Small Boat Safety Offshore – Part III

Getting Back In

Let’s say you fell out, but managed to catch the boat. If your boat does not have one of those Euro-style transoms, an external ladder, or a swim step, it will be very hard to lift yourself over the side (don’t foget the weight of your wet clothes, and the weakening effects of hypothermia).

Here’s a neat trick to get back in, which we heard in a seminar given by Don Iovino, a well-known Southern California bass pro: If your engine has an external trim-and-tilt switch, swim to the back of the motor, and stand on the anti-ventilation plate, one foot on each side of the lower unit. Reach around to the T-and-T switch, and tilt the engine up. The hydraulics are strong enough to lift you and the motor out of the water, making for a relatively easy re-entry into the boat.

Surviving the Fall

Once you’re in the drink, you need to focus on several things:

Staying afloat until help arrives:

The vast majority of fatalities in boating come from people drowning because they weren’t wearing some sort of personal floation device (PFD). It doesn’t matter if you’re a strong swimmer or not – you can hit your head going over the side, or you can succumb to hypothermia if you are in the water long enough.

We lost a good friend many years ago on the Colorado River when he (apparently) slipped in his boat, and hit his head as he went over the side. He was not wearing a PFD. They found his body wedged under a log in a bend in the river the next day.

As the Search-and-Rescue team leader told us: “It’s a common misconception that people float when they drown. Actually, they sink and go right to the bottom. The body doesn’t float until it’s been in the water long enough to decompose.” Now there’s a pleasant thought…

The right kind of PFD will keep you face-up, even if you are unconscious. If you get knocked out as you go over, but are wearing a PFD and a tether, you might be out for a while, but hopefully you will come-to within reach of the boat.

Standard foam life vests are typically bulky and uncomfortable, so they wind up in a storage compartment somewhere. We chose to go with West Marine and SOSpender automatic inflatable vests instead because they are comfortable and unobtrusive, even when fly-fishing, and they are USCG Type II PFDs, or have USCG Type II performance.

Note that we made a distinction between “USCG Type II performance” and “USCG Type II”. That is because there is a distinct legal difference. Type I and II PFDs (for example, our West Marine Offshore Inflatable PFD) do not have to be worn to count in the safety equipment inventory for a boat. On the other hand, our SOSpenders are classified as a Type V PFD (special use) with Type II performance, and have to be worn continuously in order to be counted.

In practice, it hasn’t made any difference to us. We’ve gotten into the habit of wearing our PFDs all of the time anyway. After all, isn’t that the whole point of buying an inflatable PFD??

An exciting recent development is the Mustang LIFT inflatable vest. This lifevest is designed to hold the user’s head up to 9″ above the water surface, reducing the number and severity of mouth immersions, even in rough water.

Why is this important? Even if you are floating face-up in a life vest, it is still possible to drown. Many Type I and II vests do not support the user’s face very high above the water, and in rough weather, the user can still drown from repeated face dunkings, especially if unconscious . So even though it is “only” rated for Type III performance, in actual on-the-water tests, the LIFT system does as well or better than a USCG Type I offshore vest in protecting the wearer.

Making sure you can be found:

If you go overboard in the dark, will anyone be able to find you without running you over? We typically have both a chemical lightstick and a whistle on every vest. The lightstick is replaced annually, when we service the SOSpender’s arming mechanism. A better solution would be the use of a personal strobe, such as the ACR Firefly Waterbug, but these are fairly expensive, at an open market price of roughly $90.00 for a water-activated model.

Another very useful device is the Personal Locator Beacon (PLB). A PLB is a small transmitter that communicates with the same low-earth-orbit satellite network used by marine EPRIBs and aircraft ELTs. By triangulating transmission positions between multiple satellites, it is possible for rescuers to get within a few miles of a PLB. Some PLBs also have provisions for being hooked up to an external GPS, or have an embedded GPS unit, and these allow rescuers to get much closer.

Until a few years ago, this type of technology required a transmitter roughly the size of a coffee can. Now, it is possible to buy PLBs that are about the size of a pack of cigarettes. PLBs this size can be attached to a life vest. They are pricey (in the $300+ range open market), so they’re not for everyone.

For more information, check out the “Equipped to Survive” website, which has some great articles and FAQ pages on PLBs. Leaders in this field are ACR Electronics and McMurdo Pains-Wessex.

Note that these are not replacements for personal strobes or light-sticks, they are meant to allow you to be located by the Coast Guard, not by your buddy in the boat.

Staying healthy until help arrives:

The main issue with staying in the water too long is hypothermia. Even in moderately warm water, you can quickly lose enough body heat to perish, so your priority should be to get out of the water as quickly as possible, and get dry and warm.

If it looks like you are going to be in the water a while, there are a number of things you can do to conserve body heat. An Internet search will reveal a number of links, with the simplest and possibly most well-known technique called H.E.L.P.

If you operate on a regular basis in rough, cold water, you might consider buying a flotation suit or an immersion suit , such as those made by Mustang Survival or Viking.

Flotation suits are one-piece jumpsuits that have floatation / insulation built-in. They help stave off hypothermia in moderately cold water, and also act as PFDs. Immersion suits are similar in concept, but are built like diving dry suits and work in much colder water.

Both options are expensive (flotation suits cost in the $350 – 500.00 range, immersion suits, $550 – 1,500), and have the disadvantage that you have to have enough foresight to put them on before you get in trouble. But if you fish regularly in cold rough water, they make sense. Both can be worn like regular outer garments, but are obviously very warm, and may not be appropriate for your environment.

Next up: Fishing Hazards