FreeRadical said..

Ramona said..

FreeRadical said..
Does anybody know if Aus rescue aircraft (fixed wing and helicopter) have AIS capability? Those personal AIS transmitters look like a very good investment.

Why would they. Are you thinking about Epirbs?

Because many Epirbs don't have GPS which means a longer fix time and less accuracy and it's another tool to help locate boat/person.

Coastwatch aircraft must have AIS as they have called us up on VHF off the Northwest coast way before overflying us.

I think you may need to refresh yourself on what AIS actually is.

www.thecoastalpassage.com/ais.html

A PLB / EPIRB would be applicable if you want to alert the remote rescue services to your situation. Without GPS the PLB locates you to around 4 km. GPS gets this down to about 20 m. For less that the cost of a tank of petrol, I would only buy a PLB with the GPS.

AIS would help if the boat you fall off is fitted with AIS, and someone on the boat knows to come looking for you, and knows how to use the system. I do not think that you can send a general emergency alarm through AIS, so other boats in the area may see the AIS signal but not know to come looking. (someone please tell me if this is wrong?)

For me, I think that the PLB covers more situations, so this is what I use.

an extract from one of the manufacturers blurbs

The Easy Rescue is a personal Automatic Identification System transmitting beacon. With a built in GPS it transmits an emergency AIS-SART sentence (MOB) which triggers an alarm on all AIS enabled chart plotters / PC’s within range, along with the Lat/Long of the victim. The GPS is a new generation fast acquiring type and the VHF AIS transmitter repeats the message and position several times per minute. This enables all vessels within range to assist with the rescue if they have an AIS receiver or transponder.

this obviously will not fully replace an epirb

MOB, it is s....t sytuation for only person on board. In Tulak case, I was unable to claim aboard by myself (unasisted). Now Tulak is equiped with two folding laders (port/stboard). If my swiming capabilities will owercome boat progres, one pull on either lader rope will unfold it and I will call it MIRACLE /SALVATION In my opinion relalyng on and wait for it "outside help" is wery risky. Spare moment for my filosophy: why one invest ewery cent to make their boat as safe as pasible (boat, crew, living standards) and than insure it for max payout in case of falure ???. Why insurance is insisting and opinionating on your boat seawortnes and do not reduce premium according to implimented safe guards???
gess, subject get me roling. Why? With superb EPIRB why do we need flares( 6 for NSW and 4for QLD). Imagine: boat is teaking water, do you activate flare?... No boats around to asist. More lakely you already activated EPIRB and DDS(speling) and wait for "lift up". What a pitty.
Old fashion (in the past it was Man) person.

LMY said..
A PLB / EPIRB would be applicable if you want to alert the remote rescue services to your situation. Without GPS the PLB locates you to around 4 km. GPS gets this down to about 20 m. For less that the cost of a tank of petrol, I would only buy a PLB with the GPS.

AIS would help if the boat you fall off is fitted with AIS, and someone on the boat knows to come looking for you, and knows how to use the system. I do not think that you can send a general emergency alarm through AIS, so other boats in the area may see the AIS signal but not know to come looking. (someone please tell me if this is wrong?)

For me, I think that the PLB covers more situations, so this is what I use.

Yeah I agree, the most appropriate personal alerting safety device is currently a GPS equipped PLB! no brainer.

But, I think AIS-SART is not to be discarded for cruisers/racers and may well be in many circumstance, the life saving (rescuing) device. Within a year or so I think we will be seeing a PLB/GPS/AIS-SART combined devices on the market. Maybe I should submit a patent, but I think I'm too late.

FreeRadical said..

Yeah I agree, the most appropriate personal alerting safety device is currently a GPS equipped PLB! no brainer.

There is no disputing that but I don't want to be in the water that long. I think I would be a corpse by then.

A person's best chance of survival of MOB is by being rescued by the vessel he fell off, hence my posting about knowing how to heave to.

You might say that is fine if there are others on board to heave it to if you are in the drink.

Well guess what. If you are single handing and fall overboard it is possible to heave the yacht to from the water. How?? Trail a trip line attached to the tiller and rigged for whichever tack you are on.

If you fall in and grab that line, you will STOP THE YACHT.

cisco said..

MorningBird said..

It was gybing out of the heave to that broke my boom last year. We didn't have the boom fully centred but probably as much as many boats close hauled would have it. The boom crashed across about 18" and away went the main sheet block on the end of the boom.
In this situation there is no need to gybe, just tack through leaving the headsail sheet where it is and pull the tiller to leeward once through the tack. A lot less load on the boat and you are heaved to.

I get what you are saying but not your last sentence. From what you have told me before, the whips were cracking at the time and as I was not there, I do not qualify for comment.

So let's say we are on a fin keeler close hauled on a port tack going well but not over canvassed and the wind is say 20 knots.

We decide to heave to for lunch.

The jib and main sheets are cleated and the traveller is locked in it's position, be it midships or a bit to leeward, but definitely fixed in position.

The yacht is steered hard over to the rudder stop to leeward and locked in position. The first thing is the main will flick through the gybe with little jolt to anything, closely followed by the jib back winding and that sail or it's sheet laying over the shrouds.

The yacht stops in it's track, sits almost upright and everything seems relatively calm, so we have lunch, clean up have a coffee and decide to get going again.

So we were on a port tack but now we are on a back winded starboard tack. The question is which way do we want to go.

In order to exit the hove to mode we obviously have to release the helm and then steer, but which way???? Think this one out and picture it in your mind and don't forget it is blowing 20 knots. Before we hove to we were doing fine on a port tack so therefore if it is still 20 knots, the sail we have up and it's sheeting is fine with no need for change.

If we wish to continue on our previous course, steer the yacht hard to leeward (ie to port as we are on a stbd tack) again as we did when we hove to and she will come back onto that tack. The main will flick through the gybe as previously with no drama, the jib will flick off the shrouds, the yacht will heel a bit as it rounds up onto the beat. Sail the boat.

If however we wish to stay on the stbd tack and head back home, we just steer midships, ease the jib sheet stbd and sheet on port. Sail the boat.


Comments and or critique on this are invited.

I agree that stopping the boat is the number one action. In my various courses we went through figure of eight recoveries etc which I think are fine for big racing boats with lots of crew and no hope of stopping immediately. For most of us, stop the boat NOW.

I also agree with FreeRadical, why gybe through 160 degrees when you can tack through 60.

If you are going to heave to with a gybe, only in lighter winds and you need to judge that wind strength finely. I had habitually gybed out of the heave to (usually I had heaved to for lunch or just to stop the boat for a brew) and that is what I did at Lord Howe. The habit was a bad one.

We had between 0 kts in the troughs and 40+ on the crests and the gybe occurred on the crest (it was planned for somewhere in the trough but it just didn't happen). A main sheeted in tight will still have 12-24" of travel at the end of the boom depending on the sheet arrangement. In 40 kts the 18-24" MB's boom moved placed an enormous load on the system and the block went. The main did not flick through with little jolt like it does at 15-20 kts, the bang of the boom gybing scared the s..t out of me even before I realized it had gone. Havefun was probably ok as he had his hearing turned off . We had it reefed right down but the loads were enormous.

A second issue is that having gybed in strong winds with the main sheeted in tight you are set up for a broach as the main fills and tries to swing the boat around. In a gybe it is normal practice to get the main sheet out very quickly to avoid the broach. So if you are gybing to heave you want to be bloody quick on easing the main sheet or you may be in more trouble than the MOB.

My view, always practice what you would do in extremis so you don't develop bad habits like mine. I will always tack through in strong winds. In under 15 kts I can gybe MB with one hand on the main sheet to ease it across. In 30 kts the wind force is 4 times that at 15 kts. At 40 kts it is 8 times the force.

Tacking doesn't strain the boat anywhere near as much as gybing and in anything over 15 kts the boat doesn't need the strain.

Ramona said..

RiffRaff said..
Why would he need to refresh , do you think it is not possible to receive the AIS signal in the air

I am sure that is possible but how many yachts have transmitting AIS, some have receivers. The local rescue association use DF receivers and home into targets from their radio transmissions. This gives just a bearing of course but with the base station and vessels they get a fix. Aircraft use the same system.

digitalyacht.net/2013/06/11/is-my-ais-transponder-transmitting/

If you happened to fall off your pride and joy while sailing alone, and you happened to have the auto pilot running and you happened to have a remote clipped to you person.......?

On the other hand, if you were clever enough to clip the remote to your person, l guess you would have been clever enough to have your PFD with a PLB and harness on and you would have been clipped on too and you would not have fallen off in the first place.

The possibilities are endless...

Here is a usefull bit of gear. I would like to have about twice as much length in the tag line tho.



Cheers John

cisco said..

FreeRadical said..


To place the idea of your self rescuing yacht configuration above other safety devices/skills is pure crazy!

I don't recall suggesting that at all.

What I do suggest is that one has the full array of safety devices, not all of which are electronic, and that the first line of defence in an MOB situation is to STOP THE YACHT by whatever means possible.

+100.

I've used the trailing rope idea as has at least one very experienced cruiser I know. We've only tried it in practice, luckily. It worked then.

Are there any statistics on the course to the wind when a MOB occurs, generally I would have thought going in to the wind is the least likely time to loose a man.
There are not many reasons to leave cockpit when into the wind.

but in heavy seas, broaching downwind, putting up kites etc, much more likely and much harder to come to a stop and get back to MOB?

knight said..

Gravy7 said...
Here is a question for the brains trust: How do you heave to on a yacht with a self-tacking jib?

Having never used one, take my advice with a grain of salt, however;
Judging from the pictures, i would say the only way to do it would be to run a spare sheet (or two) back to the cockpit, you would not use these for normal sailing but if you wanted to heave to, tie the appropriate one off and then heave to as you would in a yacht with a normal headsail.

Yes, I agree. That would work. It's messy though and would be a nightmare to keep untangled. The simple way, if it was a planned heave-to and conditions permitted, would be to go forward, tie off the jib car to the traveller track and then gybe around as Cisco has suggested.

But the time required for all that is sufficient to rule out his 'pull the tiller to windward and lock it' as a crash stop MOB strategy for yachts with self-tacking jibs. You would have sailed way past the MOB.

The good news for short handed self-tackers is that a figure 8 manoeuvre is much easier - which is why we have them in the first place!

Some years ago, two of us sailed an H28 to Noumea. I said to me friend before we set off, 'don't fall overboard. You'll die.'
We both wore harnesses, and every time I left the cockpit (to change/reef headsails, main, etc) I crawled on my hands and knees.
I hung on and unclipped behind me and clipped on in front. Didn't matter if it was at night or during the day.
We stood in the companionway and clipped on outside before climbing into the cockpit.
Once you fall overboard, your chances of survival are greatly reduced.
If you have more than one person left on board, then it is someone's duty to watch the person in the water.
It is amazing how quickly people disappear.
But, as someone said a lot above- please don't fall overboard.

nods said..
Are there any statistics on the course to the wind when a MOB occurs, generally I would have thought going in to the wind is the least likely time to loose a man.
There are not many reasons to leave cockpit when into the wind.

but in heavy seas, broaching downwind, putting up kites etc, much more likely and much harder to come to a stop and get back to MOB?

In that scenario I think it would be best to smartly round up into the wind sheet the main hard on, get rid of the kite and motor up to the MOB.

Probably best to get rid of the kite first by firing the sheet. (I always have snap shackles on my kite sheets.)