Tips and Recommendations For MOB Recover Into Boat

[BlowingOldBoots]

Hi,

Any advice for tried and tested methods to get an unconscious person out the water from alongside the boat and onto the side deck?

Really interested in stuff that has worked either seen by yourself or tried by yourself not untested ideas; I have plenty of those.

This weekend I recovered my son as part of testing my method. He entered the water with wetsuit and lifejacket inflated. The plan was to use the spinnaker halyard and cathead on the anchor windlass:-

1. Grabbing the casualty with the boat hook secured to lifejacket was easy enough and moved from stern to mid ship point.
2. Getting the lifting strop with floating line around him with lifejacket on was impossible from deck. It would have to be done from a dinghy (in my case) or sugar scoop. Son put it on and we assumed he could reach it before going unconscious.
3. Strop is too short. I have used commercial recovery strops, helicopter lifting strops and they are much longer to accommodate bulky people with life jackets. Mine is an XR model, MOB strop with 45m of line, same as Oscar and Jimmy Green styles.
4. To get the tail of the halyard around the cathead, requires a lanyard from the snap shackle to the lifting strop about 10’ long.
5. To stop the person swinging about someone needs to either hold the lifting line, or another line needs to be attached near the lifting point that can be pulled to keep the casualty close to the hull. If short handed this line need to be a fixed length so that when hoisted out the water the casualty is at the correct length.
6. Engine needs to be on as the windlass slowed right down when 10 stone weight transferred to the lifting line. In a real situation it would be on, we were at anchor. However if there was something that stopped the engine. My windlass struggled and if it was me or my fat boy mate, 2 x Dinners, I do wonder if the windlass with no engine would keep going.

A parbuckle or Jacob’s cradle would be a far better solution as they can be used without anyone entering the water. Sea Scoopa, Google it could be an idea.

It was an interesting idea and showed how we could recover someone on my boat, but it needs refined and some dedicated lines made. Also a set of instructions drawn up.

What have you done, interested in your tested experiences?

Alastair

[Aja]

All interesting. Have you considered what impact any your of waves or swell would have affected any type of alongside lift.

This is not a criticism but genuine query as I know my wife would try but probably fail in recovering me.

Donald

[marisca]

As a, mostly, single-handed sailor, I have no illusions about my fate should I go overboard. Apart from full oilies and rough weather I seldom don lifejacket and tether mainly 'cos both of them seem to conspire to hinder my movement around the boat by catching on cleats and generally getting in the way. As a proponent of steering wheel spikes rather than seat belts as road safety aids I reckon scuttling around on deck naked (from a safety point of view) focuses the mind wonderfully. On the other hand kitting the boat out with MOB sensors, PLB, and all the other paraphernalia seems pointless at my age - I already resent liferaft, flares, EPIRB, etc., all of which need expensive support. I just hope someone catches the boat before she gets wrecked. As for the occasional crew, they have the choice to wear the supplied, in-date, tested LJs and tethers if they are happier - foredeck in windy races gets the choice of LJ or buoyancy aid.

[BlowingOldBoots]

All interesting. Have you considered what impact any your of waves or swell would have affected any type of alongside lift.

This is not a criticism but genuine query as I know my wife would try but probably fail in recovering me.

Donald

Yes I have considered that and practised MOB many times in big waves. Waves actually make it easier in some aspects. With the casualty alongside and to leeward, many boats hove to or lie a hull, reasonably well, and just push the casualty along as they drift faster than the person in the water.

I found that with the rolling, reaching down to the casualty, by lying on the deck, is not too difficult as there is a time interval when closest that allows things to be done e.g. threading a line through a lifejacket ring, or even dropping a loop around the shoulders.

I performed a drill along time ago off the entrance to Troon, famous for its big swell, in which conditions we practised it. At that time it was a bucket and fender and was really about manoeuvring. However, on the dip, clearly there would be an opportunity to recover a casualty onto the deck with little lifting from the boat.

In the most recent drill, in my opening post, I had launched the dinghy so there was a safety boat available tied along side. That would have to be used to deal with the strop issue. I will be arranging a recovery net, parbuckle, as that eliminates the need for anyone to be outside the boat helping a casualty.

If a casualty cant be recovered then launching the liferaft / dinghy and attempting to haul the person into that is an option to preserve life longer than being in the water would do. Hopefully professional assistance would soon arrive. Thats is also fraught with risk if a partner can't get back into the boat or the lifearft.

No easy answers, but I am determined to solve it, at reasonable cost, for my boat. For so long I have practised MOB boat manoeuvring, but rarely practised lifting in a person. My own method has now found to be wanting. Which is the point of this thread and request for practical ideas that work. Definitely require a bigger strop.

Have you practised or got a solution for big wave casualty recovery?

[BlowingOldBoots]

... I just hope someone catches the boat before she gets wrecked. ...

Do you really value a material object over a human life more? To me that is odd, irrespective of the age of the person. However, I accept your point of view as being valid and agree with feelings of risk aversion being stronger the more that we think a threat is likely.

I wonder what you would feel if you fell overboard, would you think that you should have clipped on? It's a rhetorical question. I think if I don't have a working solution for recovery, then I am risking lives on my boat. After all, we don't set out to fall overboard and guests on my boat, as well as myself, would want to be recovered if we fell in. Thats how I see it. This year preferably, I want to have a working solution for recovery of a person in the water that preferably is simple, quick and does not rely on anyone else leaving the boat.

[marisca]

I haven't tried rescuing a living human but have played with an RNLI dummy. It was arm-wrenchingly heavy, demonstrated the need for skill in stopping the boat alongside, but with my boat's low freeboard, relatively easy to roll aboard using the spinnaker halyard. With only one person onboard very difficult or almost impossible - it needs two at least. Volvo and other fully crewed ocean racers have a dedicated swimmer on each watch kitted to go overboard to attach and help a MOB. The only times I've had to get out the water I was conscious and had an inflated dinghy (easier to get into than a liferaft) or a stern ladder and usually voluntary.

[BlowingOldBoots]

After further faffing, I settled on MOBLifesavers https://moblifesavers.com I bought the whole kit, 8 x MOB Lifesavers for my lifejackets with the retrieval kit.

I tried it out on the boat with just myself and Rachel. I entered the water, lifejacket inflated and the MOB lifesaver floated free. Rachel retrieved the line with the boat hook and connected it to the midship cleat, the MOB is now secure. She then manoeuvred the rescue sling under my knees and connected that to the 6 x part ratchet block and tackle, then took my MOB lifesaver from the cleat and connected that to the block and tackle. All 200lbs of me was lifted horizontally and easily onto the foredeck just by Rachel.

The MOB Lifesavers are key as they allow a person on the boat to hook the MOB rather than try and get a strop over them in the water. It took less than 2 minutes from snagging me with the boat hook, to lowering me onto the deck.

The whole kits was just over 600 quid. If you have a powered halyard winch or can easily access a windlass with a halyard, then the MOBLifesavers is really all you need as well as a procedure.

Click on the video on the website to see it on use. I have videoed our practise sessions and if I can edit the video I will post a link.

I use my spinnaker halyard to connect the block and tackle to. It was very easy. If someone used their own lifejacket and did not have one MOBLifesaver fitted, then I can use my Moorfast Boat Hook to thread a line through their lifejacket D ring, or use the block and tackle to lower a person into the water to fit my MOB lifting sling, if they were not wearing a lifejacket.

Rachel and I practised a handful of times to refine the method but it really is very easy and required little refinement. The mani thing is that Rachel is happy she now has the tool to lift me into the boat.

If anyone wants to see the system in use, contact me and I can demonstrate from the pontoon at Craobh Marina.

[BlowingOldBoots]

Having secured memsahib's permission to post, here is a video that we made of the system in use. The block and tackle had already been rigged up. Note the MOBLifsaver trailing in the water. This is attached to the lifejacket's D ring where the safety harness goes. The video does not show the deployment of the line, but it is stored inside the lifejacket stoles and just floats free. Of course, we are anchored and in a real MOB you would still have to get the boat back to the person in the water. I hope you find this useful. I recommend the MOBLifesavers.

Click on the image which takes you to my Flicker account then click on the play button.

GOPR0510 by Rival Sailor, on Flickr

We are anchored in the bay at the North end of Shuna, glorious weather but the sea was cold.