/2017 - 00:44

Safety Moments

In August of 2014, Fortress Anchors conducted an extensive anchor test on Chesapeake Bay, south of Solomon’s Island, in deep, sticky mud. I was asked to be the impartial observer, based on my participation in anchor tests for several decades.

One challenge is to make a test fair and, one would hope, repeatable. Cruisers expect our anchors to hold similarly in similar bottoms so that we can predict whether we’re going to have to stay up all night biting our nails, or nestled in our berths with no worries. Randomness makes virtually every night at anchor a nail-biter and greatly reduces our enjoyment when cruising.

For this test, a new method to reduce “randomness” was employed. The 82’ research vessel Rachel Carson was equipped with a dynamic positioning system that involved high accuracy GPS, twin swiveling jet drives, and a 50HP bow thruster. The intent was to hold Rachel Carson in exactly in one spot, despite the effects of wind and current, and this in some cases, up to 3,000 pounds of tension on the anchor line. Thus, the vessel “anchored” itself to a latitude and longitude without actually anchoring, and then used a winch to pull the anchors towards the vessel while measuring their resistance. Anchor rode scope varied from about 8.3:1 to 5:1.

Authors as well known as Nigel Calder have criticized this methodology since it doesn’t entirely relate to how we anchor our own vessels. Boats don’t pull anchors through the mud with winches; boats pull on anchors using their rodes due to wind and current-induced drag. But it’s very difficult to figure out how to imitate the loads that a vessel riding to an anchor imparts on its rode, and ultimately, its anchor. Thus, this test methodology was intended to reduce the variables present in most testing and to treat each anchor identically.

The anchors tested consisted of 12 common designs in the 40# range, many of which have been introduced in the last decade or so. Performance of the newer designs like the Spade, Boss, Ultra, Mantus, Manson, and Rocna was eagerly anticipated since these anchors have been in relatively few comparison tests. Their performance would be judged by comparison to the Claw a.k.a. Bruce, CQR, Fortress, Danforth Hi Tensile, and Delta.

There was very little consistency, indicating that sleepless nights may be a given for cruisers who anchor in this deep, sticky mud.

Here are my key takeaways from the experience:

Despite the attempt to minimize variations in the anchors’ performance, most anchors showed radically different results from pull to pull. There was very little consistency, indicating that sleepless nights may be a given for cruisers who anchor in this deep, sticky mud.
Some anchors that have a very good reputation among cruisers worldwide, and which hang on the bow rollers of many of our yachts, failed to hold more than several hundred pounds, which might be generated in a 15-20 knot wind against a 40’ boat.
Many anchors had a bell-shaped tension curve, showing steadily increasing holding power until a point was reached where the anchor apparently “gave up” and began to drag. In other words, an anchor might go from holding zero pounds to 600 pounds and back down to 200 pounds. The problem is that one never knows where on the curve he is: is the anchor getting better or stronger over time, or are you over the hill?
The anchors I refer to as “pivoting fluke anchors” like the classic Danforth and Fortress anchors held more than the other designs. This might be anticipated due to their increased fluke area, which is a real advantage in low shear strength bottoms like mud. By far the best performance was the Fortress FX-37 when set in it’s mud bottom configuration with a broader fluke angle, as has been demonstrated in previous tests.
Finally, all of our previously held truths about anchoring still hold true. If you want to eat well, buy a small anchor, but if you want to sleep well, buy a large anchor. Trial set your anchor as if a big storm is expected, and leave the vessel in reverse at moderate RPM longer than you think is necessary. If you determine that you’re dragging, even a short distance, bite the bullet and re-anchor. Dragging seldom gets better over time.

Safety Moments

Anchoring Follies

Overboard Recovery: Avoiding Running Over the Victim

What If the Sheet Hits the Pram?

​​​​​​​Fire in the Boat – Lithium Batteries - Prevention: an Update

Anchor at the Ready

Sharpening the Saw: Prepare before you cast off

AIS Updates and Thoughts

Themes from Incident Reports

Life Jacket Changes Ahead

Anchor Test Results

Fire in the Boat – Lithium Batteries - Prevention: an Update