Sailors can thank recently adopted commercial-shipping regulations for a new generation of electronic emergency beacons. These devices are designed to connect vessels in distress via satellite to a global network of rescue centers, while also broadcasting Automatic Identification System alerts over marine radio channels to (potentially) summon help that much quicker. 

Florida-based ACR Electronics and its UK sister company, Ocean Signal, are the first to take advantage of the new rules. They are set to go with products expected to be approved by US regulators and made widely available this winter.

For mariners, this merging of satellite and VHF-radio-frequency technologies in a single device—either an emergency position indicating radio beacon or a personal locator beacon—is a game-changer. In a crisis, this tech will ensure that a request for assistance will be broadcast to as wide a net of potential rescuers as possible. 

McMurdo, which was first to develop an EPIRB with AIS capabilities, currently has its SmartFind G8 model on the market, though the device still needs modifications to meet some aspects of the new rules announced in July by the International Maritime Organization’s Maritime Safety Committee.

Since the 1980s, mariners have relied on a vessel’s EPIRB to broadcast emergency alerts to authorities via a network of satellites and ground stations. Though thousands of lives have been saved by the global COSPAS-SARSAT network, it can take time for distress calls to be processed and for help to arrive. And in a crisis, time is of the essence. 

In more recent years, as electronic components shrank in size and battery life increased, PLBs were introduced, allowing sailors to affix them to, say, a life jacket and take them along from boat to boat. These PLBs rely on the same emergency network as EPIRBs.

With the advent of AIS, electronics manufacturers also developed personal AIS beacons, whose signals can be picked up by AIS transponders on nearby vessels. The benefit here is that should you go overboard, your own crew will be alerted, and in coastal waters, other boats equipped with AIS may be able to respond quickly. The drawback, though, is that the range of the beacons is limited to just a few miles, so if there are no other vessels around, or if your crewmates are asleep or distracted, the signal could go unnoticed.

ACR’s GlobalFix V5 AIS EPIRB and its ResQLink AIS Personal Locator Beacon both contain satellite and local communication transponders. The dual-purpose EPIRB is a result of the IMO’s new rules for commercial vessels. Meanwhile, developers were able to take advantage of more-efficient electronics and better batteries to also produce the new lineup of ResQLink beacons. Similar products are sold under the Ocean Signal brand and include the rescueMe EPIRB3 and the rescueMe PLB3. (The latter, winner of the Metstrade 2022 Overall Dame Award, will be available only in Europe; the ResQLink, with identical technology in a different exterior case, will be sold in the Americas.)

Mikele D’Arcangelo, ACR’s vice president of global marketing and product management, says that the new AIS PLBs are compact enough to fit the majority of the inflatable PFDs on the market.

Both the ACR and Ocean Signal products offer a couple of other features that D’Arcangelo says improve upon existing technology. Previous models have included strobe lights, but the new beacons contain infrared strobes as well, making them more visible in daylight and low-visibility conditions, another IMO requirement.

The EPIRBs and PLBs also offer smartphone connectivity, using near-field communication technology. By placing a phone with the ACR or Ocean Signal app near the beacon, a user can capture data about battery life, beacon programming, the number and results of self-tests, and GPS test locations. Again, D’Arcangelo says, technology was key here. By using a chip similar to what’s imbedded in credit cards, data can be transferred without using power from the beacon’s battery; the phone provides the power instead.

The EPIRBs and beacons also have Return Link Service, which receives a signal from the satellite network and alerts the user that a call for help has successfully gone out and been received by authorities.

The street price for the ResQLink AIS PLB is just under $500; the price for an automatic GlobalFix V5 is around $930, and the manual version goes for less than $800. Online, you will find the McMurdo SmartFind 8, Category 2, for about $600. Category 1 EPIRBs automatically release from their bracket when submerged, while Category 2 devices need to be manually activated.

Let’s Set Sail

One result of the trend toward smaller, easier-to-handle headsails has been the adoption of bowsprits and furling off-the-wind sails for cruising sailboats. While continuous-line furlers have been in use for some time, Facnor is making the trimmer’s job all that much easier with its electric motorized flying sail furlers. 

The FXe Code Sail Electric Furler is compact and relatively simple to set up, with a power connection to a deck plug. A radio controller is an option, letting you move about while operating the furler. It can furl a 1,500-square-foot code zero in 45 seconds. 

And speaking of flying sails, North Sails has introduced an Easy Furling Gennaker that’s designed for downwind cruising. 

The gennaker is constructed of lightweight nylon spinnaker cloth and is built to be stowed and deployed using a top-down furler. Still, the sail is cut full, allowing it to be used for running off the wind. It is the deepest wind angle furling sail in the North cruising lineup. It’s available in a variety of colors and includes an internal luff cord for reliable furling. Prices vary by boat. 

Dinner, Anyone?

Just in time for barbecue season, Magma has introduced its Crossover Series grill. Want steak? There’s a grill top for that. Pizza? There’s a pizza top. There’s also a griddle top and a plancha top to suit various culinary needs. All are propane-powered. And, of course, there are accessories, carrying bags, mounting hardware and spare parts available to keep the various cooking platforms in top condition.

An owner starts with a single- (around $500) or double-burner firebox ($700) and adds from there. A grill top goes for around $400, the plancha is $100, and the pizza top is $400.

What else is there to say but, “Bon appetit, matey.”

Keep In Touch

If your sailing adventures take you out of cellular-phone range, you can still communicate with friends and family—and, in an emergency, rescue authorities—with Garmin’s inReach Mini Marine Bundle, which includes all the cables and mounting hardware you need to be on your way. The inReach Mini can network with other onboard instruments such as a Garmin smartwatch and chart plotter, and you can use it to update weather forecasts, send and receive texts, and let others track your voyage. If things go wrong, it will send SOS messages to authorities, all across the Iridium satellite network. The inReach Mini’s rechargeable battery can last up to 90 hours in tracking mode with 10-minute updates, and up to 24 days in 30-minute tracking power-save mode. It’s listed online for around $400. A service subscription is extra.

Also helping you to stay in touch with the world back home is Raymarine’s YachtSense Link, a marine router that will let you network onboard gear such as your Axiom chart plotter, phone, tablet and laptop. Combine the router with Raymarine’s mobile app, and you’ll be able to monitor onboard devices such as pumps, batteries and lighting, and you can monitor your sailboat by setting up a geofence. Online prices start at about $1,200.

How We Doin’, Coach?

Some sailors take a set-it-and-forget-it approach to sail trim. Others will endlessly fiddle with sheets, vang, backstay and traveler, with one eye on the speedo and the other watching for puffs that might add a little more speed over ground. If you fall in the latter camp, Sailmon has you covered with its Max Mini, an onboard tracker that records your every tack and jibe, and, back home, replays your voyage with lots of data to see just how sharp you were at the wheel. With the Mini paired to your phone, you can monitor your speed, heading and angle of heel, and later analyze what had you going fast so that next time, you can minimize what had you stuck in the slow lane. You can also share data with the larger Sailmon community in the spirit of friendly competition. Think of the Mini as your own personal performance coach, whose services will run you a one-time cost of right around $500.

Keep It Simple

One doesn’t have to own a boat very long to discover that mooring and dock lines left in salt water quickly become home to barnacles, slime, shells and a host of other messy creatures. Some ingenious thinker at Boatasy, a Slovenian company that focuses on mooring and dock equipment, looked the problem square in the eye and came up with a solution: the Ropecleaner. This simple device has a handle affixed to a stainless-steel spiral. To use it, you wind a mooring or dock line around the spiral, and then simply pull the tool along the rope, cleaning as you go. The Ropecleaner is available online for about $40.

Keep It Clean

Sailors keen on leaving disposable plastic water bottles behind and relying instead on their boat’s water tanks can keep the potable water system clean by using the water-treatment tablets developed by Aquamarine Water Solutions. One Aquatab treats 4 gallons of water. Drop the required number of tabs into the tank, wait 30 minutes, and you can be certain the water is safe to drink. The company says that Aquatabs protect against giardia cysts, bacteria and viruses, and the tablets have a shelf life of two years. A 100-tablet jar sells for right around $30.

Roll With It

Big boat, small boat, powerboat or sailboat: Look below or search the lockers, and one piece of kit that you’ll find in just about any vessel afloat is a boat hook. After all, they come in handy in so many ways, besides the obvious work of picking up a mooring or dock line. I’ve used them to pole out a jib, retrieve innumerable hats, fetch an escaped halyard, and, on several occasions, with a fishing net taped to the handle, to feebly try to pluck lost items from the depths.

As handy and ubiquitous as boat hooks are, though, whenever I’m at a boat show—and I go to a lot of them—I always marvel at the number of people walking around with one or more boat hooks in hand, or, later in the day, hanging out with their boat hook in a restaurant or bar. Even a telescoping boat hook looks awkward ashore. And then there’s the question of where to stow the thing at sea. No matter their size, boat hooks often seem to be in the way when they’re not in use.

For that dilemma, PYI offers a solution: the Revolve boat hook. When not in use, the boat hook rolls up into roughly a 4-inch cylinder that weighs just under a pound. Unrolled, it’s 75 inches long, and it has a push/pull pressure rating of 66 pounds. The boat hook is made from Rolatube structural composite material, technology that’s used in a variety of industries, from aerospace to nuclear power plants. 

Rolled up, the boat hook is easy to store, but better yet, at a boat show, you can buy one for about $120, stick it in a handbag or backpack, and then take it to the bar without looking like you just came from a boat show.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Products in this story were nominated for or received Innovation Awards or other notable awards during 2022 trade and boat shows, including Metstrade, the Miami International Boat Show, the International BoatBuilders’ Exhibition & Conference, and the Newport International Boat Show.

The post Gear Up for Sailing Season appeared first on Cruising World.

Several years ago, a friend who’s an accomplished and thorough skipper was preparing 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, figured out where fire extinguishers were located, and set every sail, including the storm jib. When a float was tossed in the water unexpectedly, 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 figure-eights through the water. It was all textbook 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 collectively 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 managing 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 emergency, 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. Inflate your PFDs and make sure they hold air and are up to date on servicing. Take inventory of tools and first-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.

The post Practice for Safe Sailing appeared first on Cruising World.

One of the instruments I find most useful on a boat is the gauge that indicates the amount of fresh water in the tanks. If there is one thing you need to know when out cruising, especially if you don’t have a watermaker, it is an accurate indication of how much drinking water you have. Over the six years I have owned my Down East 45 brigantine schooner, Britannia, I have expended endless hours messing about trying to get the twin water-tank gauges to register correctly. Britannia has two stainless-steel water tanks amidships, one on each side. The shape follows the curve of the hull and is therefore somewhat triangular in cross section, tapering to a point at the base. This makes accurate calibration of any type of measuring system difficult because when the water is halfway down the vertical side of the tank, the actual capacity is much less than half full — only about one-third full in my tanks. I considered installing a transparent sighting tube up the outside of the tank, but since my tanks are enclosed by bulkheads on all sides, I couldn’t easily drill a hole in the bottom of them to install plumbing fittings and a clear plastic tube. Even if I had managed to fit a sighting tube in each tank, I still would’ve had to physically mark the tube at various capacity levels. To read it would also have required lifting the floorboards on each side every time.

The original system was pneumatic (air) operated. It was supposed to read the air pressure differential in a thin pipe as the water level in the tanks varied and register on the gauge. Basically, it is a simple concept, having only two components and no electrical circuits. Just the device for a cruising boat, you might think.

But the system never worked properly from the day I bought the boat. The gauge would frequently drop to zero, sometimes immediately after a tank was filled to the top, or sometimes slowly over a few days. The whole thing was erratic and unreliable.

To cut a long, frustrating story short, I never did find out why the system didn’t work properly. Finally, I decided to look for a reliable alternative.

The shape of the tanks meant that a simple electrical swing-arm float sender would not register accurately, because when the arm is halfway on its arc and the gauge registers half full, it will not be correct. There is also a baffle in my tank, which would obstruct a swing-arm system.

There is a product called the Tank Tender that works on the same pneumatic principle as my original equipment. To overcome tank-shape problems, its gauge is calibrated in inches of water. It is for the buyer to determine how many inches corresponds to any particular capacity. The manufacturers told me that most owners mark their gauges with an ink marker at the quarter, half and three-quarters point. This would be accurate, but from my experience, I was concerned about pressure leaks in any air system, and I would have had to have two gauges, one for each tank. The cost for two tanks would be about $570.

There is a product called the Tank Tender that works on the same pneumatic principle as my original equipment. To overcome tank-shape problems, its gauge is calibrated in inches of water. It is for the buyer to determine how many inches corresponds to any particular capacity. The manufacturers told me that most owners mark their gauges with an ink marker at the quarter, half and three-quarters point. This would be accurate, but from my experience, I was concerned about pressure leaks in any air system, and I would have had to have two gauges, one for each tank. The cost for two tanks would be about $570.

I then found an electrically operated device, made by KUS USA in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. This product also uses a vertical stainless-steel tube inside the tanks, but instead of working on air pressure it has a float that travels up and down the tube, activating electrical signals inside the tube, which are read by the gauge. The sender tube’s top flange fitting also matched the standard SAE five-hole pattern in the top of my tanks, so I would not have to drill and tap any new mounting holes — or so I thought.

The KUS technical department was extremely helpful and told me they could actually custom calibrate the tank-tube senders to my exact tank shape. All they needed was a drawing showing where the various levels were in the tank. This would ensure the gauge would read the correct volume of water in the tank, not just the level, throughout the whole range.

KUS also offers a dual gauge, mounted on a panel, with a switch to read either port or starboard tank. For this gauge to register accurately for twin tanks, both sides have to be the same shape, which mine are.

The first test I needed to do was to find out exactly how much water the tanks held. I drained both sides by running all the water out through the boat’s faucets, then refilled them one at a time using a flow meter fitted to the water hose. The actual capacity turned out to be 168 gallons on each side — eight more than the maker’s specification. This gave a total capacity of 336 gallons.

To find out exactly how long the new tank sender pipes needed to be, I measured the depth of the tanks with a ¼-inch-diameter wooden dowel. It was 31 inches to the bottom of the tanks. The sender tube would not fit to the bottom of the tank because of the curvature, however, so I settled for 29 inches. This was when I realized the original 21-inch-long tubes could never have registered accurately anyway, even when they presumably worked properly, because they were 8 inches too short, and never reached anywhere near the bottom of the tank. Calculating this produced an error of about 25 gallons on each side.

Having determined the capacity, I drained the tanks once more and took the opportunity to flush them with two gallons of swimming pool chlorination liquid from a local pool-supply shop. I then ran 42 gallons into the tanks, this being one-quarter of the total capacity, then physically measured the water level with my wooden dipstick. Then I added another 42 gallons and measured where half-full actually was, then another 42 to bring the capacity to three-quarters. I put these dimensions on my drawing, which I emailed to the KUS engineer. I received my kit in two weeks.

Installing the New System

I drained the tanks once more, then lowered the starboard-side tank sender tube through the hole in the top of the tank.

This was when I discovered that the standard SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) five-hole plate does not have symmetrical holes around the top of the plate, even though it looks like they are equally spaced. There is, in fact, only one position in which the plate can be fitted, and to find this I had to rotate the plate and gasket until the holes all lined up with the screw holes in the tank. I kept losing the location of the gasket and plate until I actually glued the gasket to the top of the tank, then rotated the plate to mate with the holes in the top of the tank.

The actual electric gauge was much easier to fit, but mounting it did require more than the regular round hole. It’s more like a square hole, which I made by making a template out of paper and sticking it in place with Scotch tape, then I drilled the corners and cut between them with a keyhole saw. The wiring was easy enough, and I wired the positive wire through a spare breaker on the master panel.

It was then just a matter of refilling the tanks in one-quarter increments, using my new flow meter and checking that the gauge registered correctly, which it did, right through to completely full on both tanks.

Of course, the reading from any tank system, including even a simple sighting tube, will be slightly incorrect when the boat is under sail and heeled.

The total cost for two sender tubes and the dual gauge panel was $320. But if you are content to mark the face of the gauge as you fill the tanks, you could just buy a standard system with your appropriate tube lengths (sold in 1-inch increments). The price would then be less than my custom-calibrated model.

Incidentally, KUS also makes a similar system for fuel tanks, because the same capacity problem exists when diesel tanks are built to the shape of the hull.

It’s now a great relief to know I have a reliable record of water capacity for each tank. This enables us to maximize and enjoy the usage, according to whatever length of passage we are making.

The post How to Install a Custom Tank Gauge appeared first on Cruising World.

While growing up aboard the schooner Elizabeth in the 1950s, I used to swing through the rig, much to the disgust of the timid adults ashore. I loved being aloft. I felt comfortable there, like a proud frigate bird surveying the ocean.

Once, in St. Petersburg, Florida, while standing atop our starboard ratlines, I noticed a blue kite stuck in a tree in nearby Vinoy Park. We were poor; I had no toys, and kites were fun. So I quickly slid down our galvanized shrouds, leapt onto the dock of slip No. 7 and dashed across the street.

It was tricky because the kite was caught at the very top of a large banyan, but I eventually managed to get it down. Alas, it wouldn’t fly. Again and again, I tried to launch it, and it would just spin out of control. I soon became frustrated, but fortunately, my brother-in-law, the Gyroaster, came by. He was a giant of a man, and handsome as heck. My sister, Gale, would melt when he was around. Yuck! Actually, you’ve probably seen him — he was the Marlboro Man for many years. And anyway, he knew a lot of stuff.

“You need a tail,” he said, as he returned to his pickup truck and ripped up a greasy T-shirt.

Once a few knotted strips of fabric hung from the kite, it was a totally different beast. It flew sweetly. I had perfect control. I’ve never forgotten that day.

At the beginning of our third circumnavigation, this one aboard Ganesh, our new-to-us and unfamiliar ketch-rigged Amphitrite 43, I quickly realized that my learning curve would have to be steep. Ganesh behaved completely differently than our previous S&S-designed Hughes 38, Wild Card. Gusts over 30 knots would send our old boat zooming like a scalded cat; ditto for large, breaking seas. Once we did 150 miles in 24 hours under bare poles using our Monitor self-steering device, and Wild Card felt like she was on rails.

In a blow, Ganesh was different.

Way different.

Off the coast of Colombia, with an apparent wind of 34 knots and a speed of 8 knots, Ganesh was beginning to scare me, and I don’t like to be scared. Worse, I could see that look of concern that my wife, Carolyn, had in her eyes. “She’s really, um, slewing, isn’t she?” Carolyn noted.

Since a large part of seamanship consists of stoically observing, I began watching the building seas with great attention.

In the troughs, Ganesh was fine. She’d point dead downwind. But as a wave picked her up and she accelerated down its foaming face, she’d start frantically hunting. The further off course she became, the more her bow would dig in, the less effective her rudder would be, and the more she’d want to carve out like a runaway surfboard. It was disconcerting, this uncomfortable feeling that our transom might attempt to pass our bow. What if we got sideways to the seas? Would all 15 tons of her broach?

I didn’t want to find out.

One solution would have been to heave-to, but we were making great time and pointing directly at the Panama Canal. I hated to stop her. Sure, it would be safer, but these heavy wind and sea conditions would last all week. I didn’t want to heave-to for five to eight days. I wanted to keep moving.

The towing of warps is an old trick. So I took a 150-foot-long anchor line and connected its end to my port cleat, led it through my strong aft chock and lowered the bight into the water. At first there was almost no pressure, but as I paid out the line, the drag increased. When I came to the end of the line, I cleated it off on the starboard aft cleat. Now I had a large bight of line 75 feet astern. It didn’t do much of anything, but took about a quarter of a knot off my speed.

I watched and watched and thought and thought. That’s all heavy-weather management is, really, just experiencing and seeing what happens, which, in this case, wasn’t much.

Next, I took one of our fenders with a stout line on it, tied a bowline around the bight of line, and tossed the fender into the water. It ran aft and stopped, and I immediately felt a difference. I added a second fender. Even better! Now we weren’t slewing around nearly as much. However, occasionally both fenders were yanked out of the water and would start skipping over the waves. When they did, we’d slew badly until they bit in again.

I watched.

Next I relieved the pressure on the port end of the dragging line with a rolling hitch and short length of line secured on board. I tied the bitter end of another anchor line to the first, then cast off the rolling hitch.

The added length of line paid out, and now my two fenders were trailing 150 feet aft, and coming out of the water far less. I let her ride like this for a while as the sea continued to build. I decided we needed more drag, so I tied another two fenders onto the line — and then extended it with another rode.

Now I had four fenders 300 feet aft. And I watched.

Next, I adjusted the length of my towline until all four fenders sat directly behind one of the waves, completely out of my sight. I reached down and felt the moderate strain. Suddenly a huge breaking sea approached, Ganesh started to surf off, the towline load spiked dramatically and all four fenders were completely pulled though the wave, from backside to front, and then dug anew.

I knew I had the right idea when Carolyn appeared in the companionway with her novel and asked, “Is it calming down?”

There was no longer any tendency for Ganesh to get squirrelly. I wasn’t scared of broaching, and our speed was still averaging around 6½ knots.

Each storm is different, and thus, a skipper needs flexibility in his decision-­making. This requires having the correct gear and knowing how to deploy it.

I’d put a tail on my kite. I was in perfect control.

One time, we came out of New Zealand with a perfect weather window — not! A major gale was on the way, in the same area as the infamous and fatal 1994 Queen’s Birthday storm. Yes, there was a squash zone involved this time too. Even the Kiwi skippers I heard on the radio were getting nervous, which is enough to make any sane sailor gulp. When a Kiwi or South African sailor says, “There’s a bit of breeze on the way,” that means you should check your last will and testament.

The whole reason I carry a Para-Tech sea anchor and a Jordan Series Drogue is so I have options in an ultimate storm. Was this one? I wasn’t certain, but I decided to deploy one or the other slowing device just in case. If I’d wanted to make speed downwind and stay with the system, I’d have deployed the series drogue, my experimental homemade fat-bag or my webbing drogue. However, the last thing I wanted to do was travel with this particular storm. I wanted to remain in it for the shortest time possible, so I decided to set my Para-Tech sea anchor off the bow so we could park and let the storm pass by.

I heaved to and rigged the Para-Tech’s retrieval line exactly as recommended. Next, I ran a 400-foot nylon rode from the aft deck, outside the stanchions (tied with yarn to keep it from unraveling) and up to the bow. Here’s the sobering truth of it: People occasionally get severely injured while deploying or retrieving large parachute-type anchors. It’s dangerous. The ads don’t tell you this, but it is. Once that parachute is in the water, your vessel might as well be shackled to a block of granite on the bottom. Thankfully, we had no problem deploying ours from our nearly stationary position.

Once the sea anchor took up and I’d doused our storm trysail, it was just like being anchored in 20-foot swells. Of course, our masthead was scribing large arcs in the sky and we were rolling violently from rail to rail. At first, we took to our bunks, Carolyn green at the gills. Gradually, we started crawling around on the cabin sole. Twenty-four hours later, Carolyn was making bread while I was jammed in a corner, playing guitar. We felt perfectly safe, if not comfortable.

Luckily (actually, luck had nothing to do with it) we’d removed both the anchors that normally live on our bow, as well as all our chain. These were now tied inside our boat to our mast base. Our boat’s ends were as light as we could make them. Thus she rode the giant waves like a swan.

Every two hours, day and night, I’d change the chafe point on the Para-Tech’s rode. That sounds easy, but it wasn’t; not when the line was shock-loaded with 5,000 pounds or so.

Here’s how I did it: I donned my foulies and sea boots, put on my safety harness, grabbed a crowbar and carefully made my way forward. (Picture crawling on the back of a rearing stallion in pitch-black darkness and you’re close to seeing me move about on deck.)

Once at the bitts, I made sure the 40 or 50 feet of extra rode was all in front of me, so if it got away, I wouldn’t be killed instantly. Then I paused and said to myself, “Fatty, this is what you came for. This is all part of it. But if you lose control of this line or end up in the water, you’re dead. Right now you’ve got 10 fingers. Let’s keep it that way.”

That’s exactly how it happened. I actually whispered that to myself. Some people think I have no fear; that’s silly. Everyone has fear. Life is precious. The trick isn’t to ignore your fear but rather to harness it.

And that’s what I did. I loosened up the line on the cleat, working gingerly, like I was playing with a bomb that could blow any second. More and more I loosened the line until any more loosening might allow it to come off the cleat. Then I carefully stuck my crowbar into the final crisscross of line and wiggled it. Instantly, with a sickening snap tightening sound, the line on the cleat slipped and took up once again.

I’d changed the chafe point by about an inch with complete control.

A little over two days later, the wind had gone down but the seas were still high. The smart thing to do was to stay put, but alas, another storm was spinning off the Tasman between Australia and New Zealand, and if we didn’t set sail we’d have to stay parked for another four days or so.

Thus, we decided to retrieve the sea anchor and try to get northward out of the worst of the weather.

What happened next, well, I still start whimpering just remembering it.

First off, my good friend and sailing hero Larry Pardey had once advised me to remove the retrieval line on the Para-Tech. “They never work, and they often get in the way,” he said. “Trust me, Fatty, just cut it off.”

On the other hand, the manufacturer of the unit said folks successfully use the retrieval line all the time.

So, I decided to try it. I followed all the instructions as faithfully as I could. In theory, the retrieval line collapses the parachute, making it easier to haul back aboard. But when I went to actually use it in battle conditions, it was totally useless: completely snarled in a jumbled mess.

Score one for Larry.

As mentioned, the sea was rougher than I would have liked, and I have one more confession, dear reader. My 400 feet of ¾-inch nylon rode wasn’t in one piece. I’m a poor man. Most of my shopping is done at Dumpster Marine. The anchor line was cobbled together from various discarded bits and one new 125-foot piece of black Samson braid.

Now, I wasn’t worried about my knots coming undone because I’d tied double-­carricks and whipped the bitter ends with strong wax twine. But a knot is a lump, and this greatly complicated things. I won’t bore you with a blow-by-blow. Let’s just say getting each knot through the roller chock and around the rope windlass gypsy took about 45 minutes of tying and untying various short rope pennants with rolling hitches. Had any of those knots slipped while shock-loaded, well, bye-bye Fatso.

So here is the reality of the more than three hours that I wrestled with Satan up there on my foredeck: Retrieving my Para-Tech sea anchor was, far and away, the most dangerous thing I have ever done intentionally. In hindsight, I should have cut it loose. But, as mentioned, I’m a poor man, and it is a costly bit of fabric. And, yes, another factor came into play: I’m stubborn and pigheaded as well. I put that damn thing in the water, and I was going to get it back aboard!

Over the next couple of years I became fascinated by slowing devices. It didn’t take long to realize that the ideal one would create little drag at 4 knots and lots of drag at 6 to 8 knots of boat speed. Over the years, many attempts have been made to improve the proverbial mousetrap, and of course, I couldn’t resist the challenge taken up by some of my childhood heroes. My early idol Frederick A. Fenger (father of the wishbone rig) invented the plywood sea anchor, and John Voss came up with various fabric devices during his adventures made famous in The Venturesome Voyages of Captain Voss. I have no doubt that when Ulysses lost an attached sail overboard in a storm, he noticed the calming effect as it trailed behind his ship.

So, I sidled up to the prettiest little seamstress I know, gave her a hug and a smile, and placed a number of drogue designs in front of her.

“The Flat Fat drogue,” I told her, “uses cheap seat-belt material for the webbing and nylon for the slowing flaps, and stows well. The Fat Puffer has slits that bulge as the force of the water increases. And the Fat Web is basically just a bunch of webbing with maximum wetted surface that takes up minimal space.”

Carolyn frowned. I’m always asking her to sew up crazy ideas, most of which don’t work. However, occasionally she adjusts one of my stupid ideas brilliantly — and I steal all the credit. (Well, I’m a man, right?)

Don’t forget, heavy-weather management boils down to controlling two things: angle and speed. A drag device is one of the simplest, most basic ways to achieve this.

Carolyn looked at the various designs and scratched her head. “What’s my budget?”

“The usual,” I said. “Zero.”

She grimaced and gave me a look.

“Hey, babe,” I said. “There’s no challenge in buying one!”

“Darn you, Fatty,” she said, as she hauled her rusty Pfaff sewing machine out of the bilge and began hosing it down with WD-40.

Soon she was hunched over her rattling, jiggling machine, spewing out various drag devices and a brand-new Jordan Series-style drogue (136 cones) for good measure.

Perhaps the most important thing to be learned from this article is that “anyone can play,” as my father used to put it. You don’t have to be a scientist or mathematician to tame the elements. The truth is that a spare tire (even a retread) tied astern can save your life in certain conditions.

To put it another way, I may have sailed around the world twice on a $3,000 boat — but Wild Card had far more safety gear aboard than some of the $3 million yachts sailing next to me.

Why not heave-to in a storm? I do. I love to heave-to. It is a basic skill of any offshore sailor. But sometimes I want to keep moving for various reasons, perhaps to sail out of a strong (and dangerous) ocean current, for example. I want options, lots of options. I need flexibility to survive offshore year after year. And, frankly, my boat is usually fine heaved-to in up to 45 knots. However, if I get a 70-knot gust, will my sail track pull out or the gooseneck shatter or sheet break? I don’t know. And I don’t want to find out in hurricane-force winds.

As Carolyn and I endlessly voyage, we’ve found that I like places she doesn’t. Take Namibia’s Skeleton Coast, for example. There are odd currents, fierce storms and dangerously shifting sandbars. It’s a perfect place for an adventurous soul like me. “And how, exactly, did this area get its name?” Carolyn asked as we sailed Ganesh northward along its dramatic West African coast of shifting desert sands.

“From all the wrecks of the old sailing ships,” I said. “The vessel frame ends sticking up out of the dunes were easy to spot and kind of eerie. Once the rescuers rowed ashore, they’d then follow the footprints of the thirsty sailors in the sand to find their dehydrated bodies. So, it was kind of a two-for-one skeleton hunt.”

“Oh, lovely,” Carolyn said, rolling her eyes.

We’d gotten a good weather window out of Cape Town. There were a number of cruising vessels within 50 miles on the same passage. We had all tracked the moderate gale sliding toward us from St. Helena. A couple of the crews had real problems in the 40-knot gusty winds. They became fatigued from hand-­steering for more than 35 hours in the large breaking seas.

For Carolyn and me, it was a romantic time-out. I set out version No. 4 of my Fat Puffer. It’s a large bag that fills with water and has slits that enlarge and, hopefully, create turbulence in the gusts to break up a wave. I also unrolled our storm staysail. Our Monitor windvane was steering us straight and true. Our AIS transponder was on, ditto our radar. Our new LED tricolor is very bright, so we figured we’d be seen if other vessels were near.

We both went below; only occasionally peeking out to see the majesty of Mother Ocean in a grand mood.

I had a cup of tea, Carolyn opted for a single glass of red wine. We smiled at each other.

“What’s your favorite part of storm-strutting?” she asked.

“You,” I said.

– – –

Cap’n Fatty and Carolyn Goodlander recently completed their third circumnavigation and are restocking in anticipation of setting out to see the world again. The Cap’n is the author of Storm Proofing Your Boat, Gear and Crew.

The post Take it Slow in Bad Weather appeared first on Cruising World.

Fully inflated and sitting in the middle of the workshop floor, our life raft looked rather small. This wasn’t the first time I had seen a Viking RescYou four-person life raft in all its glory, but it was the first time ours had been unpacked from its tidy black valise.

We had gone way past the recommended service interval, but certified life-raft service centers aren’t that easy to come by in the South Pacific. Blown up, the raft reminded me of a children’s bouncy castle, all gaudy colors and rounded corners. The air was heady with the smell of new rubber like a freshly opened packet of balloons, but I felt no excitement as I crawled over the air-filled pontoons and into our escape pod.

I sat in the strange orange glow with my legs fully extended in front of me, imagining three other people sharing the space. It would be cozy, to say the least. Even with only Steve and me, the ditch bag and any other items we might manage to grab, it would be tight. I tried to imagine what the raft would feel like afloat; the floor constantly undulating, the sound of the ocean crashing around us, the slick, sticky feeling of salty skin and damp clothing. I struggled with the concept that my survival would depend solely on this small inflatable chamber and a few electronic gadgets. I closed my eyes and hoped that day would never come.

Spending time in a life raft is probably not on anybody’s bucket list, but any sailor who has spent a night or two at sea has no doubt stopped to consider the possibility. Like an EPIRB, a search-and-rescue transponder, a sea anchor and a good medical kit, a life raft is a vital piece of safety equipment that should be on board every boat. Some may think that life rafts are only the concern of offshore sailors, but hazards such as bad weather, accidents and human errors are not reserved for when you lose sight of land. A simple hop from port to port can be as treacherous as a three-week passage if you’re not prepared.

With so many brands on the market, it is difficult to know which life raft to choose, and unfortunately, talking to fellow sailors might not steer you in the right direction. Boat owners are often reluctant to foot the somewhat hefty expense of buying a new life raft if the one on board when the vessel is purchased is in serviceable condition, regardless of whether it’s the brand or style that they would prefer. The internet doesn’t have many firsthand user opinions on the matter because, thankfully, few boat owners have fully tested the limits of their equipment.

Still, there are several things to consider when buying a life raft, and the first should be the maximum number of people regularly on board.

The capacity of the life raft you carry is not determined by the length of your vessel but the number of crew who will need to use the raft in case of emergency. It is often recommended that you carry a life raft a size larger than the number of people on board. In our case, we sail almost exclusively as a couple, so we purchased a four-person raft. How the life raft performs at sea is somewhat dependent on the number of people inside it; the body weight of the passengers provides extra ballast. Although we were tempted to carry a six- or eight-man raft, it could actually be dangerous. An under-weighted raft is more prone to flipping if caught in a gust or when surfing down waves. A larger raft also means a larger space to keep warm, so maintaining core body temperature could become problematic. Large vessels will often carry more than one smaller life raft to accommodate varying numbers of crew and passengers.

The physical dimensions and weights of life rafts vary from brand to brand but are mainly dependent on one thing: how they are packed. Whether to choose a soft valise or hard canister is perhaps the most debated point in the life-raft discussion. Of these, the canister-packed life raft is the most popular option by far. Out of the 20 boats that I surveyed, 15 vessels carried canisters.

Like any good debate, there are passionate arguments for and against both options. A hard canister is considered to be better protection from the harsh marine environment, but a valise can be stowed belowdecks, out of the weather completely. Storing a valise down below diminishes the possibility of theft. I personally have never heard of a canister life raft being stolen off a yacht, but even thieves can be safety-conscious.

A life raft packed in a valise is lighter than a canister, most weighing in between about 50 and 75 pounds, versus roughly 65 to 90 pounds for a canister. That said, a smaller crewmember might not be able to lift that much dead weight up the companionway, especially if the boat is heaving. A canister may weigh more but is usually deployed directly from its storage location. There are a few companies that offer ultralight life rafts packed in watertight cases, or will custom pack a raft to your storage specifications, but like anything light, small and customized in the sailing world, those options cost more.

The way the life raft is packed also determines where it is stored. The perfect storage spot for a canister life raft is a purpose-built compartment, as is often found in the transom of a catamaran. This type of system does not take up valuable deck space and, if davits and a dinghy are not obstructing the storage area, ensures the raft is easily accessible. The more common method of stowing a canister is in a custom mounting bracket, usually stainless steel or aluminum, which can be bolted to the deck or vertically on the rail. Although many cite canisters as being better protection against the elements, they can be prone to leakage if submerged in rough weather when green water is taken over the deck. So, mounting your life raft on the foredeck may not be the best option.

Canisters often are fitted with a hydrostatic release. This automatic device activates when submerged and inflates the raft if the vessel suddenly sinks. A “weak link” in the painter will part under stress, allowing the raft to float to the surface. It’s important to consider what obstructions might hinder the automatic inflation or release of the raft when choosing where to mount the bracket. Many boats have canisters mounted on the cabin top, which keeps it out from underfoot and away from the majority of heavy wave action. However, during deployment, it could get caught in the standing rigging, tangled in loose lines or come in contact with sharp hardware. Before drilling holes for mounting screws, take a look around for potential hazards.

The capacity of the life raft you carry is not determined by the length of your vessel but the number of crew who will need to use the raft in case of emergency. It is often recommended that you carry a life raft a size larger than the number of people on board. In our case, we sail almost exclusively as a couple, so we purchased a four-person raft. How the life raft performs at sea is somewhat dependent on the number of people inside it; the body weight of the passengers provides extra ballast. Although we were tempted to carry a six- or eight-man raft, it could actually be dangerous. An under-weighted raft is more prone to flipping if caught in a gust or when surfing down waves. A larger raft also means a larger space to keep warm, so maintaining core body temperature could become problematic. Large vessels will often carry more than one smaller life raft to accommodate varying numbers of crew and passengers.

The physical dimensions and weights of life rafts vary from brand to brand but are mainly dependent on one thing: how they are packed. Whether to choose a soft valise or hard canister is perhaps the most debated point in the life-raft discussion. Of these, the canister-packed life raft is the most popular option by far. Out of the 20 boats that I surveyed, 15 vessels carried canisters.

Like any good debate, there are passionate arguments for and against both options. A hard canister is considered to be better protection from the harsh marine environment, but a valise can be stowed belowdecks, out of the weather completely. Storing a valise down below diminishes the possibility of theft. I personally have never heard of a canister life raft being stolen off a yacht, but even thieves can be safety-conscious.

A life raft packed in a valise is lighter than a canister, most weighing in between about 50 and 75 pounds, versus roughly 65 to 90 pounds for a canister. That said, a smaller crewmember might not be able to lift that much dead weight up the companionway, especially if the boat is heaving. A canister may weigh more but is usually deployed directly from its storage location. There are a few companies that offer ultralight life rafts packed in watertight cases, or will custom pack a raft to your storage specifications, but like anything light, small and customized in the sailing world, those options cost more.

The way the life raft is packed also determines where it is stored. The perfect storage spot for a canister life raft is a purpose-built compartment, as is often found in the transom of a catamaran. This type of system does not take up valuable deck space and, if davits and a dinghy are not obstructing the storage area, ensures the raft is easily accessible. The more common method of stowing a canister is in a custom mounting bracket, usually stainless steel or aluminum, which can be bolted to the deck or vertically on the rail. Although many cite canisters as being better protection against the elements, they can be prone to leakage if submerged in rough weather when green water is taken over the deck. So, mounting your life raft on the foredeck may not be the best option.

Canisters often are fitted with a hydrostatic release. This automatic device activates when submerged and inflates the raft if the vessel suddenly sinks. A “weak link” in the painter will part under stress, allowing the raft to float to the surface. It’s important to consider what obstructions might hinder the automatic inflation or release of the raft when choosing where to mount the bracket. Many boats have canisters mounted on the cabin top, which keeps it out from underfoot and away from the majority of heavy wave action. However, during deployment, it could get caught in the standing rigging, tangled in loose lines or come in contact with sharp hardware. Before drilling holes for mounting screws, take a look around for potential hazards.

Alternatively, mounting a raft on the rails of the stern pulpit will allow a mostly unobstructed deployment and make it easier for crewmembers to depart the foundering vessel from the cockpit. Wherever you decide to put the mounting bracket, it is important to use heavy bolts, lock nuts and a backing plate when necessary to prevent the raft from being accidentally washed overboard.

The most important consideration for storing a valise-type life raft is whether you have enough space to put the raft in a locker or belowdecks. A valise-packed raft is much more prone to water damage and chafe, so its storage location is a serious consideration. Many smaller vessels opt for a canister simply because they cannot accommodate storing a life raft down below. A dedicated locker in the cockpit would be the ideal spot for a valise, but only if you can guarantee the locker is free of leaks and sharp edges and is always accessible underway. If you store a raft in a locker it must be made clear to all crewmembers that nothing is to be placed on top of or around the raft that might hinder extracting it during an emergency. The minutes that you spend digging your way to the escape craft might just cost you your life.

A couple of the yachts whose owners I interviewed that carried valise-packed rafts stored them in the cabin while anchorage hopping, but the rafts were moved on deck while on passage. Both vessels had Sunbrella covers made, which provide excellent UV protection but only moderate defense against water. This system works in theory because most life rafts, both valise and canister models, are now vacuum-packed in heavy metallic bags to prevent water ingress, but it is not recommended.

On board Kate, our Newport 41, we store our life raft down below, just to starboard of the companionway, behind the nav table in a little nook that the designers considered a sea berth. From there, it is an easy grab and hoist up the stairs into the cockpit. Located nearby is our ditch bag, a Pelican case with boat documents and passports, the satellite phone and an empty extra-large dry bag. It’s one-stop shopping in case of emergency. I admit that I feel a bit like a Scotsman at a caber toss when maneuvering the beast up the companionway stairs, but I can do it without assistance or adrenaline.

What is often overlooked — and is of the utmost importance — is serviceability. After all, what good is carrying a life raft aboard if you cannot get regular safety checks and maintenance done on it?

Most manufacturers recommend having a life raft serviced every three years. Inspection should always be done by a certified service agent endorsed by your raft’s manufacturer. Each brand has specific packing techniques, test points and perishables on board that need to be examined and possibly replaced. If an unauthorized person services your life raft, the manufacturer is likely to void any warranty or responsibility if there are defects with the product or you experience an equipment failure. So where you are sailing and how long you’re gone should heavily influence which brand of life raft you buy.

In 2008, when we were fitting out Kate, we decided to carry a RescYou life raft made by Viking. Our initial plan was to sail from the United States to Australia, with a later possibility of continuing on to a circumnavigation. We looked at a number of manufacturers and, in the end, went with Viking because its life rafts are carried on cruise ships and container ships; it’s also the brand often used on gas platforms and oil rigs throughout the world. Worldwide sales means worldwide service. Although, as we found out, there are few service agents in the smaller islands of the South Pacific.

Many service centers will let you watch the inflation and inspection of your life raft, and I highly recommend taking them up on it. One couple from Washington that I spoke with reported they were even able to arrange a visit to the service center while shopping for a life raft so they could inspect the raft and all of its components before purchase. Getting to witness the mechanics of how a life raft is deployed and inflated means you will know what to expect when and if you need to do it yourself. Familiarizing yourself with the look and feel of the raft means there will be fewer surprises when you’re ready to crawl inside.

In a typical service, after breaking the seals on the canister or valise and cutting open the interior vac-pack bag, the technician will remove, inspect and weigh the CO2 cylinder that is included to inflate the raft. This process is similar to dive-tank inspections and is extremely important because a raft might not inflate when the painter is yanked if it has a faulty cylinder. The raft is usually inflated using an air compressor and left for several hours so that any pinholes or punctures have time to present themselves. During this waiting period, most service centers invite owners to get up close and personal with their life raft.

You should also get a chance to inspect the rations and safety gear included inside the raft. The inspector will have a checklist and should review that all items included in the raft are accounted for. They are required to check the expiration dates of medicines and rations and replace expired items with the same or equivalent item as compliant to the manufacturer’s standards. They will also inspect flares and replace those that have expired. The service center should have proper methods of disposing of any flares they remove from the raft.

The contents of onboard emergency packs vary by brand but should include seasickness tablets, water rations, a raft-repair kit, a manual pump, a bailer and sponge, a flashlight with extra batteries, a signal mirror, flares, a whistle and a pair of paddles. Items that are standard on some brands but must be added for an additional cost on other brands are food rations, a first-aid pack, a fishing kit, rain-collection and storage bags, a drogue anchor and extra water rations. Some manufacturers classify their emergency packs as “under 24 hours” and “over 24 hours,” while others state that what is included in the standard or extended emergency pack depends on “expected time that casualties may spend in the raft until they get rescued.” I, for one, am not expecting to be in my life raft at all, so knowing the duration of my stay in such a situation is impossible. In my opinion, it is prudent to purchase all the extras to make sure that the time spent in a life raft is as safe and comfortable as it can be.

A reputable service agent will ensure that all inspection tags that needed to be broken to service the raft are replaced. There is usually a sticker or tag affixed to the canister or valise where they will record their agent-specific ID number, date of service and next required service interval.

The cost of servicing a life raft fluctuates from port to port. The bill is usually broken down into a base service charge that includes unpacking, inflating, inspecting and repacking the raft. Any components that are required or supplies that are replaced are priced individually and then added to the base cost. When we got our raft serviced in Fiji in 2015, it cost $400. We had minimal items that needed to be replaced — seasickness medicine, water and flares. But, we found out, flares are considered hazardous goods when shipped so can be quite expensive when not purchased in their country of origin. Buying a life raft is neither a cheap nor easy exercise. Then again, the important affairs in life rarely are. There are many essential factors to consider, least of all the chance that you might actually have to use the thing one day. Cruisers are often said to be frugal, but this isn’t really the place to be pinching pennies. After all, how can you put a price on saving the lives of your loved ones?

– – –

Heather Francis is originally from Nova Scotia, Canada, and has been living and working on boats around the world for the past decade. In 2008, she and her Aussie partner, Steve, bought Kate, a Newport 41, in California, and have been sailing her full-time since. They plan to do a lap around the planet, albeit slowly. Follow their adventures at www.yachtkate.com.

The post Small Boats for Big Emergencies appeared first on Cruising World.

Whether you are 10 miles from shore or 1,000, if things go wrong and you need to abandon your vessel, there are a few essential items that you will be reaching for. After the life raft and the EPIRB, the ditch bag is, in our opinion, one of the most critical survival items.

When we bought our 45-foot sloop, Distant Drummer, 10 years ago, we purchased a new Viking RescYou Pro six-man life raft. Like most life rafts, it comes with an emergency pack containing basic survival gear, such as raft-maintenance items, signaling equipment, drinking water, a first-aid kit and seasickness tablets. Our ditch bag contains many additional things that we deem essential for survival in a life raft for a reasonable period of time. After 26,000 nautical miles of cruising and six offshore passages of more than 1,000 miles, we have packed, repacked and refined our ditch bag a number of times.

I should point out that in addition to the ditch bag, there are several other items in daily use around the boat that would be vital to have on board the life raft. The EPIRB, activated and broadcasting the distress signal, is the most important, and then, in no particular order of priority, one (or more) jerry jugs of fresh water, a chart, a bucket, a handheld GPS and VHF, a satellite phone if you have one and as many cans of food as space and time permit. A passport for each crewmember, as well as some cash and a credit card, should be in a watertight container and in the ditch bag as well.

What Is a Ditch Bag?

A ditch bag is an emergency bag that contains the equipment needed for catching food, obtaining water, signaling for help and providing shelter from the elements to enable you to survive living in a life raft for a number of days or weeks. It needs to be stowed where it can quickly and easily be grabbed and thrown into the life raft. We keep ours in a locker close to the companionway because we have no lazarettes in the cockpit. A ditch bag should be waterproof and brightly colored, with a lanyard attached just in case it slips out of your fingers. We actually use two large yellow dry bags with the gear split between them, just in case only one bag makes it and to reduce handling size and weight.

For the purposes of this article, I have assumed that the crew are already wearing foul-weather gear, life jackets and clothing suitable to the weather and climate. I have subdivided the equipment into four categories, but obviously some of the tools are generally useful to have for a number of purposes.

Food

Food not only provides the energy and nutrients needed to keep the body functioning, but it also lifts the spirits and gives a focus or highlight to the day. Food stored in the ditch bag should not be perishable, should be edible without cooking and should not be salty because drinking water will be in short supply. It’s also a good idea to choose food that can be divided into smaller portions to enable easy rationing for as long as possible. I have vacuum-packed about 5½ pounds of roasted nuts, dried fruit and trail mix in 5-ounce portions and included about 25 granola bars.

Fishing line and hooks are needed to supplement the dried food and to keep busy. I’ve also included a folding knife and small wooden cutting board to deal with the catch. Hoping that time would be available to stow canned food on board the life raft, I have packed a can opener and a couple of spoons because our success at fishing can be a bit hit-or-miss.

Water

It’s said that a human can survive for three weeks without food but for only three days without water. Water is so essential, but it’s impossible to carry enough of it! When abandoning our vessel, I would be certain to grab a five-gallon jerry jug of water (we keep several full on the back deck for this eventuality) and a bucket for collecting rainwater.

Of course, in many parts of the world, rainfall catchment cannot be relied upon. The bucket can also be used to make a solar water still, and garbage bags, a cup and duct tape are packed into the ditch bag to enable us to construct one. A two-gallon sealable plastic bag is included for water storage. If your budget allows, a handheld manual watermaker would be a good addition.

Shelter and Navigation

The life raft provides the first line of defense against the elements, but there are a few other items contained in our ditch bag to help keep us protected from the rain or sun. Sun hats, sunglasses and sunscreen are packed, as are swimming goggles, which can be used for protecting the eyes from rain or sea spray. They are also useful for looking underwater to check for fish or to inspect the condition of the life raft.

On the navigation side, our ditch bag includes a compass, pen and paper (in a sealable bag) to record the wind and drift direction. There is also a small drogue to stabilize the life raft and control our drift. I would hope to have time to grab a chart and a handheld GPS and have packed spare batteries for it just in case. Having even a vague idea of our location and the possibility to slow down our drift may allow us to stay longer in a shipping channel or to predict how long before we reach land.

Signaling

Once sustaining life has been dealt with, the next thing to think about is rescue. As soon as the EPIRB is activated, it will alert the authorities that there is a vessel in distress and will signal the location of the life raft for at least 48 hours. To avoid missing a chance of recovery, keeping a good lookout for ships or aircraft during both day and night is essential. When rescue is sighted, it’s time to break out the signaling gear.

In our ditch bag we have two red and two white handheld flares, two orange smoke flares and two red parachute flares. Although a flare is an excellent locating device, it only lasts for a moment and hence could easily be missed by a search vessel. We have packed a signaling mirror, a strobe and a powerful flashlight (with spare batteries), which are all very useful for trying to attract attention over a longer period of time. Sea marker dye, a rescue streamer and a 2-foot plastic signal square are included to enhance the visibility of a life raft, particularly from the air. Once a ship or an aircraft is in sight, the waterproof handheld VHF can be useful in facilitating the rescue.

This list is not exhaustive, and every skipper will have different ideas about the equipment they prioritize as essential. We check our ditch bag every year to replace batteries and restock out-of-date food and flares. Going through this process gives me the chance to review our gear to ensure it still meets our needs and will keep us alive until rescue arrives.

Suzannah and Neil Carmody live aboard Distant Drummer, a Liberty 458 cutter-rigged sloop that they bought in Thailand in 2006. Eleven years on and 26,000 nautical miles later, they are currently enjoying a leisurely cruise down the California coast. Their blog (carmody-clan.com) tells stories of their adventures exploring the world on a cruising boat and gives some useful tips for living aboard.

The post What’s In Your Ditch Bag? appeared first on Cruising World.

For most sailors, buying search-and-rescue equipment is akin to purchasing earthquake insurance — something wise homeowners carry but hope to never, ever use. Take the well-documented example of Leopard, a 57-foot catamaran that was some 400 nautical miles north of the Dominican Republic, sailing south-southeast en route to St. Maarten on the evening of November 16, 2016. Capt. Charles Nethersole was aboard with crewmembers Carolyn Bailey and Bert Jno Lewis as Leopard negotiated 18-knot winds and lumpy seas with a double tuck in her mainsail. Realizing that they were overcanvased, Nethersole, a professional captain with 41 years of experience, and Lewis reefed the staysail while Bailey prepared dinner.

Nethersole and Lewis had just entered Leopard’s pilothouse, with Nethersole at the interior helm, when a meteorological juggernaut of wind and waves arrived via the starboard quarter.

“The boat got literally picked up,” said Nethersole, positing that they crossed tacks with a vortex-triggered pressure drop. “It was like being in an elevator. We went up, and then we just went over.”

The sea-smart crew quickly grabbed their ditch bag, immersion-survival suits and Leopard’s life raft, and escaped the saloon for the (relative) safety of the inverted wingdeck, where Nethersole activated the boat’s ACR GlobalFix Pro EPIRB. Several hours later, a U.S. Coast Guard C-130 arrived and directed the Mexico-bound bulk carrier Aloe to their rescue.

While you can bet your keel that abandoning ship was the last thing on the Leopard crew’s mind three minutes before encountering their crisis, their story highlights the four critical components to a successful search-and-rescue operation, namely the ability to alert, locate, track and rescue a stricken vessel or mariner. Given that Leopard’s emergency position-indicating radio beacon, or EPIRB, continuously reported its GPS location, along with its vessel-­registered 406 MHz emergency satellite-­communications signal, rescuing authorities were quickly alerted to the emergency and updated with the EPIRB’s position information. This let the Coast Guard pinpoint the catamaran and direct its rescue.

Yet while Nethersole and company enjoyed a textbook-­perfect rescue, this would not have been possible without the International Cospas-Sarsat Programme, which began in 1979 as a collaborative effort by the United States, France and the former Soviet Union to provide a satellite monitoring and emergency-signal relay service that’s free of charge to all mariners.

Today, Cospas-Sarsat involves 43 nations that maintain an always-listening system of satellites and air-, land- and water-based assets. While contemporary search-and-rescue equipment and systems, including Cospas-Sarsat, have already saved at least 40,000 lives, the next-generation satellite-­monitoring system promises better and faster service, along with the ability to support more sophisticated beacons, the first of which are already hitting chandlery shelves.

A Multilayered Network

Things get complicated when dozens of satellites, ground-monitoring stations and different rescuing authorities, such as the Coast Guard, are involved. However, Cospas-Sarsat’s schema involves a five-step process that begins when a satellite-mounted transponder detects a 406 MHz emergency signal from an EPIRB or an individually registered personal locator beacon, or PLB.

The transponder either passes the information directly to an earth-based receiver, known as a local user terminal, or it stores and forwards when a ground station, or LUT, comes into range. Once the LUT receives the signal, it’s sent to a mission control center that’s located in the country of the beacon’s registration. From there, the mission control center directs the message to a rescue coordination center, which conducts the physical rescue.

The speed with which an emergency signal reaches a rescue coordination center depends on where the emergency signal originated and what kind of satellite received the call. Cospas-Sarsat currently has two fully operational satellite constellations aloft, with a third under construction. Each system works in a different manner, but collectively, these different constellations provide redundant and complementary safety layers.

Cospas-Sarsat’s first-­generation and still active Low-Altitude Earth Orbit Search and Rescue system is a constellation of five satellites. LEOSAR satellites use Doppler processing to pinpoint a beacon’s location, without a GPS position sent from the EPIRB or PLB. LEOSAR coverage is noncontinuous and requires multiple satellite passes, each taking roughly 100 minutes, to triangulate a beacon’s latitude and longitude. Also, because these satellites sometimes store information while waiting for contact with a ground station, a rescue operation can be further delayed.

Cospas-Sarsat’s second-­generation Geostationary Orbit Search and Rescue system, known as GEOSAR, involves a constellation of six geostationary satellites that provide continuous coverage and the ability to quickly alert a ground station to an active 406 MHz signal. Unlike LEOSAR, GEOSAR satellites can’t use Doppler processing to self-calculate a beacon’s position, so contemporary EPIRBs and PLBs, including ACR’s GlobalFix Pro, which Leopard’s crew used, include a built-in global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receiver, allowing the beacon to determine its exact position information from GPS (United States), GLONASS (Russia) or Galileo (EU) satellites. The position fix is then sent by the rescue beacon to the satellite and relayed to the appropriate rescue agencies. While GNSS information dramatically reduces the amount of time it takes for rescuers to arrive on scene, not all EPIRBs are currently required to carry GNSS receivers. When buying a rescue beacon, it’s important to know if it includes this feature.

The third layer in Cospas-Sarsat’s ever-evolving network, the Medium-Altitude Earth Orbit Search and Rescue system, known as MEOSAR, won’t be fully operational until 2021 or 2022, but once complete, it will involve a constellation of 72 different satellites, plus upgraded terrestrial assets, including significantly advanced antennas.

MEOSAR incorporates the best of its forebears, namely LEOSAR’s Doppler processing and GEOSAR’s GPS-positioning capabilities. Once complete, MEOSAR will be able to quickly triangulate a beacon’s signal and nearly instantaneously share this information with an LUT. One caveat, however: MEOSAR will not offer coverage in the highest latitudes.

While Nethersole and company endured some worrisome hours before the C-130 arrived, in the future, those in peril will not have to wait to see if their signal was received and whether rescuers are on their way. Galileo satellites within MEOSAR’s constellation will include a return link signal (operational with properly equipped EPIRBs by 2018) that notifies a beacon user when their signal has been received.

This peace of mind can prevent life-and-death dominoes from toppling. Sean McCrystal, McMurdo’s marketing manager of search-and-rescue solutions, recalls the story of four Irish mariners whose vessel sank. They activated their EPIRB, but a crisis of confidence ensued; convinced that their signals hadn’t been received, three of them swam for shore and drowned. The fourth was rescued. “They made their decision because they didn’t think help was coming,” says McCrystal.

New Features Soon

In addition to being faster, MEOSAR’s advent, coupled with recently issued Federal Communications Commission regulations, allows EPIRB manufacturers to innovate in life-saving ways. For example, McMurdo’s recently released FastFind G8 AIS broadcasts four signals. Two are data feeds associated with satellites, 406 MHz and 121.5 MHz (a legacy frequency employed by rescuing authorities for final-mile homing using specialized equipment), and the other two incorporate a GPS location and automatic identification system (AIS) data, which alerts all local AIS-equipped traffic to the emergency signal so they can quickly render assistance.

This is a critical upgrade because previous EPIRBs only transmitted satellite-­communication signals, meaning that while an ­official rescuing agency gets notified, nearby traffic is electronically blind to any nearby plights. By also broadcasting an AIS signal, the crews of AIS-enabled boats will see emergency alerts on their chart plotter or AIS display. And if their own EPIRB has accidentally activated, it will stave off false alarms. As of this writing, McMurdo is the only manufacturer to offer a multi-signal EPIRB, but other players likely will follow.

Interestingly, while manufacturers are adding AIS to their EPIRBs, MEOSAR will theoretically allow them to remove other frequencies. “Next-generation EPIRBs won’t need a GNSS-derived GPS location because of the sheer number of satellites, and also because ground stations are so much more accurate,” says McCrystal.

Still, while MEOSAR’s Doppler location-processing capabilities may remove the need for GNSS, the data broadcast is likely to be included because Cospas-Sarsat employs a multilayered approach.

“Technology is always getting better — for example, the additional level of satellites — but LEOSAR and GEOSAR are still fully operative and will continue to work,” says Nichole Kalil, ACR Electronics’ public affairs and media manager. “MEOSAR is the icing on the cake.” Because of this, EPIRBs will need GNSS receivers (at least) until older satellites are retired. In fact, the FCC is requiring that all new EPIRBs sold in the United States after January 1, 2019, be GNSS-equipped.

Besides a quicker rescue, sailors will benefit in other ways as manufacturers introduce new products. As with consumer electronics, feature lists are becoming richer while price tags are getting leaner, thus lowering an important barrier of entry. For example, a decade ago, a non-GNSS-equipped EPIRB sold for around $1,000. Today, $400 buys a contemporary GNSS-equipped beacon.

“You’re going to spend that or more on your Yeti cooler,” says Kalil. Additionally, EPIRB rental programs, such as the one that ACR and McMurdo have created with the BoatUS Foundation or that ACR has established with Sea Tow, help make safety gear readily attainable.

On a Personal Note

While EPIRBs are registered to vessels, PLBs are intended to be worn by individual crewmembers, which means you can carry one whenever you go out on the water, and on any boat.

PLBs that transmit 406 MHz satellite signals must be registered to individual sailors, just as an EPIRB gets registered to a particular boat. When activated, they connect with the Cospas-Sarsat network to alert rescuers ashore.

AIS-broadcasting personal beacons, which transmit on VHF radio frequencies, are programmed to send a signal to your own vessel and chart plotter or other AIS-equipped boats in the vicinity, but an alarm will not be picked up by any satellite network.

Examples of contemporary PLBs and AIS man-overboard devices include ACR’s ResQLink+ PLB and its new AISLink MOB, and McMurdo’s FastFind 220 and SmartFind 220.

In a perfect world, sailors could buy one device that would operate in both modes, but as of this writing, the FCC doesn’t allow a single personal device to broadcast both 406 MHz and AIS signals. Part of the issue, at least, is because of battery-life requirements and the limitations of just how big a power supply can be built into a pocket-size beacon. However, regulations remain the highest hurdle to jump before a single PLB-type device will be legally allowed to broadcast both 406 MHz and AIS signals.

As a result, some safety-­conscious sailors carry multiple devices to ensure their emergency signals are heard by rescue authorities, local marine traffic and their own boat.

“It’s something the market wants,” says Kalil, adding that ACR is listening. Hopefully, the FCC will change its regulations, but until then, the best move is to stack the odds in your favor because the costs are relatively small and the return on investment is immense.

Manufacturers also build GPS communicators/messengers that can reliably be used in emergencies. Examples of this equipment include Garmin’s inReach and the Spot Satellite Messenger. Depending on the model, users can employ these devices to send pre-scripted messages to friends and family (e.g., “All good on our end.”), along with latitude and longitude information. Some models also let people on shore ping the unit to learn the user’s location information, and these devices also come with an SOS button that directly contacts the privately operated GEOS Rescue Coordination Center with the user’s position and personal information. It’s important to remember that GEOS is a private U.S.-based company, not an internationally funded, multinational government program like Cospas-Sarsat. However, the two organizations often contact the same rescue agencies in the event of an emergency.

Additionally, Garmin’s inReach devices can be paired with a user’s smartphone, taking advantage of its keyboard to type, send and receive short text messages via the unit’s Iridium satellite communication connection. Some inReach models include a built-in chart-plotter screen so the device itself can be used for navigation. Other units can share information via Bluetooth with a smartphone and tablet, providing those devices with location data. Users can also download weather reports. Unlike the other equipment discussed in this article, both the Spot and Garmin’s inReach require a monthly or yearly subscription service. However, these plans can sometimes be “winterized” during months of inactivity.

– – –

David Schmidt is CW’s ­electronics editor.

The post Improving The Odds with Satellite Beacons appeared first on Cruising World.

Sailing lore is rife with colorful yarns, but one of the all-time classics belongs to Joshua Slocum, the Nova Scotia-born American sailor and writer who was the first person to circumnavigate singlehandedly. In Slocum’s legendary account of his adventures, Sailing Alone Around the World, he recounts an incident when Spray attracted the unwanted interests of unsavory locals one evening while anchored near Thieves Bay, en route to the Strait of Magellan. Slocum wisely scattered upturned ­carpet tacks on his decks before retiring to his berth. “I had no need of a dog,” he wrote of his uninvited guests’ reaction. “They howled like a pack of hounds.”

The ruse worked, the thieves scattered, and Slocum and Spray continued sailing. While this tale of preparation trumping thievery has a humorous outcome, it hits on several key factors that still hold true in 2017. A good security system employs careful planning, superior technology, and subterfuge to induce fear and confusion among any unwanted visitors. Moreover, like Slocum’s tacks, a proper security system gives those on board the tools and time to react to any threat. Sailboats, after all, are high-dollar investments and will always be tempting targets for thieves. To protect them, modern security and vessel-monitoring systems use stealthy sensors, ­cellular modems and geofences, among other surprises, to thwart intruders, while also allowing an owner to monitor and control different onboard systems and devices from afar. Here’s a look at how this ­technology works and how it can make your vessel safer from theft and systems-related trouble while delivering peace of mind.

The best vessel alarms are those that are hard to detect and involve multiple stages of escalation. “Security is like an onion,” says Jay Keenan, president and CEO of Global Ocean Security Technologies, or GOST. “The more layers there are, and the more independent each layer is, the more secure the asset becomes.” Because of this, contemporary security systems use combinations of obvious and hidden devices such as deck-pressure sensors, infrared beams, door and hatch sensors, motion detectors, and IP-enabled ­cameras, as well as lights and sirens, all of which can be monitored and controlled from a smartphone, tablet or computer. These sensors and detectors report to a central-­processing unit, or CPU, which is typically a black box that’s equipped with a cellular modem or a Wi-Fi card, giving it the ability to communicate with the outside world.

Most security and vessel-­monitoring systems are designed to be expandable, allowing owners to add ­sensors and vessel-­specific solutions as needed.

“Reduction of false alarms is critical,” says Keenan. GOST’s video extraction algorithms, which work at low data rates over cellular and satellite-­communication networks, are extremely advanced, for instance. “We have many sailing clients with mast cams who, when the system is armed, receive a video-clip alert if anyone pulls into their yacht’s perimeter on anchor.”

Most modern security and vessel-monitoring systems, in fact, can be configured to contact an owner, marina, harbormaster or police in the case of unwanted activity by sending an email or text message, or even make a phone call.

If this sounds like a home-security system, you’re on the right track — but with a key difference. Should an alarm trip, most vessel-­security systems do not contact a monitoring center, where a worker calls the owner and the police. Instead, these systems execute a call themselves based on a set of rules and parameters that are either bundled into their operating systems or determined by their owners.

Proactive Security, Monitoring

While most criminals are quickly scattered by the sound of an alarm, the obstinate few press forward, perhaps thinking that they can defeat the system or that time is on their side, especially if valuables and electronics can be easily snatched. Should that happen, robust systems can create highly unpleasant working ­conditions for the thief.

“We make acoustic devices that, at a close range, create an unbearable frequency pattern,” says Keenan. “It’s not loud, but the intruder will experience vertigo.” Should the intruder break into the saloon, for example, devices such as GOST’s Cloak emit a vaporized glycol solution that fills the cabin with a thick, disorienting fog that makes it almost impossible for a thief to see or, sometimes, even escape.

Critically, yacht-security systems should be able to be deactivated only by the owner and never by a ­burglar. This is accomplished by using app- and website-­based user interfaces to control the system, as well as ­hidden ­hardware and reserve batteries, should a mainline power ­supply or the system’s CPU get compromised.

While vessel-security systems have historically represented the bulk of the remote-monitoring market, this is changing, says Keith Cariani, director of business development at Aydin Marine (née KEP). The vast majority of inquiries that Aydin gets these days are from customers interested in vessel monitoring.

In addition to Aydin’s Seatether, players in the monitoring arena include companies like Yacht Protector, Siren Marine’s Pixie, Scribble Software’s MyBoatStatus and Aqualarm’s various sensors. These companies still offer vessel-security elements such as geofencing, door sensors and pressure mats, but their systems are more oriented toward monitoring metrics such as bilge-water levels, the frequency that the bilge pumps are running, batteries and shore-power supply, as well as fire, smoke, temperature and humidity levels.

Like security alarms, most vessel-monitoring systems consist of a CPU and a network of wired or wireless sensors that can be set to monitor and control a bevy of onboard devices, ­ranging from masthead lights to bilge pumps. This is typically accomplished using relay switches that can power devices and systems on or off, and which are controlled via the CPU and apps that run on a smartphone or tablet.

Other systems, such as YachtBrain — which was launched at the 2016 U.S. Sailboat Show in Annapolis, Maryland, and which is expected to be available in 2017 — focus on vessel monitoring, control and automation. According to Allen Beckerdite, YachtBrain’s co-founder, the system uses wireless sensors and relays that are programmed to owner-­defined rules and alerts, and take action when conditions warrant. The system might, for instance, blare an onboard horn if the high-­water alarm is triggered or send an owner an alert.

YachtBrain’s basic ­system can sense up to four electrical devices, and users can define alerts for events such as a bilge pump cycling three times in 10 seconds or, conversely, to report a pump that has not run in 30 days, which could mean it needs maintenance, says Beckerdite. YachtBrain is expandable by simply adding more sensors and relays. Unlike most other vessel-­monitoring systems, YachtBrain doesn’t simply send an email or text message to notify owners about status updates or alarms.

“YachtBrain uses a ­reliable connection protocol that is designed to operate over unreliable network connections,” says Beckerdite. “These protocols were designed for industrial use and are now being used for the Internet of Things.” For remote access, most ­systems rely on a built-in ­cellular modem, a Wi-Fi card or satellite capability. Controls are via an app or secure Web page, allowing owners to log in to the networked systems from anywhere, provided that the vessel can communicate with the Internet.

YachtBrain, says Beckerdite, takes things a step further. In addition to its built-in Wi-Fi card, if no Internet connection is available, the system’s CPU can make decisions on its own, based on rules the owner has established, and then report the actions taken once connectivity is restored.

Provided that ­connectivity exists, modern vessel-­monitoring systems ­provide peace of mind, especially when owners are away from their boats. Here, however, systems need to strike the right balance of keeping an owner informed without generating and sending large, expensive amounts of data.

“The data bursts are really small, and our sensors run off internal batteries,” says Vance Young, the director of technology at Scribble Software. “Our entire system uses less than a megabyte of data all month.” Young notes that constant sensing (i.e., motion sensors) uses more data than ones that report on longer-interval schedules (i.e., high-water sensors), so an owner can tailor data usage to acceptable comfort levels through a choice of hardware.

“Alerts depend on how you configure your system,” advises Cariani, who stresses the importance of avoiding false alarms. “We want it to work, but we don’t want it to be a burden. Owners don’t want a warning over something that’s not a real issue.”

Finally, most vessel-security and -monitoring systems are also designed to help recover a boat in the event it’s been stolen. Fortunately for sailors, thieves tend to be more interested in powerboats, but sailboats do disappear, and unlike powerboats, are capable of operating for prolonged periods without refueling. Because of this, products such as GOST’s Phantom Insight or Nav-Tracker use hidden tracking antennas with self-contained, two-way Inmarsat satellite modems and GPS receivers that notify their owners or other owner-­designated parties if the alarm trips or if the vessel breaches its owner-­defined geofence. These systems continually send their position information to a secure server, allowing the vessel to be tracked in real-time, even if the thieves destroy the CPU or start indiscriminately ripping wires from the panel.

While yacht-security and vessel-monitoring systems can be expensive — they can range from a few hundred to several thousands of dollars — and require proper planning, technology and connectivity, they are a wise investment for anyone who keeps their boat in a high-crime area or doesn’t live close enough to regularly check on its status and systems. Provided that the proper level of technology is applied in tandem with the right amount of subterfuge and surprise, these systems provide a ton of security and reassurance, without requiring you to scatter carpet tacks on deck before finding your bunk.

David Schmidt is Cruising World’s electronics editor.

The post Keeping Your Boat Safe While You’re Away appeared first on Cruising World.

When I decided to sail across the Atlantic aboard Ranger, my 30-year-old Allied Seabreeze yawl, I spent a year refitting her. I slept with and dreamed about marine catalogs, and spent thousands of dollars on things to keep the boat moving and the crew aboard.

A month before ­departure, my first mate, a trusted, ­levelheaded sailor and nurse, called with bad news. He had just been diagnosed as HIV positive.

Suddenly, my nightmares of a man overboard or a hole in the hull became visions of bleeding cuts, gloves, barriers, sanitation, and dealing in close quarters with a sick man still juggling his new medical cocktail. It was the first time I’d thought about the health of my crew.

Ultimately, he elected not to go, as did my third crewman. The nurse packed a first-aid kit, and I threw it under the sink and took off with two strangers, prepared to handle anything the sea might hand us, I thought. But we weren’t ­prepared. And from everything I’ve gathered, neither are most sailors who set out on extended cruises.

A sailboat is a hazardous platform in a hostile environ­ment. People on sailboats get cut, conked, bruised and burned, and can become nauseated, crushed, dehydrated, cold and sprained — and those are just the common problems. Sailors also bring with them an encyclopedia of pre-existing medical conditions, from obesity and age to heart disease and diabetes. All are compounded by the isolation of a vessel at sea.

“The majority of sailors are not prepared for ­medical emergencies,” says Dr. Miles Poor, a surgeon, offshore sailing veteran, and longtime fleet surgeon to the Caribbean 1500. Because Americans are used to a “911 mindset,” he says, we forget that even a mile offshore, we must be our own first responders. Yet most of us are untrained.

According to the U.S. Coast Guard, in 2015 in U.S. waters, 5,560 boats were involved in accidents with injuries or deaths. Only five — five! — of the skippers involved had American Red Cross first-aid training.

“People get drawn toward gadgets: Do I have the right sails? Do I have the right navigation tools? That’s great. But we need to think through the medical side of things, too. Is my first-aid kit appropriate? Do I know how to use it? Do I know what is in it?” says Dr. Jeffrey Wisch, a sailor, hematologist, and oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, and the fleet surgeon of the Cruising Club of America, which runs the Newport Bermuda Race.

One study of transatlantic sailors by a French physician found that half of them waited until the final month prior to departure to think about a first-aid kit. Fifteen percent didn’t deal with it until two weeks before setting sail, reports David Hayes, a University of Quebec chiro­practic professor and sailor who teaches seminars for the World Cruising Club.

Hayes’ own survey of hundreds of sailors in the World Cruising Club’s rallies indicates that 65 percent wait until the last month to get any first-aid training. He remembers vividly, three days before departing the Canaries for the Caribbean, being approached on the docks by a mother. “Can you recommend a good first-aid book?” she asked. She was about to set off for at least 20 days at sea with her ­husband and children.

“If there’s an emergency, you won’t have time to pick up a book,” Hayes says. “There are steps you need to take, that you need to be trained for.”

Medical experts can ruin your daydreams with accounts of offshore emergencies: fingers cut off by fishing line, then cauterized in a frying pan in the middle of the Indian Ocean; a painful, untended dislocated shoulder during 15-foot waves from Hurricane Mitch; a mid-Atlantic lurch that knocked a sailor into a winch and left him brain-dead; a Gulf Stream chin laceration that required 12 sutures from Wisch — each stitch timed between waves.

Cruisers also explore exotic and primitive places. Daniel Nord, director of medical services for the Divers Alert Network, which reviews 5,000 calls for help a year, lists three pieces of advice: 1) Don’t rent a motor scooter, 2) don’t pet the monkey, and 3) don’t ride the elephant! He’s half-joking, of course, but there’s a lesson in there, too. Common sense can go a long way toward preventing mishaps.

Two people have died in 30 years of the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers, both after being struck in the head by a boom. But the most common injuries have been galley cooking burns, followed by rope burns (some down to the bone), cuts, punctures from fishhooks and knives, and many blunt traumas — bruises, bumps and broken bones — caused by falling around the boat, says Jeremy Wyatt, World Cruising’s director.

There are many easily learned first-aid techniques that cruising sailors can master: taking vital signs, treating burns, making splints and stopping bleeding. “First-aid training has prevented a bad situation from becoming worse,” says Wyatt. “Eight years ago, one sailor broke his arm and suffered a puncture wound. The crew had the perfect dressing and splint, and thought about where to put the sailor, in a bunk where he couldn’t move. That was a well-prepared crew.”

The vast majority of the 2,613 injuries and 626 deaths reported by the Coast Guard in 2015 were preventable. Drinking alcohol and not wearing a PFD were often contributing factors. “The first thing that goes onto a boat is a full cooler,” says Vann Burgess, the Coast Guard’s senior recreational-boating safety specialist. “People never expect to enter the water. Any sailor should be wearing a life jacket. It will keep you alive.”

Most problems can be prevented or treated with some training and common-sense forethought: simple stuff like hygiene, hydration, adequate sleep, seasickness pills, wearing shoes and gloves, and wearing a clipped-in PFD. First-aid kits should contain supplies that a crew can use. A suture or IV kit is useless without training. But you can use suture strips, and knowing just a little anatomy will help describe symptoms when you call for help.

As much as I pride myself on CPR and defibrillator training, I have learned that offshore, it might help in a drowning or shock but would not likely save a cardiac arrest, because of the need for follow-up meds. The $2,000 spent on an automatic external defibrillator “could be better spent on first-aid training,” says Wisch.

“Sailors think about doomsday scenarios on their boats,” says Hayes, “but appendicitis can happen to anyone, and that’s life-­threatening. They need to be prepared for anything. The statistics say anything can and will happen.” Miles Poor tells his offshore classes: “In an hour, I’m not going to try to make you a doctor. But I want to make you realize that if you ask questions and can relay symptoms, you can go safely offshore, never have an issue, and have a good time.”

Transatlantic veteran Jim Carrier is a former award-­winning journalist for The Denver Post and the author of The Ship and the Storm, a riveting account of the loss of the 282-foot schooner Fantome during Hurricane Mitch in 1998.

The post Preparing for Emergencies at Sea appeared first on Cruising World.

When I recently asked a boatbuilder what type of portable fire extinguisher he installed aboard his boats, the response took me aback. “Does it really matter?” he asked. “Aren’t they all pretty much the same?” Given the alphabet soup by which fires and extinguishers are defined and designated (see “U.S. Fire Classifications”), his answer could be forgiven. However, there are significant differences between such designations.

While fire classifications might be familiar to some, the ratings of fire extinguishers — for instance, 1A and 10B:C — are often enigmatic. For Class A fires, a 1 represents the equivalent of 1.25 gallons of water; 2 the equivalent of 2.5 gallons of water; 3 the equivalent of 3.75 gallons of water; and so on. For Class B and C fires, the number represents the square footage of the area the extinguisher would cover. The suffix in Roman numerals that is used with marine fire extinguishers, such as in B-I and B-II, represents the relative extinguisher capacity (the larger the number, the greater the content). Sizes I and II are the most common extinguishers for recreational craft, while size III is found aboard larger and commercial vessels.

The most common and inexpensive portable fire extinguishers rely on dry chemical agents, including sodium or potassium bicarbonate. Ammonium polyphosphate, the familiar white powder used in Class B:C extinguishers, can have a detrimental effect on mechanical and electrical equipment, particularly if ingested by a running engine or if used on or near sensitive electronics. Monoammonium phosphate, often used in extinguishers with an otherwise desirable ABC rating, is a pale yellow color and is quite corrosive, particularly if exposed to water or even high humidity. Furthermore, the manner in which this agent works (the powdered agent melts to smother the flames) makes cleanup especially difficult.

On the other hand, gaseous fire extinguishers — like the permanent units installed in some engine compartments — rely on a clean agent, one that leaves no residue and will not harm engines, machinery, or electrical and electronic equipment when discharged nearby or even directly onto those components. For portable extinguishers, gaseous units are especially effective on small electrical fires of the type that might occur behind consoles, or in electrical panels and engine compartments. They are an adjunct to, rather than a substitute for, a dry-chemical extinguisher, as they are not effective on Class A and B fires unless flooding an enclosed compartment.

Portable clean-agent extinguishers are available in a variety of agents and sizes, including FM-200, FE-36, Halotron and CO2, in everything from 1.5 pounds (this is very small, designed for light aircraft and automobiles) to 20 pounds. Ideally, at least one clean-agent extinguisher should be installed in a central location. While these extinguishers are more expensive than their dry-chemical counterparts, the damage they can help prevent will more than pay for the additional cost if discharged.

The U.S. Coast Guard requirements for fire extinguishers are, in my opinion, woefully inadequate and should be considered strictly an absolute minimum. A 65-foot vessel is compliant with just one portable B-II and one fixed fire extinguisher (again, I don’t recommend following this guideline). My preference is for a portable ABC unit to be installed in every cabin, along with one clean-agent extinguisher mounted amidships, typically close to the engine and electrical panel. And no fire extinguisher should be more than three steps away.

Review your vessel’s firefighting capability. Augmenting it is often relatively inexpensive and is money well spent.

U.S. Fire Classifications

The following list details how fires are classified in the United States. This list differs slightly in Europe, Australia and other locales.

• Class A: Wood, paper, cloth, trash and other ­ordinary materials.
• Class B: Gasoline, diesel fuel, oil, paint and other flammable liquids.
• Class C: Live electrical equipment. (Once the electricity is removed, these fires typically become Class A; ideally, electricity should be shut off before fighting the fire.)
• Class D: Combustible metals (for example, magnesium, titanium and potassium).
• Class K: Cooking fires, fats and oils.

Steve D’Antonio offers services for boat owners and buyers through Steve D’Antonio Marine Consulting (stevedmarineconsulting.com).

The post Monthly Maintenance: Fire Safety appeared first on Cruising World.