Why Do Sailors Still Die Being Dragged Along By Their Tethers?

[daletournier]

Originally Posted by billknny

TP,

Some things on our boat 100% always run "by committee". Where are we going? What we do when we get there? What's for dinner? But when the safety of the ship or crew are in question, sometimes (almost) any decision is better than a "discussion". I am lucky (and honored) that "MB" trusts me with those decisions.

I am always 100% willing to discuss the why and wherefores of a command decision--when there is time, and the immediate safety issues are past. I have even been known to change my mind.

It is kind of a crude and kind of heartless way to put it, but when you are on my boat I am responsible for your safety. If you are not willing to accept my decisions, you will not feel safe on my boat, and you belong somewhere else. The same applies when I am on someone else's boat. I either accept their way of doing things, or I stay ashore.

Years ago I had an article published on the subject of how a skipper should deal with crew. It's actually one of my articles I am happiest with...

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing

BK
http://fetchinketch.net

100%. Sometimes action is required immediately, not discussion. The person in charge is often the most experienced. In my case that's me, a problem I've encountered is crews fear can get in the way when somethings gone wrong and I'm in take action now mode. They often feel the need to give an opinion, often it's coming from the wrong spot and they aren't experienced enough to offer an opinion in that particular circumstance, all it does is distract me, sew doubt and slow things down.

I've had to be very clear here in this area, if things are going wrong do as I say please don't question. Happy to explain and discuss after the event.

[Kerry1]

I didn't have that much to say in this thread but I kinda hoped I would get some feedback.

Kenomac #84 said:"I do like the halyard as a tether idea for really bad weather, but it seems to me that one could get tossed around like a rag doll with an attachment that long coming from above."

Thanks Ken for apparently being the one and only who at least acknowledged something I wrote. And when you wrote (Kenomac #38) "I’m assuming that you haven’t placed me on your ignore list yet," it all became clear to me what inexperienced newbies like myself come up against. If the future of this forum ever becomes doubtful and begins to stagnate, I think you could look to instances like this as having some effect on that very distinct possibility.

As for the rest of you who have had rather a lot to say, and no doubt consider yourselves knowledgable people- you have a lot to learn about decorum and manners!

[daletournier]

Originally Posted by Kerry1

I didn't have that much to say in this thread but I kinda hoped I would get some feedback.

Kenomac #84 said:"I do like the halyard as a tether idea for really bad weather, but it seems to me that one could get tossed around like a rag doll with an attachment that long coming from above."

Thanks Ken for apparently being the one and only who at least acknowledged something I wrote. And when you wrote (Kenomac #38) "I’m assuming that you haven’t placed me on your ignore list yet," it all became clear to me what inexperienced newbies like myself come up against. If the future of this forum ever becomes doubtful and begins to stagnate, I think you could look to instances like this as having some effect on that very distinct possibility.

As for the rest of you who have had rather a lot to say, and no doubt consider yourselves knowledgable people- you have a lot to learn about decorum and manners!

Hi Kerry, try not taking a offense at a non response,i doubt there's anything personal in it. I have thought about the Halyard thing before and did mean to respond, just didn't get around to it.

I've been around here for a while and not all my posts are responded to. It's not personal.

Regarding the Halyard idea, I I see a problem with the with rigging getting in the way.

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by daletournier

Hi Kerry, try not taking a offense at a non response,i doubt there's anything personal in it. I have thought about the Halyard thing before and did mean to respond, just didn't get around to it.

I've been around here for a while and not all my posts are responded to. It's not personal.

Regarding the Halyard idea, I I see a problem with the with rigging getting in the way.

I did try the halyard idea, as part of an article, because I was asked to. Try it in mild weather first, like all safety ideas. I think you will learn that it is a terrible idea. The halyard loves to wrap around the spreaders and you need to manage the slack continuously. If the boat is heeling when you go over the side, you will be stuck hanging, way out there, and hanging from a chest harness is really bad.

[daletournier]

Originally Posted by thinwater

I did try the halyard idea, as part of an article, because I was asked to. Try it in mild weather first, like all safety ideas. I think you will learn that it is a terrible idea. The halyard loves to wrap around the spreaders and you need to manage the slack continuously. If the boat is heeling when you go over the side, you will be stuck hanging, way out there, and hanging from a chest harness is really bad.

Here's a thought. What if there was a separate mast fitting below the lower spreaders inside the rigging at a height that enabled you to reach the dodger and bow. Nothing to wrap around. Just a non thought out thought.

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by daletournier

Here's a thought. What if there was a separate mast fitting below the lower spreaders inside the rigging at a height that enabled you to reach the dodger and bow. Nothing to wrap around. Just a non thought out thought.

Every time you take a step, the length changes. Additionally, unlike a jackline/tether system, which can be used as a handline (actually one of the better uses for jacklines), it offers no support.

Try it. The experience is worth a thousand words.

[poiu]

Originally Posted by billknny

And for a completely different perspective...

If you are crew on my boat you WILL travel to the front of the boat on the windward side attached to the jackline on that side with the 3 foot leg on your double leg tether. If you think that is unsafe, find another boat.

This is not a blind allegiance to convention, but has been carefully considered and I know it is the best approach on MY boat. Here is why:

• You will have the side of the deckhouse under your feet, no matter how much the boat is heeling. It is always best to NOT fall in the first place.
• You will have the liferail to windward (not a line or wire--a stainless rail) to hold onto. Our boat as a continuous rail all around the boat.
• If you fall, you will have lots of things to grab as you slide to leeward across the deck, and you CAN NOT land up in the water. If you are in the water, your tethering system has FAILED.
• If you can figure out some way to fall UP over the windward rail, your short tether will hold your head at the gunwale height (yes, I have tried it)
• Since the jacklines are inside the shrouds, if you are over the rail you can not slide all the way to the back of the boat. The main shrouds will stop you if you are forward, and the mizzen shroud will stop you at the cockpit, the arch leg will stop you before you are hanging off the transom.
• You will stay on the windward side of the boom (ALWAYS). Being on the leeward side of the boom is like being on the wrong side of the double yellow line on the freeway. Eventually, something VERY bad will happen.
• Since you will be clipped in on your chest side, if you ever end up over the rail you will be facing the boat, so you can hold on to the liferail, or (maybe) lift yourself high enough to get a foot on the gunwale.

When you come to where ever you will be working you WILL clip into a hard point and not just the jackline. The 6 foot leg of your tether is almost never used at full length, but is used to wrap around something and then clipped back to your harness to keep you close.

Your tethering system MUST keep you on the boat as it's first and ONLY job. The idea that a tether attached to your back will keep you alive when you are being towed by the boat means your tether is no good in the first place.

This sounds eminently sensible reasoning as a set of safety measures, except I think most people will not accept a captain's order as absolute and incapable of question in every degree like this when they are doing something where it is their life, not the captain's that is at risk. Maybe it is not your intention, but this inflexible approach doesn't read well.

[Suijin]

Originally Posted by TrentePieds

Billknny:

I would like you to know that I asked MyBeloved to read your post #116. She did, and came to me afterwards in a very pensive mood and wanted to talk about an incident on one of our first trips together. She'd messed up the line-handling as we cast off, and I turned somewhat — uhm — authoritarian. I did my single-handing schtick, and there was no harm done other than to her pride :-)

Now, MB is a true Canadian, polite to the point of saying “sorry” if someone steps on HER foot, so having orders barked at her merely makes her go catatonic. The lines-kerfuffle therefore had to be laid at my door: 1) I had asked a crew member to do what I should have known that she was not yet capable of doing. 2) I had used the techniques of teaching and commanding that I'd use with sea cadets on a woman who'd spent her entire working life dealing with other people's infants and toddlers. Lack of sensitivity and judgment on my part! Well, obviously I clued in, and switched to more efficacious teaching techniques, and she's doing just fine now. :-)

So as I said, she came just now in a pensive mood after reading your post and wanted to talk about authoritarianism. Make of THAT what you will :-0)! So we had the old talk about being able to run a ship by committee (and using the opportunity to teach) when the operating environment is benign, but needing an increasing authoritarian “management style” as the operating environment becomes increasingly threatening. She's gone away to digest that.

If you are not careful, you'll make a major contribution to giving her “command presence”, and I thank you :-)

TP

It's all a matter of delivery, not content. I have inflexible safety rules on my boat, but the rules themselves won't matter if they are not followed, and barking orders at crew never leads to eager adherence. Humor and repetition with an measured dose of dead seriousness is what I've found to be the best approach. An occasional cheerily delivered anecdote that ends with some spectacularly gruesome fatality is also beneficial.

You can tell someone a hundred different ways that they WILL do something. The effectiveness of your delivery is best measured in attitude towards compliance.

[crankysailor]

Originally Posted by poiu

This sounds eminently sensible reasoning as a set of safety measures, except I think most people will not accept a captain's order as absolute and incapable of question in every degree like this when they are doing something where it is their life, not the captain's that is at risk. Maybe it is not your intention, but this inflexible approach doesn't read well.

Well said.. basically I think that on HIS boat he won’t have the problem of sending someone to the front or not cause he WILL be sailing alone most of the time..

Unless HIS boat has the U.S.S prefix in it, it doesn’t sound like sailing with him would be a lot of FUN ...

[billknny]

Originally Posted by poiu

This sounds eminently sensible reasoning as a set of safety measures, except I think most people will not accept a captain's order as absolute and incapable of question in every degree like this when they are doing something where it is their life, not the captain's that is at risk. Maybe it is not your intention, but this inflexible approach doesn't read well.

Of course, what I am presenting here is the LOGIC and the REASONING, it is not a presentation to crew, and it was presented as a rebuttal to some other posts on here who have basically stated that their way was the only way, when in my opinion, their way has some serious problems.

But... the basic thought stays the same. There are basic safety rules on my boat. They are inflexible. I discuss them with potential crew before they commit to sailing with me. If I have a basic safety rule that someone refuses to follow, then they need to find another boat. We will not be happy together. They won't get yelled or screamed at. They won't be abused or insulted. But the rules will be made clear and the reasons for them carefully explained. You are free to disagree with my logic. But, you won't sail with me if you refuse to follow the rules I consider vital to everybody's safety.

And it follows with total logic, if you think my safety rules are stupid and misguided, you damn well should not WANT to sail with me. A boat in the middle of the ocean is not a place for passive/aggressive civil disobedience.

Just by way of example, if someone invited me to do an ocean passage and he believed that harnesses and tethers were more dangerous than going out on deck without them, and "no tether/no jackline" was the rule on his boat. I'm not going on his boat, and he would not be sailing on my boat.

This is really just another way of saying I WILL NOT allow my crew to do something I consider dangerous. I would hope every captain would do exactly the same. I would hope every captain would make that clear to the crew in a logical, thoughtful, nonthreatening manner.

Why would you have crew on board who do what you know to be dangerous things?

[Polux]

There are several cases where a crew was unable to pull a man from the side of the boat before he died. it is obviously much more hard than most think.

A case in Germany lead to the RCD to make mandatory the inclusion of stairs that can be deployed from the water even if the way many implemented them makes them usable only with the boat is not moving.

I had only one case where I had to recover a "passenger" that fall on the water from my boat. It was not difficult because I had a boat with a sugar scoop and a good solid stair that was easy to deploy and the young girl was a good swimmer.

I tried once to recover a guy from a boat (he had fall to the water from a quay) and without the help of a stair and I could not, not even with a rope. Only when a stair was deployed it was possible and even so with a help of another guy. The fellow on the water was drunk and that made it very difficult to pull him up even with a stair.

A sailor that fall on the water will not be drunk but the time on the water and eventually a trauma can make it has hard to pull up as that drunk guy.

And that is pulling it up from the easiest spot, a sugar scoop with the help of a stair.

If someone is being dragged on the side of a boat by a tether I believe the more sensible way to act is to cut quickly the sailor lose (assuming he is awake and well) along with a buoy and then turn around and pick him by the transom with the help of a stair.

[poiu]

Originally Posted by billknny

(Apologies, I know the quotes are a bit out of context.)

There are basic safety rules on my boat. They are inflexible.

I have a basic safety rule that someone refuses to follow, then they need to find another boat.

You are free to disagree with my logic. But, you won't sail with me if you refuse to follow the rules I consider vital to everybody's safety.

A boat in the middle of the ocean is not a place for passive/aggressive civil disobedience.

I WILL NOT allow my crew to do something I consider dangerous.

It's hard to tell without non-verbal cues and without seeing your rule book, but this reads as overly strict.

[poiu]

Originally Posted by Polux

There are several cases where a crew was unable to pull a man from the side of the boat before he died. it is obviously much more hard than most think.

A case in Germany lead to the RCD to make mandatory the inclusion of stairs that can be deployed from the water even if the way many implemented them makes them usable only with the boat is not moving.

I had only one case where I had to recover a "passenger" that fall on the water from my boat. It was not difficult because I had a boat with a sugar scoop and a good solid stair that was easy to deploy and the young girl was a good swimmer.

I tried once to recover a guy from a boat (he had fall to the water from a quay) and without the help of a stair and I could not, not even with a rope. Only when a stair was deployed it was possible and even so with a help of another guy. The fellow on the water was drunk and that made it very difficult to pull him up even with a stair.

A sailor that fall on the water will not be drunk but the time on the water and eventually a trauma can make it has hard to pull up as that drunk guy.

And that is pulling it up from the easiest spot, a sugar scoop with the help of a stair.

If someone is being dragged on the side of a boat by a tether I believe the more sensible way to act is to cut quickly the sailor lose (assuming he is awake and well) along with a buoy and then turn around and pick him by the transom with the help of a stair.

The cutting free is fine, all the more so if you have the AIS lifejacket beacons.

If there is more than a small swell running you can't use the transom. It bangs up and down too much to be safe. Much better to use a halyard with a snap shackle onto a harness. It should have the victim out in a few seconds.

A really difficult situation is if you are two handed. One in the water alongside and unconscious, head down, one on the boat and a sea running. Pretty tricky.

[TrentePieds]

@ Polu #132

As you say "without non-verbal clues..."

That was precisely the point I wished to make by the mea culpa in my post about the lines-kerfuffle. I think we all know that honey gets us further than vinegar. But it is, IMO, incontestable that rules like the ones Billknny lays out, and that I have in TP as well, have to exist for everyone's safety.

Very simple things, like the need to acknowledge an order by "playing it back" are often hard to teach, because young people today seem to have been taught that to act under higher authority is demeaning. In the civilian environment we assiduously avoid the use of the word "order" and we talk instead about "requests" and "suggestions". That accommodation to political correctness doesn't eliminate the practical need for "suggestions" to be "played back" so the skipper may know that they've been 1) heard and 2) understood.

Similarly, it is not always easy to teach a lubber the need for a crew member to report completion of the task he was "told off" to do. And we never use the term "told off" because in the civilian environment to "tell off" means to scold. Nor do we refer to lubbers as lubbers, but as "novices". I've always dealt with this teaching task by having a "meeting" where I explain the steps required to perform some particular task, and that "we" cannot go to step 2 until I have a "completion report" for step 1.

All such things have very little to do with boat-handling. They are exercises in team building employing the basic people management skills that we civilians bring to skippering from our employments.

As Suijin sez: A joke helps the "medicine go down". I loathed accounting when I was a student in a business school. When I was asked to teach accounting a few years later, I promised myself that no accounting student would ever leave a class of mine without having had a good chuckle. Just so with breaking in new crews.

But the rules exist - and they are ineluctable :-)!

TP

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by poiu

The cutting free is fine, all the more so if you have the AIS lifejacket beacons.

If there is more than a small swell running you can't use the transom. It bangs up and down too much to be safe. Much better to use a halyard with a snap shackle onto a harness. It should have the victim out in a few seconds.

A really difficult situation is if you are two handed. One in the water alongside and unconscious, head down, one on the boat and a sea running. Pretty tricky.

Yes, the transom is a very bad place when its rough. But so is the bow.

I've tested a variation on this a few times with a dummy, but never got as far with it as I wanted to:

• Quickly clip a long line to the jackline end of the tether. This can be clipped to the clip itself, the loop the clip is in, or attached with a prusik or similar. This is much easier to do than clipping the harness end, as most people try and thus can be done in moments by one person.
• If he went through the rail, back thread the extension line.
• Cut the jackline. This allows the poor swimmer to float out from under the bow wave. The line should be at least a boat length, so that he can float freely, but still remain in contact with the boat.
• Pull him over to the boat and pull him out using a halyard or man over from what ever position is easiest on the specific boat. Generally this will be the leeward side aft of the beam, but be flexible.