Suddenly Overboard

by Tom Lochhaas

  Rambler’s crew on its inverted hull awaiting rescue. (Photo copyright RNLI)

  Similarly, perhaps in part because they were not in storm conditions and thus not at particular risk of being washed or thrown overboard, none of the crew was clipped on to the boat with a tether. In this case, again, this reduced the risk of being caught under the boat and unable to get free quickly. But again, many other sailors in other emergencies have been saved by their use of a harness and tether to keep them on the boat.

  Immediately after the capsize, the crew began climbing up out of the water onto the inverted hull, assisted by those who had managed to stay on the boat. As professional sailors, many of whom in the past had raced dinghies and were experienced with capsizes, they maintained a sense of calm that might have surprised most recreational sailors in such circumstances.

  Within minutes, 16 crew were out of the cold water on the relative safety of the hull. Five, including the skipper, were missing. The others quickly conferred and were fairly certain none of the missing was trapped below; someone remembered seeing each of the missing crew free in the water. Hopefully they were all okay and had just drifted away from the boat and would be found by the rescuers they assumed would arrive soon since the crew on the hull had already activated the signals of the two PLBs they had with them.

  Here again, some would say they were fortunate. Each of the 21 crew had a PLB, but because conditions had not been viewed as risky, only two crew had their PLBs on them.

  Since they had capsized on the race course, they hoped another boat would pass close enough to see them. If only they’d been able to grab a handheld VHF radio! One crew had been able to make a quick Mayday call on a handheld VHF as the boat rolled, but he’d lost it when swimming clear after the capsize. He’d had no chance to relay their position, and the radio was not DSC equipped, which would have automatically provided their GPS coordinates to other boats in the area.

  The boat’s satellite phone, as well, was somewhere down below. As was the EPIRB. And the life rafts were unreachable if needed.

  Although visibility was poor, they soon saw another sailboat passing. The crew on the inverted hull shouted, waved their arms and strobe lights, and blew the whistles attached to their PFDs but the boat raced past.

  Another was sighted and it too passed. In the first hour they watched helplessly as four boats sailed past without hearing or seeing them perched on the hull floating low in the water.

  After 2 hours, some of the crew must have been wondering if the PLBs were working. Their signals should have been received and rescue boats should have arrived by now. Although they were wet and cold in the wind, their thoughts were for the five crew still out there in the water. The water temperature was in the high 50s (°F), cold enough for hypothermia to set in.

  Then a lifeboat arrived. The crew on the hull sent it off to look for those missing in the water, but it soon returned, saying other rescue boats were searching for them now and a radio call had gone out to all boats to assist. The 16 were ferried over to the lifeboat.

  Forty-five minutes later, the five crew were found a short distance away. They had linked arms and huddled together to preserve body heat. Only one experienced hypothermia severe enough to require being airlifted to a hospital, and she was released later in good condition.

  Everyone was safe. Except for a short delay resulting from some confusion about the PLB signals, the rescue effort had gone very well.

  Even in a story that ends well, however, there is speculation about what might have happened and what can be done to help ensure the next story ends as well; that is, to leave nothing to chance or luck. Recommendations in the U.S. Sailing Safety at Sea Review emphasized that crew should always have a PLB- or DSC-equipped handheld VHF on their person as well as a bright strobe light or laser flare, and they should ensure that other boat safety equipment is always accessible in any emergency.

  Or in a phrase, even in calm conditions, think about “what if” scenarios and be prepared.

  Keep Treading!

  “For God’s sake, girl!”

  Her voice sounded weird in the dark, almost like someone else speaking. She almost spun around in the pitch black to see who else was there. She was losing it. “What, already?” She shouted this time, and now heard how her chattering teeth distorted her voice.

  “Goddamn, it’s cold!”

  There, that was better. She almost grinned in the dark, but a wave splashed in her mouth and she had to spit it out. She stopped treading for a moment then and felt her body slip lower in the water. She was so cold.

  She barely felt her muscles now, but knew they were still moving because she wasn’t sinking. Yet. “Go, girl!”

  Part of her couldn’t believe she was talking to herself, shouting actually, like some sort of crazed cheerleader.

  And she still couldn’t believe what had happened and that now she was all alone in the cold, dark water some 50 nautical miles off Cornwall, England. The boat was long gone. It had been hours—at least that’s what it felt like.

  She didn’t even have a life jacket to keep her floating until the cold killed her. “Damn you!” she shouted again. Shouting helped hold off the terror, if only for a few seconds.

  “Paddle, girl!” A wave splashed over her head. “You will not kill me like this!”

  If only there were stars. Stars would give enough light to at least show the waves around her. But the sky was as dark as ink.

  Shouldn’t there have been a helicopter by now? “Where are you?” Surely it couldn’t take so long.

  If only she’d worn a watch. Then she could keep track, do calculations, keep up hope while she waited. Surely they’d radioed. “The damn GPS was working, wasn’t it?” She rolled back and changed her stroke, felt her body again. Still working.

  When she was quiet too long, the terror returned. It came over her in waves, over and over, always beginning with the horror of abruptly realizing she had been trapped under the boat. In the black water she had been completely disoriented, unable to see or tell up from down, just aware she was underwater and caught on something. She had struggled and torn at the harness webbing of her inflated PFD and tether, and suddenly her fingers found the release and freed her from her PFD. The rushing water had torn her free, and moments later she had bobbed up behind the boat to see its stern light rapidly receding into the night.

  It had been all she could do after the sudden immersion to stay on the surface and suck air into her lungs between coughing fits. She heard men on the boat shouting in the distance but was unable to shout back.

  She watched the boat disappear, then a minute later saw its green starboard light moving left to right, but it was too far away to hear her shouting. If only she had a light, but her strobe, like her whistle, was clipped to her PFD.

  As far as she knew, her PFD was still under the boat. Or maybe by now they’d pulled it up by her tether, still connected to the starboard jackline, which must have been loose to let her go that far under, and found it empty. Maybe they thought she was dead by now.

  “I will not die this way!” she shouted into the void around her.

  She saw the boat make another sweep, right to left this time, with the port red running light showing, but it was still a long way off. She saw it only for a second, from the crest of a wave, and then she dropped down in the trough and the boat was gone when she rose again. The seas were running perhaps 3 to 4 meters; they’d practically have to run her over to see her.

  She would die if the helicopter didn’t find her soon. Very soon, she thought, then screamed, “No!”

  And the terror of being caught under the boat swept over her yet again.

  She tried to keep it out of her mind, tried to remember more about what had happened. How far out had they been? How far could a helicopter fly before going back for more fuel?

  She’d been in the cockpit one minute, enjoying the wild ride, loving the roar of water along the hull, grinding the winch to trim in the jib, an
d then something happened and she’d slid under the lifeline. Just like that. She couldn’t remember how it had happened. Just the abrupt horror of being held underwater, against her will, as if the sea had become a madman.

  Don’t think about that part of it. “Girl! Keep paddling!” And she’d lost her PFD. She thought about that: the strobe light, the whistle, the big inflated tube to float her high and keep the water out of her mouth, a lovely bright yellow tube that would glow like the sun in the helicopter’s searchlight.

  Don’t think about how the helicopter might not see her when it arrived. “Stop it! It’s going to find me!”

  She was beyond cold. She wasn’t sure what her arms and legs were doing now, she was only aware of their leaden weight. She’d kicked off her sailing boots and later her jacket, which had made it so difficult to tread water. But now she felt just as heavy in the water. How much easier it would be just to lean back and let it all slip away.

  Her mouth filled with water and she jerked up, thrashing her arms, coughing, then shouted at the sea, “Damn you!”

  How long had it been now? What had happened to time?

  She had a crazy thought: if a person shouts in the middle of the ocean and there’s no one there to hear them, do they actually make a sound?

  Then she panicked a moment when she suddenly felt she’d gone blind. It was so dark she couldn’t tell if her eyes were open. But when she rose on a big wave and kicked hard to look around, she found what looked like sky glow on a horizon. Was the cloud cover lifting? Or was it the glow of distant city lights?

  But it was gone on the next wave crest, and she screamed in frustration.

  You couldn’t live for hours in cold like this. She wondered how she’d even know when she died.

  “Girl! Stop it!”

  She started counting waves to stay focused. As she rose on each crest she shouted its number and looked for the horizon. She could make it to 100, she knew. She would!

  Sometime after 300 she lost track. She felt confused. But she shouted out a number on each wave nonetheless.

  “Seventy!” On the horizon was a tiny red light.

  “Eighty-three!” Was she hallucinating? The red light was back, and just to the left of it was a tiny green dot.

  “Thirty-one! Hey!” She wasn’t crazy after all; there was a red and a green light together. Running lights! A boat, coming at her!

  “Eighteen!” She barely got it out, not sure why she was crying, her voice breaking, the tears running down her wet salty face feeling warm. “God! A boat!”

  She could barely believe it, she would believe it—rising on each crest to see it coming straight on—a light on the masthead now clear, a sailboat! Another sailboat coming home from the races?

  She stopped shouting now, thinking to save her energy until it came closer, but she couldn’t help congratulating herself. “You go, girl!”

  She watched while it came closer.

  At the crest of a big wave she started shouting for all she was worth and heard a man’s voice shout back.

  A minute later they were playing a spotlight over the water and she managed to raise one arm to wave and still tread water with the other. The light found her.

  She discovered she was still counting waves with meaningless numbers.

  They had her aboard for only a few minutes, just long enough to wrap her in blankets, before the first lifeboat arrived, followed soon by a helicopter. One man in the lifeboat had a worried face, and was saying something about it not being good that she wasn’t shivering, and then they had her in a sling and were lifting her up to the helicopter.

  The roar of the blades was like the roar of water beneath the hull and the terror struck again—until the basket was swung inside and the door slammed shut and a warm hand took hers.

  She drifted off, murmuring—they told her later—what sounded like a string of numbers.

  When she was released from the hospital a day later, uninjured, she was able to smile at her friends. When they asked what it was like and how she’d survived more than 2 hours of extreme cold, she could only say that she’d just told herself to.

  The Tether Issue—An Opinion

  I chose the preceding three stories for this chapter because they all involve what many consider a fluke or chance. The sailors who lived or died in these incidents did nothing overtly wrong, regardless of any debate about whether the incident could or could not have been prevented.

  However, these stories do raise issues about using harnesses and tethers and the risk of becoming trapped. Some have suggested that being tethered to a boat adds an unnecessary risk, particularly if the boat turns turtle or if there are a sufficient number of crew aboard to rescue a sailor who goes overboard. Yet an overwhelming number of other incidents, including many in the following chapters, show a greater risk of becoming separated from the boat due to a wide range of circumstances.

  The 21 sailors aboard Rambler who all survived the boat’s sudden capsize all subsequently recommended against using a tether. Consider, however, that the risk of being thrown or washed overboard is, for keelboat sailors, far greater than the risk of having your boat’s keel break off. Even when capsized the boat will generally bob back upright, bringing to the surface a properly tethered sailor.

  Consider also the assumption that a crew overboard will be rescued by sailors still on board. (Obviously this doesn’t apply to singlehanders, as we’ll see in Chapter 10.) Most offshore sailors do wear a PFD—at least sometimes—and have attached to it a strobe light or whistle to make it easier to be found. PLBs are also being used more frequently. Chartplotters almost universally have a crew-overboard button to instantly record the location where someone goes overboard. And most offshore racing and rally rules require carrying a tall crew-overboard pole to be thrown overboard to help mark the location.

  All of this may give the impression that if someone goes over it’s simply a matter of turning the boat to pick them up.

  How safe is it to assume that?

  While this book was being written in 2012, one of the worst American sailing disasters in recent decades occurred during the Farallones Race off San Francisco. An unexpectedly large wave struck a 38-foot boat, sweeping six of the eight crew overboard. Winds were about 25 knots, not unusual for the area, and certainly not storm conditions. All were wearing PFDs. The two still on board immediately focused on getting the others back on the boat when another large wave struck, sending one of them overboard and knocking the boat out of control. Waves soon swept it onto nearby rocks. Immediately an emergency call was made and a Coast Guard rescue effort began. A helicopter rescued three crew and recovered one body.

  An extensive search continued the rest of the afternoon, through the night, and all the next day for the four who were still missing. When there was no longer the slightest hope that they could have survived that long in the frigid water, the Coast Guard discontinued the search after it became obvious no more survivors would be found.

  Several weeks later one of the three survivors wrote a personal account of the disaster to correct inaccuracies in news reports, and he concluded with thoughtful reflections about the importance of using a tether. Like the others, he had not been clipped in and his time in the water had been terrifying. But tethering shouldn’t be a personal choice, he argued, because even one person overboard puts the whole crew at risk when they have to act to attempt a rescue.

  Three months after the incident, the investigation team of U.S. Sailing published its report. Two of the safety issues cited were a “failure of seamanship in negotiating shoal waters on a lee shore” and “inadequate safety gear for offshore conditions,” including the use of appropriate PFDs and tethers. It quoted the U.S. Sailing Prescription recommendation in the ISAF Offshore Special Regulations that tethers should “be employed whenever conditions warrant, and always in rough weather, on cold water, or at night, or under conditions of reduced visibility or when sailing short-handed.”

  CHAPTER 3


  A Good Day’s Sail Goes Bad

  For most sailors, sailing in a good wind on a day with good weather is one of the great joys in life. You’re out in the natural world, feeling the warmth of the sun over the cool of the water, feeling the breeze on your face and the boat’s responses to natural forces, enjoying time away from land and all that entails, enjoying a time either social or solitary—and often feeling a great peacefulness. You may also thrill to the adrenaline of a race or simply the challenge of controlling your boat through continually changing circumstances. There may be as many ways to enjoy sailing as there are sailors; we all have our own experiences and joys. But in the back of our minds we must remember that water is not humans’ natural environment and that whenever we are on the water we are at some risk. This mindfulness isn’t fear and needn’t detract from the pleasure in any way, and can actually enhance the joy of sailing, but it is needed if we are to stay safe in case something unexpected happens. And as these stories show, the unexpected happens often.

  Remember, too, that regardless of how warm the water or air may seem there is always some risk of hypothermia. People in cold water may have as little as 10 minutes of functional movement before losing the effective use of their fingers, arms, and legs, making drowning a risk even for a good swimmer who believes he or she can tread water until rescue arrives.

  Just One Little Mistake

  “Great day for sailing, eh?” Dave was grinning as he came down the dock with his brown lab, Rusty.

  Shannon looked up from the cockpit, smiled, then gestured out at Chesapeake Bay, where not a boat was in sight. “Nice day for December, anyway,” she said.

  Rusty, a good boat dog, bounded down into the cockpit and sniffed the bag that held their lunch.

  The handheld VHF clipped to Dave’s belt was tuned to NOAA weather, and the robotic voice was forecasting a southwest wind of 10 to 15 knots. The report from the nearest automated buoy included an air temperature of 54°F, a water temperature of 47°F, and a chop of 1 to 2 feet.