Safety first: Man Over Board!

27/04/2021
|In UK, Preparation
|By Caron Wagstaff

This post is an updated version of one published by mistake a couple of weeks ago.

In ‘Safety first: Don’t fall off!’, I wrote about the things that we are doing to stop us falling overboard. Fingers crossed that will never happen, however, we still need to be prepared and have procedures and equipment in place to retrieve a Man Over Board (MOB).

Lifejackets

For the MOB, the first line of defence is his/her lifejacket.

Our Teamo lifejackets have a small gas cylinder inside them which automatically inflates the lifejacket when in the water. We know they work, as we got to test them on our safety course last year.

When in the water, the gas inflates a large luminous horseshoe shaped bladder. The lifejackets also have a spray hood which can be pulled down over the top of your head, in front of your face and down underneath the bottom of the bladder. This is a crucial feature when in rough water, as it stops the sea water splashing into your face and causing secondary drowning.

The lifejackets also come with a small water activated light and a whistle.

As additional features, we have added lumon patches. These are also water activated and light up the whole bladder, hopefully making a MOB easier to see.

Finally, we have added into our lifejackets personal AIS (Automatic Identification System) devices. We have chosen the Ocean Signal RescueME MOB1. They are water activated and will send a message to our boat and other nearby boats. This then triggers an alarm on board and logs the MOB’s position on the chart plotter.

NB: Check out Teamo’s website to see our lifejackets in action. It is especially interesting to see their unique system which allows a MOB to be towed on their back.

Inside our TeamO lifejackets
MOB choices

So, hopefully the MOB is now floating and can be seen. Next, we need to put things in place to retrieve him/her out of the water.

On the boat we have various items attached to the pushpit to aid the recovery. These range from a simple floating throw line and a horseshoe lifebuoy to a MOB recovery sling buoy and a Jonbuoy. All of these are ways of getting a line/floatation device to the MOB, as long as the person onboard can deploy them within range!

Recovery

So the MOB has now got some kind of line and is hopefully reattached to the boat. The next thing is to get him/her back on board. Escapade has a swim ladder at the back of the boat which the MOB could climb up. But it is more likely that he/she will be unable to climb it, due to shock, cold and possible injuries. The safest option will be to have some way of hoisting him/her back onboard.

We have set up a system of pulleys and blocks which enables us to use the boom to do this.

Recovering MOB?

As you can see, we have plenty of options and what we do would depend on the situation at the time. However, it is all well and good having this equipment, but the key thing is that we must know what to do with it.

It is very difficult to find and retrieve a MOB even with a full crew, who can all take on different key roles during a rescue. It is, of course, much more difficult when there are only two people sailing. Only one person is left onboard to spot the MOB, safely stop the boat, turn it around, find the casualty and then put things in place to retrieve him/her. All of this in a very stressful situation, probably in poor weather and possibly in the dark. It is crucial that we have tried and tested procedures in place that we practise regularly, so that they become second nature.

Of course, every practise we do make sit very clear that the key point is – DON’T FALL OFF!!

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