First time I was involved in a MOB I was 10 years old and sailing with my father and younger brother on our 14ft West Wight Potter in the Solent. My brother fell overboard, my father immediately jumped in to "save" him. Leaving me on board by myself to rescue both of them....We all lived happily ever after.
Last time was a COB (cat) that fell off a catamaran I was delivering. Owners were distraught. I was at the helm and motored backward so we could pick up the cat on the transom steps. 2 things I learnt. Cats don't understand when you shout "swim to the stern" But they do have a long tail to grab.
I was racing on Table Bay on my 38ft "Black Cat". We had a development crew (teenagers, mostly from poor neighbourhoods) but had a hotshot Kiwi sailor aboard as well. We were coming down onto the leeward mark with spinnaker drawing hard. I called for the Genoa to be raised before dropping the spinnaker. The Kiwi was jumping the Genoa halliard at the mast, too fast for the kids to keep up in the cockpit. The halliard bunched up at a deck organiser and jammed, so we couldn't get the Genoa up & spinnaker down. We were about to pass the mark doing about 8 knots when a boat appeared from behind the partially-raised Genoa & I was about to T-bone it. I dodged around his stern with a quick side-to-side with the tiller. One crewman was standing on the quarter and the sudden movement threw him overboard about 15-20ft from the mark, with boats rounding behind us. We got the halliard sorted and the sails changed then sailed back for our crewman, who was swimming and dodging boats. He had our protest flag in his pocket and it floated off. He swam after the flag between the boats. The powerboat that was observing the mark roundings went in to pick him up. He refused the rescue because assistance would have got us disqualified. We picked him up, under sail, a few minutes later & continued with the race.. Very easy rescue with the flat seas and a scoop stern with swim platform.
On the return leg after our local Wednesday evening race, we were part of a parade of boats with spinnakers up enjoying the evening breeze. Ahead of us was a bigger boat with all hands holding Olympia Beers, and one crew member sitting on the life lines sans PFD (race over). The line gave way and the man fell overboard and then discovered that he couldn't swim and began to froth the water like I've never seen before, and can't forget. One of our crew jumped overboard with the life ring and cautiously pushed it to the drowning man, avoiding his grasp, and saved him.
We had actually made a game of overboard practice by randomly having whoever was at the helm shout "man overboard" (now, of course, it would be "person overboard", we're not savages), and throw a cushion and then disappear below, leaving the rest of the crew to douse sails and round up for the rescue, and it worked with this gentleman, and all was well.
Next week: another spinnaker run home; more Olympia Beers; same position behind the same boat; same non-swimmer crewman without PFD sitting on the same lifeline.........maybe we are savages.
Happened to me four years ago. I was sailing as crew aboard a SCAMP named Barnacle in cold spring waters off Port Townsend. The owner (a close friend) had invited me to join him and handed over the helm. He had a recently installed hiking strap set up, and I was in street clothes and a winter jacket. I sat out on the hiking seat, toes under the strap. Little did he know that the old fastex side-release buckle he incorporated into the strap had a split side. Splash, I was overboard from the fully hiked out position. He had also installed a Re-Entry Sling System that I had designed for SCAMP #2, and after he turned back to me, I was able to easily re-board without any trouble. Soggy street clothes make for one heavy swimmer. I suggest re-boarding slings for any small boat that has enough freeboard to impede getting back aboard. Here is SCAMP Camp builder and excellent sailor, my pal Daniel Rich, demonstrating the Re-Entry Sling System he installed on his Wildflower. "https://youtu.be/WPK2B-YF23Y?si=wgxdoOdwPlE0fZGT
I've gone overboard twice on chilly San Francisco Bay off of race boats and, happily, quickly recovered. And why Crew Overboard I vigorously teach at our local community sailing school. Getting quickly back to the victim is crucial (we teach the figure-8 maneuver to avoid jibing), then safely getting that crew back aboard (over the stern for best boat stability). We encourage doing MOB drills often and always wear a PFD.
During a Chi Mac sailing a F25c we got a strong gust in the spinnaker and accelerated quickly. We were all wearing harnesses and life jackets. The crew sitting next to me was on the aft beam facing forward. He did a back flip into the water. With the tiller in my right hand I reached with my left hand grabbed the back of his pfd and flipped his 250 lbs back onto the boat. All adrenaline fueled. Most small and large boats are impossible to reboard unassisted.
Single hand a lot and was concerned about self-rescue, in the event of a MOB incident. Trailed a 20 foot stern line in the water, figuring if I ever went over the side, I could grab it and then re-board. Later on, after I did the math, I realized that at 6 knots, you are traveling nearly 10 feet per second, so what sounds like a plenty long 20 foot stern line is instead, an exceedingly short 2-second line. So I got a 100 foot (10-second) polypropylene (floats) line and several of my friends to help me test it out, a few miles off Key Biscayne. Worked great and I had no problems, whatever. One of my friends also wanted to try it out and not realizing the winds had picked up a little, he struggled to get back to the stern of the boat, pulling himself hand-over-hand and could overcome the drag through the water. We had to pull him close to the hull and he was too tired to re-board, so we attempted to lift him aboard.
Didn't happen.
We finally resorted to dropping the mainsail in the water, leading him onto it as a kind of a sling and then hoisting the main sail with a turning block and a jib winch, to bring him back aboard. We were greatly chastened, at how quickly a test exercise had turned into a real rescue that none of us was prepared for.
A refinement after that incident, was leading the trailing line from the stern cleat that was opposite whatever tack we were on, over to the tiller, under it, then around the stern cleat horn and finally, aft into the water. That way, when the trailing line was pulled on, it pulled the tiller into the wind and stalled the hull, so that the towee could pull himself back to the stern and re-board without getting dragged through the water, at several knots.
I, for one, would like to see this poll followed up by an article that addresses techniques for re boarding and recovery. Something pertinent to small boats with small crews.
Everybody in my crew knows how to do a Williamson turn. We practice with a dummy named Oscar who absorbs water and gains weight the longer it is in the water. The emphasis is on getting to him before he gets too heavy to pull on board.
I went overboard during a race on the Chesapeake Bay (the start of a longer story) but the captain started the engine disqualifying us from the race. A race committee boat got to me first and picked me up and returned me to the sailboat.
I also had a woman fall off my boat while climbing out onto a fishing dock. I don't know what happened as my back was turned shutting down the outboard. It took two of us, me on the boat and her husband on the dock, to get her out of the water on to the dock. When we first went out that morning, I said to my crew I've never lost anyone overboard. Never say never.
I was the single crew on a 31' ketch sailing from Kauai to California in 1984. Right after the Doldrums a storm came up, waves 15 to 20 feet. Nasty cold sharp winds. We successfully reefed the main, but our jib halyard got stuck at the top of the mast when we tried hauling it down. Guess who had to climb into the bosuns chair to go up and free it.
On my way back down, I was just about to step out of the rig when a wave hit us broadside. I was jerked sideways, one toe on deck, my other foot dangling over the side, trailing in the bow wave. I desperately clung to the chair. If I hadn't been wearing a leash, I'd have been long gone.
Skipper was casual about it - said he'd have kept going, as the seas were so big there was no way he could have found me.
An interesting aside as I had launched first that day and was sailing waiting on Clint to get there my hat blew overboard. So, I did a MOB practice on the hat and missed it by a little over a foot and had to go back around and get very close to reach it over the high sides of my Potter. So later I knew I needed to be very close to grab the man's hand. What is the chance that you get to do a practice run or "two" before being called on to do so for real.
This is a rather long story suitable for the spooky stories being told. Clint and his daughter were in his Potter 19, and I was in my Potter 19 sailing along side of each other. We had sailed out from the sailing club on Lake Murray SC heading over to a lake island to picnic and swim. We were up wind of the island when a Sherif's patrol boat came speeding wide open toward us and did a tight turn around behind us and back in front of us. I guess he planned on doing an inspection. As the boat came back around circling our two sailboats, with alarm we realized there was no one on board. the speeding boat circle us again and a couple more times. We were caught in a potential circle of death as the wind was pushing the upwind side of this circle closer to our boats. We made our escape attempt when the up-wind side of the circle looked like it was close enough for us to sail out of the circle before the next pass. It is an uneasy feeling when a runaway boat bouncing on waves is pointed at you as it comes back around. It past about 30 feet behind my boat and about 15 feet behind Clint's.
It was a relief to be out of that circle. As we continued to put distance between us and the runaway boat, I notice something yellow on the water out in front of me. I then realized it was an inflatable lifejacket with a head sticking up. I hollered I would pick the person up so sailed over and turned into the wind reached over and grabbed the officer's hand. He tried to come over the high sides of my Potter and failed. I told him I would lead him back to the boarding ladder on my stern while holding on to him. This went smoothly and I had him on the boat. He then said, "Can you get me back on my boat". I just laughed and said no this is a sailboat I can't match speed or maneuver well enough to even consider doing that. He said he knew nothing about a sailboat. He also said he was worried it might run into to someone. I can only imagine what he had been thinking while witnessing our predicament. I told him the boat would soon run aground on the island as the wind was blowing it there. This in fact happened a short time later just out of sight, but you could hear the crash as the boat ran up on land and then the high revving of the twin outboards and finally the silence when they froze up.
We tried my VHF but got no response. He then called the dispatcher on my phone but was told there were no other state boats on the water. He then called a friend that was fishing on the lake that day to pick him up. Who did just that.
Always wear a PFD you just never know when the unexpected will happen!
Very interesting and important topic. I never had a real MOB experience, expect myself slipping of the jetty while mooring. I was sailing solo and the boat was no berthed yet. But overall the situation was rather comfortable and safe.
For other hand I think that most "official" and taught MOB techniques are not very well tailored for a small sailboat with a short handed crew. In fact quite often our boats are sailed by crew of two, so with one person overboard the whole maneuver has to be done singlehanded. Thus I think, that the most important technique is the "quick stop" - if not as the actual MOB approach, even as means to calm down, gain the situation awareness and not lose the MOB out of sight.
I guess it really depends upon how you define crew overboard. Every capsize almost. I’ve only been overboard once without a capsize. It was a near capsize to probably 70° and I simply fell out of the cockpit to Leeward. Fortunately, my crew stayed aboard and he pulled me back in. Whole thing was 15 seconds.
First time I was involved in a MOB I was 10 years old and sailing with my father and younger brother on our 14ft West Wight Potter in the Solent. My brother fell overboard, my father immediately jumped in to "save" him. Leaving me on board by myself to rescue both of them....We all lived happily ever after.
Last time was a COB (cat) that fell off a catamaran I was delivering. Owners were distraught. I was at the helm and motored backward so we could pick up the cat on the transom steps. 2 things I learnt. Cats don't understand when you shout "swim to the stern" But they do have a long tail to grab.
I was racing on Table Bay on my 38ft "Black Cat". We had a development crew (teenagers, mostly from poor neighbourhoods) but had a hotshot Kiwi sailor aboard as well. We were coming down onto the leeward mark with spinnaker drawing hard. I called for the Genoa to be raised before dropping the spinnaker. The Kiwi was jumping the Genoa halliard at the mast, too fast for the kids to keep up in the cockpit. The halliard bunched up at a deck organiser and jammed, so we couldn't get the Genoa up & spinnaker down. We were about to pass the mark doing about 8 knots when a boat appeared from behind the partially-raised Genoa & I was about to T-bone it. I dodged around his stern with a quick side-to-side with the tiller. One crewman was standing on the quarter and the sudden movement threw him overboard about 15-20ft from the mark, with boats rounding behind us. We got the halliard sorted and the sails changed then sailed back for our crewman, who was swimming and dodging boats. He had our protest flag in his pocket and it floated off. He swam after the flag between the boats. The powerboat that was observing the mark roundings went in to pick him up. He refused the rescue because assistance would have got us disqualified. We picked him up, under sail, a few minutes later & continued with the race.. Very easy rescue with the flat seas and a scoop stern with swim platform.
On the return leg after our local Wednesday evening race, we were part of a parade of boats with spinnakers up enjoying the evening breeze. Ahead of us was a bigger boat with all hands holding Olympia Beers, and one crew member sitting on the life lines sans PFD (race over). The line gave way and the man fell overboard and then discovered that he couldn't swim and began to froth the water like I've never seen before, and can't forget. One of our crew jumped overboard with the life ring and cautiously pushed it to the drowning man, avoiding his grasp, and saved him.
We had actually made a game of overboard practice by randomly having whoever was at the helm shout "man overboard" (now, of course, it would be "person overboard", we're not savages), and throw a cushion and then disappear below, leaving the rest of the crew to douse sails and round up for the rescue, and it worked with this gentleman, and all was well.
Next week: another spinnaker run home; more Olympia Beers; same position behind the same boat; same non-swimmer crewman without PFD sitting on the same lifeline.........maybe we are savages.
So much knowledge and experience in this comment seection. Thank you!
Happened to me four years ago. I was sailing as crew aboard a SCAMP named Barnacle in cold spring waters off Port Townsend. The owner (a close friend) had invited me to join him and handed over the helm. He had a recently installed hiking strap set up, and I was in street clothes and a winter jacket. I sat out on the hiking seat, toes under the strap. Little did he know that the old fastex side-release buckle he incorporated into the strap had a split side. Splash, I was overboard from the fully hiked out position. He had also installed a Re-Entry Sling System that I had designed for SCAMP #2, and after he turned back to me, I was able to easily re-board without any trouble. Soggy street clothes make for one heavy swimmer. I suggest re-boarding slings for any small boat that has enough freeboard to impede getting back aboard. Here is SCAMP Camp builder and excellent sailor, my pal Daniel Rich, demonstrating the Re-Entry Sling System he installed on his Wildflower. "https://youtu.be/WPK2B-YF23Y?si=wgxdoOdwPlE0fZGT
I've gone overboard twice on chilly San Francisco Bay off of race boats and, happily, quickly recovered. And why Crew Overboard I vigorously teach at our local community sailing school. Getting quickly back to the victim is crucial (we teach the figure-8 maneuver to avoid jibing), then safely getting that crew back aboard (over the stern for best boat stability). We encourage doing MOB drills often and always wear a PFD.
During a Chi Mac sailing a F25c we got a strong gust in the spinnaker and accelerated quickly. We were all wearing harnesses and life jackets. The crew sitting next to me was on the aft beam facing forward. He did a back flip into the water. With the tiller in my right hand I reached with my left hand grabbed the back of his pfd and flipped his 250 lbs back onto the boat. All adrenaline fueled. Most small and large boats are impossible to reboard unassisted.
Single hand a lot and was concerned about self-rescue, in the event of a MOB incident. Trailed a 20 foot stern line in the water, figuring if I ever went over the side, I could grab it and then re-board. Later on, after I did the math, I realized that at 6 knots, you are traveling nearly 10 feet per second, so what sounds like a plenty long 20 foot stern line is instead, an exceedingly short 2-second line. So I got a 100 foot (10-second) polypropylene (floats) line and several of my friends to help me test it out, a few miles off Key Biscayne. Worked great and I had no problems, whatever. One of my friends also wanted to try it out and not realizing the winds had picked up a little, he struggled to get back to the stern of the boat, pulling himself hand-over-hand and could overcome the drag through the water. We had to pull him close to the hull and he was too tired to re-board, so we attempted to lift him aboard.
Didn't happen.
We finally resorted to dropping the mainsail in the water, leading him onto it as a kind of a sling and then hoisting the main sail with a turning block and a jib winch, to bring him back aboard. We were greatly chastened, at how quickly a test exercise had turned into a real rescue that none of us was prepared for.
A refinement after that incident, was leading the trailing line from the stern cleat that was opposite whatever tack we were on, over to the tiller, under it, then around the stern cleat horn and finally, aft into the water. That way, when the trailing line was pulled on, it pulled the tiller into the wind and stalled the hull, so that the towee could pull himself back to the stern and re-board without getting dragged through the water, at several knots.
I, for one, would like to see this poll followed up by an article that addresses techniques for re boarding and recovery. Something pertinent to small boats with small crews.
Everybody in my crew knows how to do a Williamson turn. We practice with a dummy named Oscar who absorbs water and gains weight the longer it is in the water. The emphasis is on getting to him before he gets too heavy to pull on board.
I went overboard during a race on the Chesapeake Bay (the start of a longer story) but the captain started the engine disqualifying us from the race. A race committee boat got to me first and picked me up and returned me to the sailboat.
I also had a woman fall off my boat while climbing out onto a fishing dock. I don't know what happened as my back was turned shutting down the outboard. It took two of us, me on the boat and her husband on the dock, to get her out of the water on to the dock. When we first went out that morning, I said to my crew I've never lost anyone overboard. Never say never.
I was the single crew on a 31' ketch sailing from Kauai to California in 1984. Right after the Doldrums a storm came up, waves 15 to 20 feet. Nasty cold sharp winds. We successfully reefed the main, but our jib halyard got stuck at the top of the mast when we tried hauling it down. Guess who had to climb into the bosuns chair to go up and free it.
On my way back down, I was just about to step out of the rig when a wave hit us broadside. I was jerked sideways, one toe on deck, my other foot dangling over the side, trailing in the bow wave. I desperately clung to the chair. If I hadn't been wearing a leash, I'd have been long gone.
Skipper was casual about it - said he'd have kept going, as the seas were so big there was no way he could have found me.
An interesting aside as I had launched first that day and was sailing waiting on Clint to get there my hat blew overboard. So, I did a MOB practice on the hat and missed it by a little over a foot and had to go back around and get very close to reach it over the high sides of my Potter. So later I knew I needed to be very close to grab the man's hand. What is the chance that you get to do a practice run or "two" before being called on to do so for real.
This is a rather long story suitable for the spooky stories being told. Clint and his daughter were in his Potter 19, and I was in my Potter 19 sailing along side of each other. We had sailed out from the sailing club on Lake Murray SC heading over to a lake island to picnic and swim. We were up wind of the island when a Sherif's patrol boat came speeding wide open toward us and did a tight turn around behind us and back in front of us. I guess he planned on doing an inspection. As the boat came back around circling our two sailboats, with alarm we realized there was no one on board. the speeding boat circle us again and a couple more times. We were caught in a potential circle of death as the wind was pushing the upwind side of this circle closer to our boats. We made our escape attempt when the up-wind side of the circle looked like it was close enough for us to sail out of the circle before the next pass. It is an uneasy feeling when a runaway boat bouncing on waves is pointed at you as it comes back around. It past about 30 feet behind my boat and about 15 feet behind Clint's.
It was a relief to be out of that circle. As we continued to put distance between us and the runaway boat, I notice something yellow on the water out in front of me. I then realized it was an inflatable lifejacket with a head sticking up. I hollered I would pick the person up so sailed over and turned into the wind reached over and grabbed the officer's hand. He tried to come over the high sides of my Potter and failed. I told him I would lead him back to the boarding ladder on my stern while holding on to him. This went smoothly and I had him on the boat. He then said, "Can you get me back on my boat". I just laughed and said no this is a sailboat I can't match speed or maneuver well enough to even consider doing that. He said he knew nothing about a sailboat. He also said he was worried it might run into to someone. I can only imagine what he had been thinking while witnessing our predicament. I told him the boat would soon run aground on the island as the wind was blowing it there. This in fact happened a short time later just out of sight, but you could hear the crash as the boat ran up on land and then the high revving of the twin outboards and finally the silence when they froze up.
We tried my VHF but got no response. He then called the dispatcher on my phone but was told there were no other state boats on the water. He then called a friend that was fishing on the lake that day to pick him up. Who did just that.
Always wear a PFD you just never know when the unexpected will happen!
Very interesting and important topic. I never had a real MOB experience, expect myself slipping of the jetty while mooring. I was sailing solo and the boat was no berthed yet. But overall the situation was rather comfortable and safe.
For other hand I think that most "official" and taught MOB techniques are not very well tailored for a small sailboat with a short handed crew. In fact quite often our boats are sailed by crew of two, so with one person overboard the whole maneuver has to be done singlehanded. Thus I think, that the most important technique is the "quick stop" - if not as the actual MOB approach, even as means to calm down, gain the situation awareness and not lose the MOB out of sight.
I guess it really depends upon how you define crew overboard. Every capsize almost. I’ve only been overboard once without a capsize. It was a near capsize to probably 70° and I simply fell out of the cockpit to Leeward. Fortunately, my crew stayed aboard and he pulled me back in. Whole thing was 15 seconds.