DIY marina rescue sling
A dunking gets Stu Davies thinking
A week after the sobering experience my friends had of falling in the water in Albufeira Marina, I went in as well!
It’s a salutary reminder that it can happen to us all on a nice sunny day while being as sober as a judge.
I had a new pair of glasses, bifocals, just before going to Portugal and wasn’t yet used to them. My boat is moored stern to the pontoon, easy access on and off. But this time it wasn’t. I stepped on to what I thought was the sugar scoop but in actual fact it was mid air, my glasses had fooled my eyes. In I went, the water was cold, even though the air temperature was 22°C. I wrenched my hip.
My wife, Laura, was there like a shot, I grabbed the edge of the pontoon and held on while she sorted things out. I’m too big, she couldn’t get me out on my own and the stern drop down ladder couldn’t be deployed because we were too close to the pontoon to unfold it.
The escape ladders for the marina were on the other side of the pontoon, and I wasn’t going to swim there – my hip was hurting.
My neighbours were on the scene in seconds but it took three people to grab hold and lift me out.
I was out, shocked, aching and a bit battered.
So what to do in a situation like that in the future?
We have one of those MOB throw bags and a horseshoe but in the confined space between the sugar scoop and the pontoon, not very good.
I have an excess of safety lines on board and we’d bought a swimming noodle a few days before to make some stainless tube padding. The bit left over was just the right size to fit under a casualty’s arms.
I fitted a safety lanyard through the middle of the noodle and then clipped on a stainless clip. I had a bit of 10mm line left over from a project so I tied that to it. This little contraption now sits in the handy locker in the cockpit. All we have to do is slip it over the victim’s head and under their armpits. Then there is a secure, relatively comfortable padded sling to pull on. The 10mm line is long enough to reach any of the winches if needed.