Challenge Your Crew With These Sailing Safety at Sea Scenarios
Challenge Your Crew With These Sailing Safety at Sea Scenarios
The most commonly-experienced problems at sea provide a good opportunity to learn new skills, work with your boat’s equipment, and build confidence in your responses. Until you actually walk yourself through the steps to take when things go wrong; you can’t be really certain how effective your solution will be, or how quickly you can execute it. Here are some critical dynamic situations that happen regularly, and some ideas on how to stay out of trouble and self-rescue your boat and crew. You can practice these in open water, or, right at the dock if you prefer to concentrate solely on the situation.
Engine Quits
Prop Fouls, Intake Blocked, Impeller, or Other
- Communicate
- Must raise sail
- Might need to unfurl jib first to gain control, steerage
- Then might need to turn into wind to raise the main five or ten feet
- Then back off wind to regain control
- Then back into the wind to raise the main another five or ten feet
- Repeat as needed
Steering Fails
Rudder Functional, Cables Stretched or Fail
- Communicate
- Must steer with sails
- Must retrieve and install emergency tiller
- Might need to sit down to accomplish leverage
- Might need to lengthen the lever to increase power
- Might need to rig lines to cleats to control emergency tiller
Can’t Sail
Not enough wind to sail; no control
- Communicate
- Must perform emergency anchoring
- Watch for dumping so much chain that the anchor would foul
Stuck Jib
Terrible storm coming, jib won’t furl
- Communicate
- Must douse jib (demonstrate at least two methods)
- One method – roll using hands to turn the forestay system
- Second method – if drum locked; roll from clew toward luff and lash
- Third method – drop the sail
Dragging Anchor
Boat is dragging, must re-anchor upwind
- Communicate
- Launch dinghy
- Rig bridle
- Must retrieve anchor,
- Then re-deploy anchor without fouling it by dropping all the chain at once
Assorted Situations as Time Allows
- Fire
- High water alarm
- Engine overheat
- Prop foul
- Knots
- Whatever is scariest to today’s crew
Sécurité Sécurité Sécurité Practice Script
- Hello all stations, this is the sailing vessel _____________ (name)
- We are on the _______ side of ___________ on the _________ (location)
- We are adrift/aground/at anchor (situation)
- Be advised, we are (blocking channel/explain situation) (explanation of effect on others)
I Don’t Go Anywhere Without:
- North American Rescue CAT tourniquets.
- PierShare to rent your dock out or rent a dock.
- BoatUS for your boat towing insurance! Code: “HEWAF88”
- Thank you Bill for being the Best Sailing Partner EVER!
