Alaskan Sea-Duction
Guru
- Joined
- Jul 6, 2012
- Messages
- 8,082
- Location
- USA
- Vessel Name
- Alaskan Sea-Duction
- Vessel Make
- 1988 M/Y Camargue YachtFisher
Most of us arn't going to be 30 miles from shore. What would I do. Say you hit a dead head.( a log floting straight up and down in the water ) With swells they go up and down like a battering ram. Or a thru hull breaks off. Water is coming in.
If I have something like that happen or even a fire.
I am heading for the closest shore. Full speed ahead.
Run her up on the beach. or even the rocks.
I live in Alaska. If you have to go into the water with a PFD and not a survival suit.
The PFD just makes it easy for your body to be found.
sd
Prince William Sound, AK water temp 38 degrees
Atlantic City, NJ water temp 37 degrees
Lake Superior...whatever you ice fishing hut is heated to....
PS-the difference is that in July the NJ water temp will be 70+ and the AK temp 45.
If you read the well written books detailing the 1979 Fastnet Race and the 1998 Sydney Hobart Race where hundreds of boats were blasted with 70 knot plus winds collided with currents creating steep unpredictable waves in excess of 50 feet for over 24 hours, the take away is you don't abandon ship unless you are stepping up into your life raft and you know that your boat is going down because you are satnding on the last floating part of it. As terrifying as it may seem to stay aboard, your boat is a better life raft until it isn't. Many boats abandoned in the Fastnet were later found floating and and were salvaged. A fair few who abandoned these vessels died in their life rafts. The mostly experienced sailors in the moment believed the boats were going down. Wait until you know.
No insult taken psneeld. It may be simplistic, but keeping in mind that your own boat may still be the safest place to be may save your life.
Simple is not necessarily the enemy of survival
The number #1 thing to remember when abandoning ship is that a few of your fellow boaters regard this as an income opportunity and if your boat is found you will pay dearly to get it back. I made the grave mistake of suggesting in another forum that I would simply give the boat back without seeking legal salvage rights and I was nearly run off the forum. It was a real eye opener and I'm curious about my fellow boaters here. In this case the solo sailor had a medical emergency and was airlifted off his boat, it was subsequently found drifting a few miles off shore & towed to port by a fishing boat. No matter what the circumstance's were, medical emergency or not and whether I had a legal right or not, I would never hold another mans boat for ransom.
I might help myself to a beer or two in his fridge but he would get his boat back without a price tag attached.
(I'm talking fellow boater to fellow boater here, not professional salvage operators lucky enough to find it or called to tow it, that completely changes the paradigm)
all the more reason to cruise where your "top heavy" trawler so you never get caught in weather that will capsize you....if that means never being more than 50NM away from a port, cove, anchorage etc...then that's the way many coastal cruisers in non-bluewater boats do it.