Getting the casualty back on board
osing someone overboard is probably one of the most common incidents onboard a sailing yacht, but it’s also the one most people studiously ignore! When was the last time you practised your MOB drill? Do you even have one? Could your partner get you back on board when you’re wet through, or unconscious even?
There are a hundred different ways of tackling an MOB situation, but the most important factor is planning. Devise a way that suits you and your regular crew and then practise it in a variety of weather conditions. We all know about throwing lines, Danbuoys and horseshoe buoys and lights, but are there better devices for marking an MOB?
Firstly, bear in mind your own visibility. Forgetting smart electronics, a lifejacket with a high-viz hood will not only keep the spray from your face, but it’ll also make you ten times more visible in the water – day and night. Likewise a bright flashing white strobe light, mounted as high as possible on your lifejacket, will enable you to be spotted up to two miles away, although you’ll still need a powerful portable spotlight to hand when you get closer to avoid actually running the MOB over.
In daylight, a floating orange smoke flare kept near the helm and deployed as soon as possible after the MOB has gone over will help you look in vaguely the right direction once you’ve taken your eyes off the casualty
Lto sort the boat out; it might even attract other nearby craft too.
A large number of cruising yachts are sailed with just two on board these days, which makes many of these precautions an absolute must. Once you’ve returned to the MOB, the real hard part begins – how do you get them back onboard? There’s a plethora of devices marketed for this purpose – some useful, some not. In 25 years of testing marine safety kit for leisure craft I think I’ve probably tried them all, but there’s not one that I would call the panacea of MOB retrieval.
Firstly, it depends on crew numbers, or whether 90 percent of your sailing is done as a man-and-wife team. With enough strong crew, often all you need is sheer brute strength and a little aid from a few simple devices such as a padded sling. If your partner is slightly built and you’re the opposite you’ll need to have pre-planned each step of the operation and have practised with both the method and the apparatus.
The most popular method is to attach a parbuckle to the toe rail amidships (where movement is least), position the victim over it and haul/roll them aboard under the guard wires using a tackle on the outer edge. The parbuckle can simply be an old hank-on jib sail, which just about works but doesn’t sink very easily. Alternatively, there are purposemade porous netting devices such as the Kim Pick-up Sail or the Jason’s Cradle, both of which sink below the surface aiding access for the casualty. A further advantage of this method is that the victim is lifted horizontally, which is now recommended to avoid sudden shock as the blood rushes to the feet, but getting them onboard quickly is your priority.
If you can afford it I think the best device is the Jon Buoy, which is basically a selfinflating mini liferaft and Dan buoy that is designed to be hauled back on board with the victim safely aboard.