AUS126 said..
A self inflating life jacket may save your life if you fall in the water unconscious for whatever reason. My advice is practice how to deflate it. I had one go off on me in the surf and it rendered me pretty much useless. I couldn't get it off quick enough. I haven't done any man overboard training, but inflated it would make pulling yourself back up on a boat or dinghy pretty difficult.

if dinghy sailing wear a soid foam type designed for that use .

in a life raft situation , the strongest nimblest crew gets in first , then helps the next in , then two help the next in ect . the three dunks method grab them buy them under the arms one dunk two dunk three in to the raft . it is difficult !!
so rule # 1 is dont end up in the water.

Personal, I use a lighweight water skiing L/J, offshore.
The comfort factor overrides other factors for me.

SandS said..

But will I? Where is the evidence? And how much better is the chance?

Yes, the guys who never spend much time in the water may have a significantly better chance of survival. But that is not all of us.

Yes you will . The evidence is in any story you have ever heard , where the MOB was wearing a pfd and survived . As opposed to any story you have ever heard , where the MOB was not wearing a pfd and perished.
Even only one account of each event, [ and i know there are many more of the latter] should be enough for you to decide which action will give you a much better chance.of survival ,if you do end up in the water.

You may may wish to role the dice , and back yourself in, to tread water for hours waiting for rescue . But please don't encourage anyone reading this to follow your gambling habits.

PFD were not designed to hang in the locker , there is another fact .

Sorry, that is not logical. The fact that person A was wearing a PFD and survived is NOT proof that the PFD was a factor in their survival.
The fact that person B was not wearing a PFD and died is NOT proof that they would have survived if they wore a PFD. For example, in the 1998 Hobart and 1979 Fastnet several people drowned with PFDs on. Therefore there is not evidence in every story.

The fact that some people who are not good in the water and may be offshore or in cold conditions drown without a PFD does not mean that a person who spends a lot of time in the water and is within a few hundred metres of shore on warm water is likely to drown without a PFD.

You seem to be assuming that I'm ignorant, which is pretty odd considering I have been keenly following safety at sea for 40 years. The opposite is true - I have spent years studying safety at sea and working as an accident investigator and therefore I don't like ignoring the reality of risks. Those realities include the fact that human beings obsess about unlikely risks and ignore more important chronic ones, and that we fall into errors like risk compensation. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation

About gambling - you have an increased risk of death today if you do not wear a helmet when driving home from work. Are you going to gamble by doing that? You may wish to roll the dice, and back yourself in, to protect your head in a car or bus crash. But please don't encourage anyone to follow your gambling habits.

Are you going to dice with death by having some wine or beer tonight? That's a gamble, because even moderate drinking increases your chance of death. Are you going to eat some steak? That's a gamble - recent studies are indicating that even a little bit of red meat increases your chances of death? Are you going to not exercise today - that's a gamble because not exercising increases your risk of death.

The point is simple - if you are going to run certain risks it is illogical to scold others for running other risks of similar or lesser magnitude - especially when some of us specifically take measures to alleviate the risk in other ways and when concentrating on one risk (which can easily be made to be extremely unlikely) can cause people to compensate or overlook other risks.

You gamble every time you go on the water. You gamble every time you get into a dinghy, hoist a sail on your yacht and head offshore. You gamble every time you hoist the main and let the mainsheet run. Why do you assume that your gambling is fine and mine is not.

May I ask the last time you tried to get back aboard your own boat unaided? How did it go? Have you proven that your normal crew can get back on board? How did the MOB drill go last time you. tried it on your boat? If you have not done those things aren't you running a serious risk yourself?

May I ask whether you remember about Harvey Bagnall? Do you remember the Tom Curnow story? Do you remember the crewman in the Wednesday race aboard WIngs III? Do you remember Peter Taylor? Do you remember Ray Crawford? If your answer is "no" then you may be running or ignoring a serious risk yourself.

This is a complex, multi-faceted subject and simplistic thinking is not the answer.

Chris249 said..

AUS126 said..
A self inflating life jacket may save your life if you fall in the water unconscious for whatever reason. My advice is practice how to deflate it. I had one go off on me in the surf and it rendered me pretty much useless. I couldn't get it off quick enough. I haven't done any man overboard training, but inflated it would make pulling yourself back up on a boat or dinghy pretty difficult.

A self inflating PFD will normally NOT save your life if you fall in the water unconscious. As I noted earlier, that's an accepted fact. As one source says ""If you are unconscious in the water and being supported by a life jacket in any kind of seaway, it is unlikely that you will not ingest water into your lungs and drown....Using a PFD at sea requires the deployment of a spray hood or holding both hands cupped together over the mouth and nose to enable breathing without seawater entering the lungs. An unconscious person is supported by an auto inflate PFD but cannot perform these acts to ensure survival." www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/2016/08/29/great-inflatable-pfd-debate-manual-vs-automatic/

As the Life Jacket Association says " Not all life jackets will turn the wearer face up. A Type I will have the greatest potential to turn the wearer. Type II's will turn some people face up."

As a USCG source says "most of the more comfortable PFDs - those labeled as Type III or some Type V PFDs - will not turn an unconscious victim face up, at least not consistently. .......Once a boater is in the water, waves continuously splashing over the victim's mouth cause a small amount of water to be ingested, some of which may enter the lungs. ......Eventually those mouth immersions do the same thing as having the boater's face in the water: they eventually cause the boater to drown. It is an awful and terribly protracted way to die, but it does happen. No PFD, not even a SOLAS-certified PFD, can prevent all mouth immersions.

This is part of the reason I'm cautious about the "always wear a PFD" message; it can foster a false sense of security. It also promotes the message that sailing is dangerous, and it is normally is NOT a dangerous sport. What is far more dangerous to modern Australians is inactivity and other hazards.

Public safety messages have to be simple to be most effective.

I read a while back that the "2 middies in the first hour..." was considered too complex an advertising slogan and now it's just "don't drink and drive". Helps Joe Average make a better decision, better to not drink at all than try and calculate how many beers you can have in a hour.

Id hardly expect a broad based boating safety message to be anything but very simple.

Chris249 said..

SandS said..

But will I? Where is the evidence? And how much better is the chance?

Yes, the guys who never spend much time in the water may have a significantly better chance of survival. But that is not all of us.

Yes you will . The evidence is in any story you have ever heard , where the MOB was wearing a pfd and survived . As opposed to any story you have ever heard , where the MOB was not wearing a pfd and perished.
Even only one account of each event, [ and i know there are many more of the latter] should be enough for you to decide which action will give you a much better chance.of survival ,if you do end up in the water.

You may may wish to role the dice , and back yourself in, to tread water for hours waiting for rescue . But please don't encourage anyone reading this to follow your gambling habits.

PFD were not designed to hang in the locker , there is another fact .

Sorry, that is not logical. The fact that person A was wearing a PFD and survived is NOT proof that the PFD was a factor in their survival.
The fact that person B was not wearing a PFD and died is NOT proof that they would have survived if they wore a PFD. For example, in the 1998 Hobart and 1979 Fastnet several people drowned with PFDs on. Therefore there is not evidence in every story.

The fact that some people who are not good in the water and may be offshore or in cold conditions drown without a PFD does not mean that a person who spends a lot of time in the water and is within a few hundred metres of shore on warm water is likely to drown without a PFD.

You seem to be assuming that I'm ignorant, which is pretty odd considering I have been keenly following safety at sea for 40 years. The opposite is true - I have spent years studying safety at sea and working as an accident investigator and therefore I don't like ignoring the reality of risks. Those realities include the fact that human beings obsess about unlikely risks and ignore more important chronic ones, and that we fall into errors like risk compensation. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation

About gambling - you have an increased risk of death today if you do not wear a helmet when driving home from work. Are you going to gamble by doing that? You may wish to roll the dice, and back yourself in, to protect your head in a car or bus crash. But please don't encourage anyone to follow your gambling habits.

Are you going to dice with death by having some wine or beer tonight? That's a gamble, because even moderate drinking increases your chance of death. Are you going to eat some steak? That's a gamble - recent studies are indicating that even a little bit of red meat increases your chances of death? Are you going to not exercise today - that's a gamble because not exercising increases your risk of death.

The point is simple - if you are going to run certain risks it is illogical to scold others for running other risks of similar or lesser magnitude - especially when some of us specifically take measures to alleviate the risk in other ways and when concentrating on one risk (which can easily be made to be extremely unlikely) can cause people to compensate or overlook other risks.

You gamble every time you go on the water. You gamble every time you get into a dinghy, hoist a sail on your yacht and head offshore. You gamble every time you hoist the main and let the mainsheet run. Why do you assume that your gambling is fine and mine is not.

May I ask the last time you tried to get back aboard your own boat unaided? How did it go? Have you proven that your normal crew can get back on board? How did the MOB drill go last time you. tried it on your boat? If you have not done those things aren't you running a serious risk yourself?

May I ask whether you remember about Harvey Bagnall? Do you remember the Tom Curnow story? Do you remember the crewman in the Wednesday race aboard WIngs III? Do you remember Peter Taylor? Do you remember Ray Crawford? If your answer is "no" then you may be running or ignoring a serious risk yourself.

This is a complex, multi-faceted subject and simplistic thinking is not the answer.

Sorry Chris ,i,m a simple person . I think the simple answer is for people to
1 look after their boat and crew.
2 if caught out by weather , Slow the boat down
3 stay on the boat by hook or by crook , Harness !
4 if you do end up in the water, be wearing a PFD

It may be to early (or uninformed) to comment on the recent deaths of 2 surf lifesavers near Port Campbell in a botched rescue. However media reports emphasised that they died despite wearing life jackets... My first thought when I saw footage was that a life jacket would be about the last thing I'd want to be wearing in that situation. Like others above, I often wear a combined harness (type 1) PFD, but I strongly believe it is my choice if and when it should be worn - ad that there is as much chance of it taking my life as saving it (ie Storm Bay, where its mostly a cliff lined lee shore).
Horses for courses.

All@Sea said..
It may be to early (or uninformed) to comment on the recent deaths of 2 surf lifesavers near Port Campbell in a botched rescue. However media reports emphasised that they died despite wearing life jackets... My first thought when I saw footage was that a life jacket would be about the last thing I'd want to be wearing in that situation. Like others above, I often wear a combined harness (type 1) PFD, but I strongly believe it is my choice if and when it should be worn - ad that there is as much chance of it taking my life as saving it (ie Storm Bay, where its mostly a cliff lined lee shore).
Horses for courses.

Given the location it is highly likely those poor blokes were bashed around on the rocks. It's probably not meaningful to compare that with this thread's discussion, which deals with an open-water situation.

A good Gath helmet, like the surfers use, could be a life saver.

Trying not to became prolix, the use of a quality PFD with strobe light and a PLB in most conditions, especially for a single hander is just common sense. Period.

shaggybaxter said..
Regards the difficulty getting back on......a slight deviation from the pfd for a tic.
We had a two day race a few weekends ago, where Saturday night is a raft up, bbq and sleep on the boats or drop a swag on the ground. It was about 9-10pm and there's a crowd in the cockpit waiting for the next rib. The transom safety lines were unclipped for the rib, but some numpty had left the lowest one on. I stepped back, half tripped on it and in I went, just after I had put on shoes, trackkies , flanno and a big woolly jumper over my sailing gear!
The first thing I noticed bobbing around in the water was the added weight, I was floating comfortably but with my nose and mouth well underwater. Hmm...I'd be expending energy just trying to stay afloat let alone swim anywhere.
The second thing was realising how much added bouyancy your wet weather gear gives you (which I wasn't wearing), I could swim ok but sloow and I had to work to keep my head up. I felt really discombobulated, I was working hard but only getting a minimal return, like swimming in molasses.

In the middle of the transom is one stanchion, so I grabbed that and got a foot up onto the deck, one big heave and I'll roll up and onto the deck, my wounded pride ignoring the outstretched hands . As I cleared the water I honestly felt like somebody attached a weight belt, the sopping wet clothes pulling me up too short. I then stupidly tried tea bagging myself....word of advice, bouyancy needed for this to work, and wet jumpers and tracksuit pants give you negative bouyancy. I looked like I was trying to drown
I scrabbled around a bit before finally accepting the proffered hands, and I got hauled over the transom like a prize tuna. All good, we had a good laugh, removed the lower lifeline and a rum warmed the edges off the chill.

I could have used the rope ladder in the transom of course, but the main point I suppose is not to underestimate the importance of how a good (not necessarily expensive) set of jacket and pants can assist you too.
.

And to add to that , i was worried that sea boots would be a heavy drag down . But they are really buoyant . Good in a couple of ways, helps swimming , and helps to float / tread water, in a weird sort of oh **** i,m flipping upside down sort of way .

Good points, Shaggy and SandS.

In one of the MOB incidents I mentioned earlier, a very, very experienced guy came off a boat sailed by a very, very experienced crew (no names) at night off Sydney without a PFD. He said that his very good wet weather gear gave a surprising amount of flotation and he was never in any trouble floating. One strange thing about that was that he had an ocean front home and fell overboard in front of it. He was splashing about in the dark offshore, looking at his own house lights.

One thing about wet weather gear is its protection against hypothermia. Many years ago one hypothermia researcher seems to have developed the first anti-hypothermia float jacket, with buoyancy and insulation around the high heat-loss area of the crotch etc, but they seem to have vanished.

He actually also reckoned the best cure by a long way was to get out of the water on a tiny one-man raft you carried in your pocket and blew up with your mouth. These days you can get packrafts that weigh 1-3kg and can sometimes take white water rapids. It would be interesting to look into carrying one in a bum bag as a way to dramatically increase your survival chances; even a K-mart raft would be a dramatic improvement over the best PFD in terms of beating hypothermia.

Chris I remember that hypothermia jacket. Had one for my first S to H. It was called "Thermofloat". Had wet suit type material in all the right places and built in crotch strap.

Datawiz said..

SandS said..
And just a addendum from me in case i haven't mention this before . For those that are not aware , a crotch strap is a must if you end up in the water and deploy a PFD . without one of those the PFD will float up around your head and your body will go down lower , drastically lowering the benefits of the PFD.

Thanks for reminding me about that gotcha S&S.
Also, I know personally of a case where two guys on board grabbed the MOB by his harness and retrieved only his harness - leaving him in the water.
Of course, the other reason for crotch straps is when your to be hoisted into a rescuing helicopter.
regards to all
ALLAN

No helicopter is going to pick you up by your safety harness, you will be picked up by the equipment fitted to the helo whether that be a strop that fits under your armpits or a Billy Pugh style net that you clamber into.
Never during the time that I was a SAR winch operator did I ever pick up anyone by their harness. I'm not saying it can't be done, but that's not how rescue at sea works, you use the system that works first time every time even if it means a diver has to jump into the water to assist you.

I will put a life vest on when the ship is sinking and the captain gives me the order to do so , although most Times I'm the captain so there forth I must give orders to one self and crew at the time of danger.

LooseChange said..

Datawiz said..

SandS said..
And just a addendum from me in case i haven't mention this before . For those that are not aware , a crotch strap is a must if you end up in the water and deploy a PFD . without one of those the PFD will float up around your head and your body will go down lower , drastically lowering the benefits of the PFD.

Thanks for reminding me about that gotcha S&S.
Also, I know personally of a case where two guys on board grabbed the MOB by his harness and retrieved only his harness - leaving him in the water.
Of course, the other reason for crotch straps is when your to be hoisted into a rescuing helicopter.
regards to all
ALLAN

No helicopter is going to pick you up by your safety harness, you will be picked up by the equipment fitted to the helo whether that be a strop that fits under your armpits or a Billy Pugh style net that you clamber into.
Never during the time that I was a SAR winch operator did I ever pick up anyone by their harness. I'm not saying it can't be done, but that's not how rescue at sea works, you use the system that works first time every time even if it means a diver has to jump into the water to assist you.

Of course - what you say makes sense LC, thanks for the correction.
regards,
allan

LooseChange said..

Datawiz said..

SandS said..
And just a addendum from me in case i haven't mention this before . For those that are not aware , a crotch strap is a must if you end up in the water and deploy a PFD . without one of those the PFD will float up around your head and your body will go down lower , drastically lowering the benefits of the PFD.

Thanks for reminding me about that gotcha S&S.
Also, I know personally of a case where two guys on board grabbed the MOB by his harness and retrieved only his harness - leaving him in the water.
Of course, the other reason for crotch straps is when your to be hoisted into a rescuing helicopter.
regards to all
ALLAN

No helicopter is going to pick you up by your safety harness, you will be picked up by the equipment fitted to the helo whether that be a strop that fits under your armpits or a Billy Pugh style net that you clamber into.
Never during the time that I was a SAR winch operator did I ever pick up anyone by their harness. I'm not saying it can't be done, but that's not how rescue at sea works, you use the system that works first time every time even if it means a diver has to jump into the water to assist you.

Did we serve together on 723 sqn at ALBATROSS?