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may 2018cruisingworld.comIronically, despite all this attention to safety and detail, at one point I lost my ball cap to a gust
of wind — and we collectively failed miserably at our attempt to retrieve it.BY MARK PILLSBURYEditor’s Log
S
everal years ago, a friend
who’s an accomplished and
thorough skipper was pre-
paring to sail his boat to the
Caribbean for the winter. Several
of us who would be involved with
one leg of the voyage or another
chipped in to help, and part of the
prep included each watch team
taking part in a shakedown sail.
On the appointed day, six of
us who’d be bunking together
headed out and spent several hours
going through drills. We located
seacocks, sorted through tools, fi g-
ured out where fi re extinguishers
were located, and set every sail,
including the storm jib. When a
fl oat was tossed in the water unex-
pectedly, the dan buoy was quickly
deployed. A crew bellowed, “Man
overboard,” and pointed unfailingly
at our victim in the drink. We made
quick-stop maneuvers under sail and
returned to our fallen comrade by
scribing big circles and fi gure-eights
through the water. It was all text-
book perfect.
Until it wasn’t. Ironically, despite
all this attention to safety and detail,
at one point I lost my ball cap to a gust of wind — and we collec-
tively failed miserably at our attempt to retrieve it. So it goes, as
Kurt Vonnegut used to say when things turned dark.
This all comes to mind because after attending last fall’s boat
shows, I came away with the belief that people no longer buy
boats because they’re fast or rugged or vessels of discovery and
capable of fostering a lifelong study of seamanship. No, boat
salesmen these days mention only that sailing is easy and fun,
which it is, of course — most of the time.
As it often does, the ocean quickly set things straight.
Back home in Newport, Rhode Island, the shows behind us,
my Cruising World colleagues and I loaded up a boatload of
safety gear aboard my Sabre 34 Jackalope and headed out on
Narragansett Bay to try it all out. You’ll read about the details
in an upcoming issue. But for now, I will tell you about one little
test we did that involved plucking a mate from the water using a
venerable Lifesling. You know, the device that’s packed into the
white pouch mounted on just about every stern rail out there.Our volunteer in the water was
executive editor Herb McCormick, a
strapping lad dressed in a wetsuit on
this late-October day. Our onboard
rescuer was our rather petite man-
aging editor, Eleanor Merrill. And
the idea, of course, was to gauge just
how easily a suddenly single crew
might be able to retrieve a fallen
mate. I’ve watched videos that made
it look straightforward enough.
Let the games begin. Eleanor
threw the Lifesling overboard so
that the line it was attached to
trailed astern. Under power, we
steered a wide circle around Herb
as the line and sling came to him.
Then, with the engine off, Eleanor
pulled him alongside and set to
lifting him from the drink. Or tried.
Over the next 20 or so minutes,
in absolutely benign conditions,
we quickly discovered that pulling
a person out of the water isn’t as
simple as handing him a halyard to
attach to the sling, leading the line
to a winch and grinding him back
aboard. Winches aren’t necessarily
sized properly for the task or in the
right place for the person cranking
them. Adding a block and tackle to the mix (would you even have
one aboard?) didn’t help much either, until it was raised to the
proper height and its tail was led correctly to gain mechanical
advantage.
Who knew? One thing for certain, had this been a real emer-
gency, we’d have just wasted a whole lot of precious moments. All
in all, it was a pretty instructional little session, even if Herb did
emerge with a few bumps and bruises. So it goes.
And so here we are with May upon us. For many, it’s the start
of a new sailing season. What better time to check over the
safety kit and maybe spend an afternoon trying some of it out?
Toss a Clorox bottle overboard and practice retrieving it. Infl ate
your PFDs and make sure they hold air and are up to date on ser-
vicing. Take inventory of tools and fi rst-aid supplies. And though
I know sailing is supposed to be easy and fun all of the time,
imagine for a minute the worst that could happen and then think
about what you’re going to do about it.
And then? Go sailing.PRACTICE makes PERFECT. Sometimes.
MARIANNE LEEEleanor Merrill found it easy enough to pull our
colleague Herb McCormick alongside, but hoist-
ing him from the water proved nearly impossible.