PHOTO BY CHARLES J. DOANE; ILLUSTRATIONS BY DICKEVERITT.COMSEAMANSHIP
ON
DECK
54APRIL 2015A
lthough the odds of losing someone overboard are minimal, it’s
vital to practice and master an MOB drill so you can get back
to and retrieve your crewmate quickly and efficiently. It’s an
important skill and one that your shipmates will certainly appreciate; it
is also a great confidence booster, whether you are the captain, the first
mate or a crewmember.
There are several ways of getting the boat back to a person in the
water. However, never forget that getting back to the MOB is only part
of the equation. It is no use getting back to the MOB only to find you
cannot get the casualty back on board, so we have developed a retrieval
technique that does not depend on raw physical strength.
Almost every boat has a Lifesling attached to the stern rail, and this is
what we use. The Lifesling drill is well documented—you sail in circles
around the MOB until the Lifesling makes contact with the MOB, who
slips it on. However, there’s more to it than that. Specifically, you must
learn to stop the boat quickly after getting the Lifesling to the MOB. Hav-
ing been the MOB test subject in some drills, I can assure you that being
towed in a Lifesling harness at any speed will guarantee you your mini-
mum daily requirement of seawater and then some. (As a side note, letting
your students or crew practice on you is an interesting learning experiencein and of itself: as long as you have someone else—another skipper or an
instructor—onboard who can get back to you if the students can’t.)
Getting the person in the water back on board, especially when the
person on deck is quite a bit lighter than the person in the water, is often
the most difficult part. I have heard stories of wives towing dead hus-
bands into port when they were not able to get them on board in time.HOW TO DO THE QUICKSTOP
The “quickstop” method combined with a Lifesling retrieval is probably
the fastest method to get a person back on board. If the boat is properly
set up, and the crew has had some basic training, it’s easy to do.
This is how we teach our students to respond to a MOB emergency:- Tack immediately without touching the jib sheets.
- Let the jib back so you are hove-to. If you have a spinnaker up, let it
wrap around the headstay. You can sort the mess out later. - Shout “Man Overboard!” Delegate a crewmember to keep eyes on the
MOB and press the MOB button on the GPS. - Deploy the Lifesling immediately before you sail past the MOB.
- Ease the genoa or asym sheet if needed to maintain 2-3 knots.
- Gybe over so you end up half a boat length downwind of the MOB.
MANOVERBOARD!
Practice makes perfect when it comes to retrieving a crew overboard By Martin van Breems