The Figure-8: Return to a Person Overboard
Quick summary
The figure-8 is the man overboard return taught in Australian Sailing safety courses and reflected in AMSA recreational guidance, and it is run as a drill rather than a theory item.
It works because the loop delivers you back on a close reach, where easing the sheets stops the boat beside the person instead of carrying you over the top of them.
The how-to
Shout and point, throw flotation, bear away onto a beam reach, turn back through the wind, then approach on a close reach and ease everything to stop with the person to windward.
Most sailors can draw a figure-8 on a whiteboard, yet the same sailors arrive at the swimmer on a run, doing five knots, with nothing left to slow the boat.
The shape is not the point, and treating it as a shape is the reason the manoeuvre falls apart in real breeze.
You are not drawing an eight on the water, you are buying a close reach, because a close reach is the only approach angle that gives you a brake.
Preparation: the gear and the briefing
Flotation lives within arm's reach, so a life ring or cushion can go over the side in the first two seconds without anyone leaving the cockpit.
Check that your boarding ladder actually deploys under load, because a transom ladder that jams is no help to a cold, heavy crew member in wet clothing.
Have a long floating line coiled and ready, plus a spare halyard you can shackle to a harness or a strop if someone cannot climb.
If you carry a GPS with a man overboard function, know which button it is by feel rather than hunting through menus while the boat heels.
Brief your crew before you leave the ramp or the mooring, naming one person as the spotter and one as the thrower.
Practise in 10 to 15 knots in open water rather than a crowded harbour, where other traffic turns a simple drill into a hazard.
Check the breeze before you commit to a session, and a look at the Hobart wind forecast or your local equivalent tells you whether the afternoon stays inside your gybing range.
Initiation: the first ten seconds
Shout it loud, calling "man overboard" so every crew member stops what they are doing and looks at the helm.
One person points at the swimmer and never looks away, with no other job, no sheet to ease and no fender to stow.
Throw flotation immediately, even if the person is a strong swimmer, because the ring marks the position as well as supporting them.
Hit the GPS man overboard button if it is fitted and note the time, since drift adds up fast and your memory of the spot will not.
Do not jump in after them unless you are the nominated swimmer, wearing a PFD, tethered to a line, and the boat is under control.
Commitment: bearing away and sailing the loop
Bear away from whatever point of sail you were on until you are sailing roughly across the wind on a beam reach.
Hold that reach for four to six boat lengths, which on a 7 m trailer-sailer is around 30 to 40 metres of water.
That distance is the whole trick, because it buys the room to turn back and still have a close-reach approach left to sail.
Choose tack or gybe honestly, turning through the wind instead if the breeze is more than you can control downwind with a loaded mainsail.
On a club keelboat in 18 knots, a tack costs a few extra metres and saves you a broken vang, a flogging boom or an injured crew member.
Keep the spotter pointing through the turn, because this is the moment most crews lose sight of the person in the chop and never find them again.
Execution: the close reach and the stop
Come out of the turn aiming below the swimmer, then work up until the wind is forward of the beam and the sails are only just drawing.
You want the person up to windward of your bow as you close, so the boat finishes to leeward of them with the hull acting as shelter.
Ease the mainsheet and jib sheet together and the boat slows, because a close reach lets you spill power without changing course.
Aim to stop with the person beside the windward quarter or at the transom ladder, inside the reach of a hand and a line.
If you are early, ease more and let the boat drift the last few metres rather than steering a late, fast correction.
If you are late, do not grab for the engine, because sheets and the thrown line are already in the water around your propeller.
Recovery: getting them back aboard
If you do start the engine, keep it in neutral as you close, and only engage once someone confirms every line is clear of the propeller.
Get a line onto the person first, attached to the boat and to them, before anyone tries lifting anything.
Use the ladder if they can climb, and rig a halyard to a strop or harness if they cannot, hoisting with the boat flat.
Expect dead weight, because wet clothing and cold muscles turn an 80 kg crew member into a load that two people struggle to manage.
Treat for cold once they are aboard, getting them horizontal, out of the wind and into dry layers even on a warm Australian afternoon.
Failure diagnosis: what went wrong
Nobody was pointing, so the crew sailed a tidy loop back to an empty patch of water and began a search instead of a recovery.
You gybed back too soon, which drops you onto a broad reach or a run with no way to dump power and no brake left.
You arrived too fast, so the swimmer saw a bow coming at three knots and had to fend off rather than grab on.
You gybed in breeze you could not control, and the loaded mainsail took charge of the boat at the worst possible moment.
You stopped to windward, so the boat drifted down onto the person instead of holding station to leeward of them.
You started the engine with sheets over the side, and a fouled propeller removed the option you were counting on.
Run the drill with a fender and a weighted bucket until the approach angle feels automatic, then compare notes with other sailors in the Seabreeze forums .
