Stop the boat.
Deploy the LifeSling.
Circle the person overboard until they acquire the LifeSling.
Stop the boat again and drop sails.
Pull person to boat, secure and rig raising tackle.
Hoist aboard.
In a nutshell, that’s how you deploy a LifeSling to retrieve an overboard sailor.
As a part of its on-going curriculum South Sound Sailing Society conducts a full-day LifeSling class early every June, complete with comprehensive onshore class time and individual on-the-water rescue experience of real people in the water. But not everyone on our boat could attend last year. For some of us it has been years since taking the class, and others of us have never taken it. So when fellow multi-huller Diane Johnson from Seattle asked Rod if he and the crew of Pax would be interested in doing a mini-class so she could get some experience with the man overboard retrieval device, we all welcomed the opportunity.
Instead of heading for shore and a cold brew at the Fishbowl after the last race of the Fall Series, we headed to an out of the way area just north of West Bay Marina. Originally intended as a true man overboard drill we decided to go with a cushion overboard drill instead. While not exactly the same as pulling a living victim out it still provided everyone with the unique opportunity to single-handedly stop the boat and get it under control, deploy the LifeSling, sail in a circle, or several circles, around the afflicted cushion until contact was made with the LifeSling, stop the boat again this time dropping all sails, get the LifeSling back to the boat, and hoist the presumed victim on board.
True to the traditional LifeSling training regimen practiced during the SSSS June LifeSling class all work was done solo. The rest of the crew sat back and watched, resisting the excruciating temptation to lend a hand, though the occasional humorous commentary couldn’t be helped! Several of us slipped into the LifeSling during the hoisting process so the rescuer could experience the effect of having weight on the end of the tackle, which would occur with retrieving an actual person. The drill also gave us an opportunity to evaluate how well the LifeSling packing would release in the event of an actual emergency and try different packing methods to minimize fouling. This is a detail you don’t want to be sorting out in the event of an actual emergency.
Before we started we notified the race committee what was up so as not to cause any undue alarm among the fleet. We did not notify Harbor Patrol though. During one rescue attempt of our hapless, sodden boat cushion we noticed Harbor Patrol heading out of Budd Inlet at a good clip. We were quite surprised to realize they were headed our way at high speed. Sure enough, our good buddies on the water were coming over to see if we needed assistance. It would be unfair of me to poke fun at them since they were doing exactly what they should have done if they thought we were in distress. Glad to know they were on such good lookout and in the future, we will try to hail them as well before doing another drill.
And there will be future drills. While the June training that Andy Saller organizes simply can’t be beat, this simple cushion overboard refresher drill was very easy to execute and gave all of us the hands on experience that we hope we’ll never need. Especially going into the stormier winter racing months, the refresher was beneficial. Maybe in the future there’ll be more of our boats out there after a short fall race going through the procedures, impressing into memories the steps and procedures needed to get a fallen sailor back onto the boat within those few short minutes we have to make a difference. Refresher drills may be something of a sailing insurance, helping to ensure that we never need to actually deploy what we practice. But true to another sailing maxim, better to know it and not need it than need it and not know it.
Sail safe.
Thera Black