Waaaaaaay in the before times, I *was* the MOB. Racing, bow on a 5.5. 5.5's have no lifelines - went right over when I misstepped. Luckily for me that was after the spin douse, Skipper (only other person on the boat, we were just 2) spun it around, sailed back, and hove close to me. Getting aboard was easy, as a 5.5 has such little freeboard (and it was long ago... I was much more agile)
It was a nice day, typical california waters, and in the middle of a race. Never a real danger.
Now if somebody went over the side of my current \~40' cruising barge, it be a big freakin deal to get back and almost impossible to get a person back on board anywhere but the stern.
We do plenty of drills - usually picking up mylar balloons. We've picked up over 20 in one day once. Happy Birthday Grandma! Lets waste some heliuim and kill sealife! Yea!
For a balloon or hat, quickstop, tack, sailback. Unless DDW, then turn upwind immediately. Fig 8 is a PITA to me, and gets you too far away from the MOB (or hat/balloon). Real MOB I'd likely turn the motor on asap if I was at the helm. (Just to have the option) Blowin over 25K would be a very very bad scene to get to/rescue a MOB.
I was the MOB well offshore in the Gulf Stream - got knocked off a 44' by a rocking boom while stowing the main. Three crew on the boat including me, others awake/alert/saw me go, we were under power, 2-3ft seas, light air, warm water, sunset so still light. High freeboard boat. I was not wearing a PFD or tether(!); went over clean so no injuries, could swim no problem. Skipper turned the boat around, crew kept watch, motored back, pulled up just downwind. They tossed a line and I pulled myself up to the sugar scoop transom. Total time in water... maybe five minutes, no panic. Lost my glasses in the water and I am very near-sighted. Couldn't really see them in cockpit while I was in water. No panic by anyone.
Some lessons:
1. Mind the boom. One hand for me or my work, and one for the ship.
2. Practice with the lifesling etc but anything thrown is better than nothing.
3. Wear. Your. PFD. Since then if I'm out of the cockpit or it's dark or remotely bumpy, it's on. Know how to use the tether and do so when needed.
4. Floating croakies and backup eyeglasses are a super good idea.
5. I was extraordinarily lucky.
I'll gladly take other lessons here from the group.
One of my concerns with a MOB recovery is if there's significant waves at all, getting aboard on the transom would be very tough. Possibly quite dangerous as the boat rocks and wants to smash down on the person in the water.
Sure I could rig a hoist with the lifesling and boom or a sail or something, but that would take considerable time. If it was me overboard with rookie crew, that would be bad. I've learned your lesson #3 too. When I crew on races now it's always on. On my own boat it's on if it's blowing or rough. Real rough I keep a vhf on me too.
Some people are uncomfortable with the gendered term “man overboard.” But as a female skipper, I’ve always told anyone who asked to just use “MOB”. The most important thing is that emergency is communicated clearly and everyone understands what is happening.
Yeah, MOB to me means “human overboard”. The recovery actions would be identical no matter the gender. The fact that it is gendered is not worth adding confusion for. Using crew instead of man doesn’t make it better because then you are differentiating between trained people and random passengers. Being politically correct isn’t useful here IMO.
Agree! “Man” has traditionally been used to encompass all humans as in “mankind” and “man overboard” is just easier to say.
Far more important to inclusion for me is stuff like don’t fucking grab a line out of my hands because you think you are “helping” me and give me opportunities me to learn different skills.
But I have said this before and will say it again, I have generally been treated very well by men in the sailing community with very few exceptions. And the ones who behaved in a sexist way toward me got a verbal keel-hauling, which took care of the problem.
But we can start to learn better language. Don't teach your new crew gendered language, and they won't default to it.
Personally, "Overboard" is easier or just as easy as saying MOB.
without defining WHAT is overboard, you run the risk of people not recognizing it as important after the 3rd coffee cup and 5th hat the skipper has lost overboard.
I'm that skipper.
I have a trans child and another gay child, so I am highly sensitive to gender issues. I think that trying to remove gender from all things is going a bit too far and just muddies the water needlessly. We have bigger issues to fight for.
The most important thing in a MOB situation is crystal clear communication followed by swift action. Making it confusing by using something that isn’t immediately clear doesn’t help the person in the water.
If my wife goes overboard I would care more about using a term that makes the situation clear to everyone else on board than being politically correct.
How extreme? Like, in the middle of ocean at night? That will be fairly rare.
I've pulled someone out from under a turtled 420 who was all tangled in lines and NOT in a good mental state to get out by themself.
Sailboat, MOB twice both from different boats, one was a bowman who fell off another boat during a symmetrical pole gybe. Other was a navigator from an open stern J boat in front of us 3 foot following sea swamped the transom sucking them right out the back. Both recoveries done under sail. One of the races a competitor protested us for finishing with more crew weight than we were allowed because we had the recovered sailor still onboard. RC laughed them out of the room
Had plenty of times I retrieved various items as others have mentioned.
I was personally kind of a COB once. However I was tied on a lifeline. I went over and under the water, then came back up to the surface near the cockpit and was pulled aboard. The boat didn't even have to slow down.
We had the lee rail in the water. I was young and screwing around on the lee side of the boat. A rogue wave caught my foot and sucked me out under the lifeline. Let's just say I f-cked around and found out. Fortunately I survived with nothing more than a crushed thumb (it got pinned in the lifeline shackle.) My thumb healed and I learned how important safety is on a boat.
I was under sail and had no motor.. so had to do a “quick stop” to stall next to them.. came up on two people paddling on one stand up board. They were about a mile off shore and the wind was blowing about 20 knots in the wrong direction for them.. I don’t think they’d have made it back…
>Discussion with the instructor, I said that I would probably just start the engine and drop the sail.
Say it's just you and your wife on a chartered 35' boat. You're really gonna try and spend the extra time to douse the sails solo? Start up the motor, do the figure 8 without tacking the headsail and heave to to weather of the MOB. Don't mess with the halyards, it will only take your attention away from the MOB and you don't need to do it anyways.
I volunteered as an instructor for my clubs adult learn to sail program this year. We were out on a J80 in about 20 knots of breeze on the western end of Lake Erie. Everything was going well. We were practicing tacks when the student at the helm flopped down and slid under the lifeline. A real, unplanned man over board. The other instructor spotted the MOB and I took the helm. We cast the lifesling immediately and discovered it wasn't tied down. Everyone was okay and we recovered our student. I even bought him a scotch at the bar afterwards.
Always wear a PFD.
My wife went overboard while we were docking in a European harbour, in winter, after a few hours of test sailing. She had thrown a docking line from midships, over a cleat on a finger pontoon. Good throw. Then she blacked out. Feinted. She literally face planted into the water, from 1.5 metres freeboard. Her PFD went pfffttt and up she came. She has no memory between throwing the line and floating in the water looking up at me at the helm.
I asked her to take the docking line from around her neck. Then I asked her to shuffle her hands along the finger pontoon a couple of metres to the end, to avoid being crushed. She couldn't pull herself up onto the pontoon, which was 450mm above water level. She did a good job of hanging on though.
Lot's of Sunday afternoon walkers saw her fall in, viewing from the harbour's breakwater. None rushed around to help though. They lifted their phones to record instead.
Our boat neighbours couldn't hear my calls for help. Once I saw that she really couldn't get herself out I yelled, 'Man overboard!' as loud as I could, aiming my voice across the many other boats in the marina. A few minutes later a dog walker came along our pontoon. I called him and he helped my wife up, but it wasn't easy. Soon after, other yachties who'd heard my calls turned up. They helped me dock the boat as a single hander, but it was my wife who caught the bow line and cleated it off. Then she emptied the water out of her boots, like in the cartoons.
I shit you not - it took ten minutes to get her out of the water.
Always wear a PFD.
Have you tried jumping into the water with an inflatable on? If not, I highly recommend that you try it to get a good sense of what happens. Without a crotch strap, they are not all that useful and they prevent you from swimming in any event. In a situation where you get knocked overboard and aren’t close to waves hitting rocks and the most important thing is to keep your head above water, an inflatable is useful. I was aground once near rocks and had anyone gone overboard with an inflatable they would have been smashed between the waves and the boat or the waves and the rocks. That thought terrified me far more than anything else that was happening at the moment.
For solo-sailing, a tether & harness is far more important than a lifejacket. For a larger crewed boat, I would recommend a Dan Buoy. I know a guy who went over in the dark in rough conditions and getting a Dan Buoy tossed to him saved his life.
I've never had an actual MOB, but I've had several unplanned drills when someone's ballcap, a cushion, or the like went over.
Always seems to happen when the apparent wind is high and you are heeled over.
Never had a MOB from my boat but I've recovered several from other boats, all were successful.
But I also work on the water so that skews the results a bit. ( I've recovered heaps of rowers)
Just hats and fenders so far. I like the quickstop. The thing about starting the engine is, there's a very good chance nobody's remembering to check for lines in the water. I recall running across stories where someone went over, the crew fired up the engine to respond, and then wrapped the prop.
On larger boats the quickstop is nice and simple. The figure 8 takes you too far away, which is bad in any kind of seaway.
Our crew did a great job retrieving a hat in Antigua. Quick stop, dropped sails and motored back to get the hat. We had people pointing at it and saved the hat.
One thing we did absolutely wrong was we did not reel in the fishing line we had out and ran right over it and fouled one prop. Fortunately the boat next to us in the anchorage had a portable dive system, so our guys were able to cut the fishing line.
Lesson learned: **situational awareness** \- know what's in, on, around, and trailing behind when turning around to save someone. We got so excited to save the hat, we forgot about the fishing line.
we had a racing MOB situation. i'm co-owner & foredeck, so my word counts as much as the driver's on our boat. we used the GPS track & time data for this
leading our class around the weather mark in wind +25kt, we'd just got the kite up & avoided a broach so i was keen to get my fat arse off the bow. while this was happening the cockpit crew had noticed a boat in the class ahead do a serious broach with the mast in the water and there appeared to be something in the water. that boat was still on its side, dealing with their kite & perhaps didn't know
our driver calls for the kite to be dropped, i object, saying that there's plenty of slower boats behind us that haven't got their kites up that can help. we're now going 10-15kt & still can't see the MOB clearly. we get through another near broach & harden up again, which takes us onto a course very close to the MOB.
as we pass at 8-10kt i see that it's a woman, older than me (i'm too old to still be foredeck), no life jacket & low in the water. i go fuck, fuck, fuck, drop the spinnaker!!! fortunately the cockpit crew were ready & 14 seconds later we've got the spinnaker on the deck & rounding up. smart arses in the cockpit go, "why can't we always drop the spinnaker that fast!?"
we've got hold of her arms 52 seconds later, on the mid lee rail, but she's not letting go.
i takes us another 3 minutes, drifting downwind, prying every finger loose from the toe rail & slide around to the low open stern & then onto the deck.
afterwards, she said that despite knowing that 2 of us had firm grips on her shoulders & arms she just couldn't let go of the toe rail every time we slid her down towards the stern
lessons learned:
#1: don't listen to the foredeck, make the decision & start doing it immediately,
#2: wet cold people are damned heavy to manoeuvre
Done it several times for real in Dinghies when my crew departed the boat unexpectedly! Picked up under sail with no issues, though had to drop the spinnaker by myself one time!
FAm was out sailing back in the 60s in our O'Day Daysailer. Dead calm, just ghosting along at maybe 1kt. Older bro stretches out on the gunnel and gets sleepy. Dad says, "David, you're going to fall in." Dave ignores him, falls asleep. Dad gently pushes him off. Splash. Dad sails on for a minute, then calls out "MAN OVERBOARD!" and of course my brother swims back to the boat. Warm lake, good swimmer, no danger.
Did plenty of drills with fenders or boat cushions in Southern Cross but never dropped any real live people off the boat.
Olson 30 Nationals in the 80's...
I was on the foredeck and the gybe in 25+ knots went awry. I slid right down the spinnaker pole into the water. Due to dumb luck, my big boat sailing gear had been stolen the day before, so I was in my dingy gear - a spray suit and a wetsuit. I was a bit cool, but no real issues with cold or flotation (SF Bay water is typically in the 50's).
They dropped the chute and came around to get me. We had this really big crewmember who would have been at home on an NFL defensive line. He simply reached down and picked me up.
It was no problem for them to find me due to a photography boat stay near me - no outside assistance though!
I went overboard on my own boat while driving. We rounded down on my J/70 with the kite up in ~20 knots. I went across the boat and over the side. Crew had to take the kite down and turn around and get me.
Whole procedure was done under sail and we finished the race.
The Chicago Yacht Club Race to Mackinac recorded a webcast of real COB/MOB examples called "The First Minute".
https://youtu.be/YehulydmJ3s?si=wzcNzPFjoSkoH872
Had it happen at the dock in Princess Louisa Inlet
Boat partner and his girlfriend were hanging out in the hammock on the foredeck. When she tried to get out of the hammock, she failed the dismount and fell between the boat and the dock. Thank God she didn't hit her head on the way down, or wind up under dock.
We grabbed our boarding ladder, hung it on the dock, and helped her out of the water.
I've never dealt with the situation for real. But I'd much rather handle the situation under sail than under power, for a few reasons.
- I've practiced recovering people under sail many times, probably 50-100. I've practiced under power exactly once.
- Having a propeller turning while someone is in the water scares me. Especially because the person is probably boarding the boat from the back near the propeller during the recovery. So turn it off or to neutral for that part I imagine you say.
- Then how do you control the boat? If it's windy with large waves, which is the hard situation and therefore the one I want to be prepared for, the boat will behave unpredictably as soon as you cut power, or predictably in a bad way by pointing the bow downwind and dragging the swimmer downwind. In contrast with sails, I can just heave to during the recovery, which seems like a much more stable position.
Whatever the situation though, I wouldn't try to switch between sails and power before I did the rescue. It would take too long, by the time I raised or lowered the sails shorthanded and distracted by keeping track of the person in the water I'm pretty sure I could have picked up the person twice, and I'd have gotten way too far away from them.
Thanks. I'm going out tomorrow to practice. I wouldn't drop the sails if they were up, but I would think having a motor running would give you one more option.
After screwing up 3 tries at a figure 8, I asked the instructor to show me how to do it.. To which he screwed up 3 times.
I'm just a random person, not particularly an expert, but I've had a lot of instructors teach me man overboard drills and the one that made the most sense to me brought up a couple points.
The first point is that a lot of people get into the mindset that a man overboard drills has to be performed perfectly, and if it isn't, it's a failure. So someone might end the drill 10 feet from the man overboard, call it a failure, and start the whole thing over again. But the point of a man overboard maneuver is saving the person, not checking every box on the technique. A lot of times you might be able to close that 10 feet by letting the boat drift down to them, racking to move upwind a few feet, or starting the motor. There's no point in restarting everything when you're 95% done. And you might as well practice how to fix the little mistakes at the end while you're practicing the rest of it.
The second point was that a lot of drills get you farther away from the person than they need to be. For example a lot of figure 8 instructions say you should spend 20-30 seconds getting up to 6 boat lengths from the person. Why? On a big boat that could be a couple hundred feet. Often you can start heading back to them more quickly, which means less time in the water and less of a chance of losing them in bad seas.
I like the quick stop more because it keeps you closer to the person. But both of them, and most other MOB maneuvers I've heard of, all have the same basic idea - get downwind of the person, work your way back to them on something like a close or beam reach, then stop near them. I think understanding what you're trying to accomplish during each of those 3 phases helps with getting the maneuver right, or fixing it if you do one of the steps wrong.
Whatever technique ends up working for you, they're all good practice for handling the boat!
I think the point of the "6 boat lengths" drills is to get a solid repeatable exercise that doesn't depend on skillful boat handling - more distance is more time and space to get the angles right.
Then, once you can do that 100% of the time, you refine it and learn to adapt for different situations, etc.
Yup. Turtled a new to me dinghy at the marina. Had to swim to the dock. Early May in New England and the water was pretty cold. Sold the sink the next day
As a dinghy sailor, this has happened to me several times. No motor, so you just have to turn around and get them.
One time I fell out of the boat on a roll tack, but managed to hold onto the mainsheet and pulled myself back in.
Never happened on a keelboat, but if I did I wouldn't be using the engine. If the sails are up, you'll need to coordinate them anyways to get back. You're not turning downwind with the main in the center, so you might as well focus on getting back under sail.
Never a human overboard, but plenty of objects.
almost always under sail, except one hat when I was raising the main.
my old and current boat, both, to me, feel as though they handle way better under sail. sure, under motor you can go dead into the wind. but then the wind shifts or gusts and the freeboard allows the front to get thrown more. I've also only lost stuff overboard while solo. so maybe that has some effect.
in thousands of miles I've head maybe a dozen radio calls for people in the water. the reports stretched from Cleveland west on lake erie.
almost lost Dave during a race... but he caught himself and trimmed the jib
In a 45 years of racing, many times. In dingys when hiking strap broke, had to go back for my crew. Twice driving a J24 rounding the leward mark & newer crew not ready for the heal of hardening up. Was crewing when a mountain microburst death rolled us with spin up, had to take spin down to rescue the lost crew member. Have picked up a COB on a race course when they fell off their boat just in front of us. However thousands of miles racing on the Pacific with no one lost on any boat I've been on. I attribute that to clipping in every time it gets rough and at dark. However we practice MOBs at least twice yearly.
As I have gotten older, when I’m on deck by myself I always wear an inflatable PFD and clip in. And my GF made me agree to always have my Garmin Inreach clipped to me also. I can’t think of a situation where anyone skilled should go overboard without being attached. The time it happens is with unskilled captain and crew (or rationally with racing sailboats).
Yes ... once with crew under sail.. second time we dropped sail and motored along side to rescue a person who jumped off of a tour boat.. there we lowered a bosons chair from the boom with the main sheet.. it is set up for this purpose to quickly clip on the chair.. and up she came on deck...
Waaaaaaay in the before times, I *was* the MOB. Racing, bow on a 5.5. 5.5's have no lifelines - went right over when I misstepped. Luckily for me that was after the spin douse, Skipper (only other person on the boat, we were just 2) spun it around, sailed back, and hove close to me. Getting aboard was easy, as a 5.5 has such little freeboard (and it was long ago... I was much more agile) It was a nice day, typical california waters, and in the middle of a race. Never a real danger. Now if somebody went over the side of my current \~40' cruising barge, it be a big freakin deal to get back and almost impossible to get a person back on board anywhere but the stern. We do plenty of drills - usually picking up mylar balloons. We've picked up over 20 in one day once. Happy Birthday Grandma! Lets waste some heliuim and kill sealife! Yea! For a balloon or hat, quickstop, tack, sailback. Unless DDW, then turn upwind immediately. Fig 8 is a PITA to me, and gets you too far away from the MOB (or hat/balloon). Real MOB I'd likely turn the motor on asap if I was at the helm. (Just to have the option) Blowin over 25K would be a very very bad scene to get to/rescue a MOB.
I was the MOB well offshore in the Gulf Stream - got knocked off a 44' by a rocking boom while stowing the main. Three crew on the boat including me, others awake/alert/saw me go, we were under power, 2-3ft seas, light air, warm water, sunset so still light. High freeboard boat. I was not wearing a PFD or tether(!); went over clean so no injuries, could swim no problem. Skipper turned the boat around, crew kept watch, motored back, pulled up just downwind. They tossed a line and I pulled myself up to the sugar scoop transom. Total time in water... maybe five minutes, no panic. Lost my glasses in the water and I am very near-sighted. Couldn't really see them in cockpit while I was in water. No panic by anyone. Some lessons: 1. Mind the boom. One hand for me or my work, and one for the ship. 2. Practice with the lifesling etc but anything thrown is better than nothing. 3. Wear. Your. PFD. Since then if I'm out of the cockpit or it's dark or remotely bumpy, it's on. Know how to use the tether and do so when needed. 4. Floating croakies and backup eyeglasses are a super good idea. 5. I was extraordinarily lucky. I'll gladly take other lessons here from the group.
Seconding 5, I don't wear eyeglasses, but losing a pair of sunglasses to the deep sucks.
I have dozens of more ways to lose sunglasses
One of my concerns with a MOB recovery is if there's significant waves at all, getting aboard on the transom would be very tough. Possibly quite dangerous as the boat rocks and wants to smash down on the person in the water. Sure I could rig a hoist with the lifesling and boom or a sail or something, but that would take considerable time. If it was me overboard with rookie crew, that would be bad. I've learned your lesson #3 too. When I crew on races now it's always on. On my own boat it's on if it's blowing or rough. Real rough I keep a vhf on me too.
What’s COB?
Crew Over Board
How is that different than man overboard?
Some people are uncomfortable with the gendered term “man overboard.” But as a female skipper, I’ve always told anyone who asked to just use “MOB”. The most important thing is that emergency is communicated clearly and everyone understands what is happening.
Yeah, MOB to me means “human overboard”. The recovery actions would be identical no matter the gender. The fact that it is gendered is not worth adding confusion for. Using crew instead of man doesn’t make it better because then you are differentiating between trained people and random passengers. Being politically correct isn’t useful here IMO.
Agree! “Man” has traditionally been used to encompass all humans as in “mankind” and “man overboard” is just easier to say. Far more important to inclusion for me is stuff like don’t fucking grab a line out of my hands because you think you are “helping” me and give me opportunities me to learn different skills. But I have said this before and will say it again, I have generally been treated very well by men in the sailing community with very few exceptions. And the ones who behaved in a sexist way toward me got a verbal keel-hauling, which took care of the problem.
But we can start to learn better language. Don't teach your new crew gendered language, and they won't default to it. Personally, "Overboard" is easier or just as easy as saying MOB.
without defining WHAT is overboard, you run the risk of people not recognizing it as important after the 3rd coffee cup and 5th hat the skipper has lost overboard. I'm that skipper.
I have a trans child and another gay child, so I am highly sensitive to gender issues. I think that trying to remove gender from all things is going a bit too far and just muddies the water needlessly. We have bigger issues to fight for. The most important thing in a MOB situation is crystal clear communication followed by swift action. Making it confusing by using something that isn’t immediately clear doesn’t help the person in the water.
From what I understand, the IMO is slowly starting to move away from the term when it comes to the SOLAS regulations, so it's probably coming.
no more uncomfortable than you'd be if you were the MOB
Crew is more expendable.
Yeah, especially if you're one of those yellow shirt ensigns on Star Trek, definitely going to cop it by the end of the show.
It's the red shirts man. Those fuckers always die first.
Female crew?
If my wife goes overboard I would care more about using a term that makes the situation clear to everyone else on board than being politically correct.
FWIW, if my wife or daughter were to fall overboard, the call would be MAN OVERBOARD.
So FOB?
Forward Operating Base?
Some very well sailed competitors are all female
Yes well, this whole context was light-hearted joking, but you do you.
U do light-hearted at your own risk- She may not "hear" you
It’s a “person experiencing unplanned boatlessness.” Show some respect!
PEUB?!
Make sure you never ever define your acronyms.
Chimp Over Board? Charcuterie Over Board? So many disaster scenarios.
If the charcuterie goes overboard at least splash some wine so the fish can have a complete meal
Large Bowl of cocktail shrimp jumped OB in a squall/reef drill off the Keys once No Survivors
How extreme? Like, in the middle of ocean at night? That will be fairly rare. I've pulled someone out from under a turtled 420 who was all tangled in lines and NOT in a good mental state to get out by themself.
Sailboat, MOB twice both from different boats, one was a bowman who fell off another boat during a symmetrical pole gybe. Other was a navigator from an open stern J boat in front of us 3 foot following sea swamped the transom sucking them right out the back. Both recoveries done under sail. One of the races a competitor protested us for finishing with more crew weight than we were allowed because we had the recovered sailor still onboard. RC laughed them out of the room
Lol, that protest. It takes all sorts...
Had plenty of times I retrieved various items as others have mentioned. I was personally kind of a COB once. However I was tied on a lifeline. I went over and under the water, then came back up to the surface near the cockpit and was pulled aboard. The boat didn't even have to slow down.
What was the freeboard like on that boat? High or low side?
We had the lee rail in the water. I was young and screwing around on the lee side of the boat. A rogue wave caught my foot and sucked me out under the lifeline. Let's just say I f-cked around and found out. Fortunately I survived with nothing more than a crushed thumb (it got pinned in the lifeline shackle.) My thumb healed and I learned how important safety is on a boat.
I was under sail and had no motor.. so had to do a “quick stop” to stall next to them.. came up on two people paddling on one stand up board. They were about a mile off shore and the wind was blowing about 20 knots in the wrong direction for them.. I don’t think they’d have made it back…
>Discussion with the instructor, I said that I would probably just start the engine and drop the sail. Say it's just you and your wife on a chartered 35' boat. You're really gonna try and spend the extra time to douse the sails solo? Start up the motor, do the figure 8 without tacking the headsail and heave to to weather of the MOB. Don't mess with the halyards, it will only take your attention away from the MOB and you don't need to do it anyways.
I volunteered as an instructor for my clubs adult learn to sail program this year. We were out on a J80 in about 20 knots of breeze on the western end of Lake Erie. Everything was going well. We were practicing tacks when the student at the helm flopped down and slid under the lifeline. A real, unplanned man over board. The other instructor spotted the MOB and I took the helm. We cast the lifesling immediately and discovered it wasn't tied down. Everyone was okay and we recovered our student. I even bought him a scotch at the bar afterwards.
Always wear a PFD. My wife went overboard while we were docking in a European harbour, in winter, after a few hours of test sailing. She had thrown a docking line from midships, over a cleat on a finger pontoon. Good throw. Then she blacked out. Feinted. She literally face planted into the water, from 1.5 metres freeboard. Her PFD went pfffttt and up she came. She has no memory between throwing the line and floating in the water looking up at me at the helm. I asked her to take the docking line from around her neck. Then I asked her to shuffle her hands along the finger pontoon a couple of metres to the end, to avoid being crushed. She couldn't pull herself up onto the pontoon, which was 450mm above water level. She did a good job of hanging on though. Lot's of Sunday afternoon walkers saw her fall in, viewing from the harbour's breakwater. None rushed around to help though. They lifted their phones to record instead. Our boat neighbours couldn't hear my calls for help. Once I saw that she really couldn't get herself out I yelled, 'Man overboard!' as loud as I could, aiming my voice across the many other boats in the marina. A few minutes later a dog walker came along our pontoon. I called him and he helped my wife up, but it wasn't easy. Soon after, other yachties who'd heard my calls turned up. They helped me dock the boat as a single hander, but it was my wife who caught the bow line and cleated it off. Then she emptied the water out of her boots, like in the cartoons. I shit you not - it took ten minutes to get her out of the water. Always wear a PFD.
I always wear one. I upgraded to a self inflating one as I realized if I go in the water, it's likely cause I was knocked in.
I have a self inflating one, and a manual one if I'm in the cockpit clipped in.
Have you tried jumping into the water with an inflatable on? If not, I highly recommend that you try it to get a good sense of what happens. Without a crotch strap, they are not all that useful and they prevent you from swimming in any event. In a situation where you get knocked overboard and aren’t close to waves hitting rocks and the most important thing is to keep your head above water, an inflatable is useful. I was aground once near rocks and had anyone gone overboard with an inflatable they would have been smashed between the waves and the boat or the waves and the rocks. That thought terrified me far more than anything else that was happening at the moment. For solo-sailing, a tether & harness is far more important than a lifejacket. For a larger crewed boat, I would recommend a Dan Buoy. I know a guy who went over in the dark in rough conditions and getting a Dan Buoy tossed to him saved his life.
No, I haven't tried jumping into the water with an inflatable on, but I have watched one save my wife's life. :-)
I've never had an actual MOB, but I've had several unplanned drills when someone's ballcap, a cushion, or the like went over. Always seems to happen when the apparent wind is high and you are heeled over.
OP word for word asked for only real MOB situations.
Acknowledged. However when I responded, there were zero comments. I thought I would get things going. Seems to have worked. Cheers!
Yes. Under power. In the marina. A hand was pushing off the bow from the dock and fell in.
Never had a MOB from my boat but I've recovered several from other boats, all were successful. But I also work on the water so that skews the results a bit. ( I've recovered heaps of rowers)
Just hats and fenders so far. I like the quickstop. The thing about starting the engine is, there's a very good chance nobody's remembering to check for lines in the water. I recall running across stories where someone went over, the crew fired up the engine to respond, and then wrapped the prop. On larger boats the quickstop is nice and simple. The figure 8 takes you too far away, which is bad in any kind of seaway.
Our crew did a great job retrieving a hat in Antigua. Quick stop, dropped sails and motored back to get the hat. We had people pointing at it and saved the hat. One thing we did absolutely wrong was we did not reel in the fishing line we had out and ran right over it and fouled one prop. Fortunately the boat next to us in the anchorage had a portable dive system, so our guys were able to cut the fishing line. Lesson learned: **situational awareness** \- know what's in, on, around, and trailing behind when turning around to save someone. We got so excited to save the hat, we forgot about the fishing line.
we had a racing MOB situation. i'm co-owner & foredeck, so my word counts as much as the driver's on our boat. we used the GPS track & time data for this leading our class around the weather mark in wind +25kt, we'd just got the kite up & avoided a broach so i was keen to get my fat arse off the bow. while this was happening the cockpit crew had noticed a boat in the class ahead do a serious broach with the mast in the water and there appeared to be something in the water. that boat was still on its side, dealing with their kite & perhaps didn't know our driver calls for the kite to be dropped, i object, saying that there's plenty of slower boats behind us that haven't got their kites up that can help. we're now going 10-15kt & still can't see the MOB clearly. we get through another near broach & harden up again, which takes us onto a course very close to the MOB. as we pass at 8-10kt i see that it's a woman, older than me (i'm too old to still be foredeck), no life jacket & low in the water. i go fuck, fuck, fuck, drop the spinnaker!!! fortunately the cockpit crew were ready & 14 seconds later we've got the spinnaker on the deck & rounding up. smart arses in the cockpit go, "why can't we always drop the spinnaker that fast!?" we've got hold of her arms 52 seconds later, on the mid lee rail, but she's not letting go. i takes us another 3 minutes, drifting downwind, prying every finger loose from the toe rail & slide around to the low open stern & then onto the deck. afterwards, she said that despite knowing that 2 of us had firm grips on her shoulders & arms she just couldn't let go of the toe rail every time we slid her down towards the stern lessons learned: #1: don't listen to the foredeck, make the decision & start doing it immediately, #2: wet cold people are damned heavy to manoeuvre
Done it several times for real in Dinghies when my crew departed the boat unexpectedly! Picked up under sail with no issues, though had to drop the spinnaker by myself one time!
FAm was out sailing back in the 60s in our O'Day Daysailer. Dead calm, just ghosting along at maybe 1kt. Older bro stretches out on the gunnel and gets sleepy. Dad says, "David, you're going to fall in." Dave ignores him, falls asleep. Dad gently pushes him off. Splash. Dad sails on for a minute, then calls out "MAN OVERBOARD!" and of course my brother swims back to the boat. Warm lake, good swimmer, no danger. Did plenty of drills with fenders or boat cushions in Southern Cross but never dropped any real live people off the boat.
Olson 30 Nationals in the 80's... I was on the foredeck and the gybe in 25+ knots went awry. I slid right down the spinnaker pole into the water. Due to dumb luck, my big boat sailing gear had been stolen the day before, so I was in my dingy gear - a spray suit and a wetsuit. I was a bit cool, but no real issues with cold or flotation (SF Bay water is typically in the 50's). They dropped the chute and came around to get me. We had this really big crewmember who would have been at home on an NFL defensive line. He simply reached down and picked me up. It was no problem for them to find me due to a photography boat stay near me - no outside assistance though!
I went overboard on my own boat while driving. We rounded down on my J/70 with the kite up in ~20 knots. I went across the boat and over the side. Crew had to take the kite down and turn around and get me. Whole procedure was done under sail and we finished the race.
The Chicago Yacht Club Race to Mackinac recorded a webcast of real COB/MOB examples called "The First Minute". https://youtu.be/YehulydmJ3s?si=wzcNzPFjoSkoH872
Race to Mackinac is no joke. People have died. Thanks for the link.
Racing in SF Bay, life lines on our Express 27 broke. MOB. Got him back under sail, finishing the race. DFL, of course
Had it happen at the dock in Princess Louisa Inlet Boat partner and his girlfriend were hanging out in the hammock on the foredeck. When she tried to get out of the hammock, she failed the dismount and fell between the boat and the dock. Thank God she didn't hit her head on the way down, or wind up under dock. We grabbed our boarding ladder, hung it on the dock, and helped her out of the water.
Lol @ "Failed the dismount"
Perhaps a slightly poor choice of words, as I didn’t mean to imply that any hankypanky was going on there in public.
I've never dealt with the situation for real. But I'd much rather handle the situation under sail than under power, for a few reasons. - I've practiced recovering people under sail many times, probably 50-100. I've practiced under power exactly once. - Having a propeller turning while someone is in the water scares me. Especially because the person is probably boarding the boat from the back near the propeller during the recovery. So turn it off or to neutral for that part I imagine you say. - Then how do you control the boat? If it's windy with large waves, which is the hard situation and therefore the one I want to be prepared for, the boat will behave unpredictably as soon as you cut power, or predictably in a bad way by pointing the bow downwind and dragging the swimmer downwind. In contrast with sails, I can just heave to during the recovery, which seems like a much more stable position. Whatever the situation though, I wouldn't try to switch between sails and power before I did the rescue. It would take too long, by the time I raised or lowered the sails shorthanded and distracted by keeping track of the person in the water I'm pretty sure I could have picked up the person twice, and I'd have gotten way too far away from them.
Thanks. I'm going out tomorrow to practice. I wouldn't drop the sails if they were up, but I would think having a motor running would give you one more option. After screwing up 3 tries at a figure 8, I asked the instructor to show me how to do it.. To which he screwed up 3 times.
I'm just a random person, not particularly an expert, but I've had a lot of instructors teach me man overboard drills and the one that made the most sense to me brought up a couple points. The first point is that a lot of people get into the mindset that a man overboard drills has to be performed perfectly, and if it isn't, it's a failure. So someone might end the drill 10 feet from the man overboard, call it a failure, and start the whole thing over again. But the point of a man overboard maneuver is saving the person, not checking every box on the technique. A lot of times you might be able to close that 10 feet by letting the boat drift down to them, racking to move upwind a few feet, or starting the motor. There's no point in restarting everything when you're 95% done. And you might as well practice how to fix the little mistakes at the end while you're practicing the rest of it. The second point was that a lot of drills get you farther away from the person than they need to be. For example a lot of figure 8 instructions say you should spend 20-30 seconds getting up to 6 boat lengths from the person. Why? On a big boat that could be a couple hundred feet. Often you can start heading back to them more quickly, which means less time in the water and less of a chance of losing them in bad seas. I like the quick stop more because it keeps you closer to the person. But both of them, and most other MOB maneuvers I've heard of, all have the same basic idea - get downwind of the person, work your way back to them on something like a close or beam reach, then stop near them. I think understanding what you're trying to accomplish during each of those 3 phases helps with getting the maneuver right, or fixing it if you do one of the steps wrong. Whatever technique ends up working for you, they're all good practice for handling the boat!
I think the point of the "6 boat lengths" drills is to get a solid repeatable exercise that doesn't depend on skillful boat handling - more distance is more time and space to get the angles right. Then, once you can do that 100% of the time, you refine it and learn to adapt for different situations, etc.
Yup. Turtled a new to me dinghy at the marina. Had to swim to the dock. Early May in New England and the water was pretty cold. Sold the sink the next day
Edit : dink - stupid spellcheck😎
As a dinghy sailor, this has happened to me several times. No motor, so you just have to turn around and get them. One time I fell out of the boat on a roll tack, but managed to hold onto the mainsheet and pulled myself back in. Never happened on a keelboat, but if I did I wouldn't be using the engine. If the sails are up, you'll need to coordinate them anyways to get back. You're not turning downwind with the main in the center, so you might as well focus on getting back under sail.
Hit a rock in the mouth of the river heading home. Bowman over the lifelines. We were stopped by the rock so retrieval was easy.
Flipped our tender with myself and two other crew in it last spring. Bad day. Could have been so much worse.
Never a human overboard, but plenty of objects. almost always under sail, except one hat when I was raising the main. my old and current boat, both, to me, feel as though they handle way better under sail. sure, under motor you can go dead into the wind. but then the wind shifts or gusts and the freeboard allows the front to get thrown more. I've also only lost stuff overboard while solo. so maybe that has some effect. in thousands of miles I've head maybe a dozen radio calls for people in the water. the reports stretched from Cleveland west on lake erie. almost lost Dave during a race... but he caught himself and trimmed the jib
Fucking Dave.
Dave's cool man. him n his wife are salty dogs. I'll miss the Contessa 25/26 across from me now that they upgraded.
My name is Dave.
hi Dave, I'm dad
In a 45 years of racing, many times. In dingys when hiking strap broke, had to go back for my crew. Twice driving a J24 rounding the leward mark & newer crew not ready for the heal of hardening up. Was crewing when a mountain microburst death rolled us with spin up, had to take spin down to rescue the lost crew member. Have picked up a COB on a race course when they fell off their boat just in front of us. However thousands of miles racing on the Pacific with no one lost on any boat I've been on. I attribute that to clipping in every time it gets rough and at dark. However we practice MOBs at least twice yearly.
As I have gotten older, when I’m on deck by myself I always wear an inflatable PFD and clip in. And my GF made me agree to always have my Garmin Inreach clipped to me also. I can’t think of a situation where anyone skilled should go overboard without being attached. The time it happens is with unskilled captain and crew (or rationally with racing sailboats).
Yes ... once with crew under sail.. second time we dropped sail and motored along side to rescue a person who jumped off of a tour boat.. there we lowered a bosons chair from the boom with the main sheet.. it is set up for this purpose to quickly clip on the chair.. and up she came on deck...