SUSPENDED JAIL SENTENCES
Five employees of Sunsail faced charges at the Court of Misdemeanours, in Lefkada, near Paleros following the death of Laura Morgan, 11, of Woodborough, Nottinghamshire who died on 31 July 2003 in Paleros when the catamaran she was sailing capsized and trapped her underneath. Hotel manager William James Hutton, 31, of Dorridge, Solihull, water ports manager Rebecca Jane Morgan, 30, of Porchester, near Fareham, and assistant manager Kevin Michael Jones, 25, of Chickerell, Weymouth, were all found guilty of negligence. They were given 18-month jail sentences suspended for three years.
Laura and two friends had been sailing a Hobie catamaran as part of the activities laid on for holidaymakers. But when it capsized safety guards could not free her trapeze harness that had trapped her underneath the boat. ~ Yachting Monthly,
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From the Scuttlebut
I know it's a pain in the butt... but, I think we have to invest in a better alternative to our existing trap gear.
Is there any consensus on what system works well.
So far I haven't seen anything about what kind of trapeze system was involved in this particular incident.
In fact, we do not know enough about what and how this happened to draw any conclusions. The other article posted on the forum said she was entangled in ropes, so maybe it would not have mattered what kind of trapeze system was used.
Being able to escape from the harness if it gets snagged should be top of the list. I know that some of them supply a knife so you can cut yourself free but how effective would that be in the case of an eleven year old child with no previous training?
Very sad story 🙁 R.I.P.
Accidents WILL and DO happen, people do die in accidents, how do the incidents of injury and possibly death stack up between sailing small boats and driving go carts, or more to the point, riding mini and trail bikes? There have been so few deaths occur from people sailing small "off the beach" boats over the years that when a fatality does occur it becomes NEWS. Sailing "off the beach" still remains one of, if not the safest "active" recreational activities there is. Any injury (or death) occurring from a trail bike accident, whether adult or child, barely (if ever) rates a by line in the local news.
I don't think sailing fatatlities are treated any differently than other fatalities. The reason this incident made the news is because the instructors were convicted for negligence, the reason they were ultimatly convicted was that they broke Greek law, that states under 16's cannot sail without adult supervision. I guess the case was about wether these instructors had provided proper supervision not about wether trapeses are safe or mast head floats are required, although that may become the ultimate outcome.
Gareth
We can justify it all we want. Personally, I don't believe that the "more people die in activity X, therefore it's alright that people die in activity Y" rationale is ethical. The fact is that an eleven year old girl needlessly drowned. If the boat had been fitted with a mast float, she would still be alive, doing whatever 14 year old girls do.
The twins swam to safety but Laura was unable to free herself. He told the girl to be calm but at that point the catamaran turned upside down, dragging her under. He dived to her rescue.
"I immediately found Laura struggling, panicking to try to get to the surface. I immediately tried to locate the hook and release her and bring her to the surface. I could not release her. She appeared trapped in some other wire."
"Because the visibility was poor and there was lots of struggling and waving around, I could not identify how she was trapped. At that point I had to come back to the surface for air." Mr Annetts radioed for help and dived back under.
"The struggling was continuing and Laura was climbing on me and I could still not release her."
Links: One, http://icbirmingham.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100localnews/tm_objectid%3D16847261%26method%3Dfull%26siteid%3D50002%26headline%3Dgirl-drowned-after-neglect-by-reps-name_page.htm l" target="_blank">two, three, four.
Mast floats clearly save lives, with little downside, why aren't they used?
We can justify it all we want. Personally, I don't believe that the "more people die in activity X, therefore it's alright that people die in activity Y" rationale is ethical. The fact is that an eleven year old girl needlessly drowned. If the boat had been fitted with a mast float, she would still be alive, doing whatever 14 year old girls do.
The twins swam to safety but Laura was unable to free herself. He told the girl to be calm but at that point the catamaran turned upside down, dragging her under. He dived to her rescue.
"I immediately found Laura struggling, panicking to try to get to the surface. I immediately tried to locate the hook and release her and bring her to the surface. I could not release her. She appeared trapped in some other wire."
"Because the visibility was poor and there was lots of struggling and waving around, I could not identify how she was trapped. At that point I had to come back to the surface for air." Mr Annetts radioed for help and dived back under.
"The struggling was continuing and Laura was climbing on me and I could still not release her."
Links: One, http://icbirmingham.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100localnews/tm_objectid%3D16847261%26method%3Dfull%26siteid%3D50002%26headline%3Dgirl-drowned-after-neglect-by-reps-name_page.htm l" target="_blank">two, three, four.
Mast floats clearly save lives, with little downside, why aren't they used?
Not going sailing, not taking risks would save lives.....
This is also something that has been going around the UK forums for a while:
According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 60's, 70's and early 80's probably shouldn't have survived, because our baby cots were covered with brightly coloured lead-based paint which was promptly chewed and licked. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, or latches on doors or cabinets and it was fine to play with pans.
When we rode our bikes, we wore no helmets, just flip-flops and fluorescent 'spokey dokey's' on our wheels. As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or airbags - riding in the passenger seat
was a treat.
We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle and it tasted the same.
We ate chips, bread and butter pudding and drank fizzy juice with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing.
We shared one drink with four friends, from one bottle or can and no-one actually died from this.
We would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then went top speed down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into stinging nettles a few times, we learned to solve the problem.
We would leave home in the morning and could play all day, as long as
we were back before it got dark. No one was able to reach us and no one minded.
We did not have Play stations or X-Boxes, no video games at all. No 99 channels on TV, no videotape movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no DVDs, no Internet chat rooms.
We had friends - we went outside and found them.
We played elastics and rounders, and sometimes that ball really hurt!
We fell out of trees, got cut, and broke bones but there were no law suits.
We had full on fist fights but no prosecution followed from other parents.
We played chap-the-door-run-away and were actually afraid of the owners catching us.
We walked to friends' homes.
We also, believe it or not, WALKED to school; we didn't rely on mummy
or daddy to drive us to school, which was just round the corner.
We made up games with sticks and tennis balls.
We rode bikes in packs of 7 and wore our coats by only the hood.
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of...They actually sided with the law.
This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years have been an explosion
of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.
And you're one of them. Congratulations!
Pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow as real kids, before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good.
For those of you who aren't old enough, thought you might like to read about us.
This my friends, is surprisingly frightening......and it might put a smile on your face:
The majority of students in universities today were born in 1986........They are called youth.
They have never heard of We are the World, We are the children, and the Uptown Girl they know is by Westlife not Billy Joel. They have probably never heard of Rick Astley, Bananarama, Nena Cherry or Belinda Carlisle.
For them, there has always been only one Germany and one Vietnam.
AIDS has existed since they were born. CD's have existed since they were born.
Michael Jackson has always been white.
To them John Travolta has always been round in shape and they can't imagine how this fat guy could be a god of dance.
They believe that Charlie's Angels and Mission Impossible are films from last year.
They can never imagine life before computers.
They'll never have pretended to be the A Team, RedHand Gang or the Famous Five.
They'll never have applied to be on Jim'll Fix It or Why Don't You.
They can't believe a black and white television ever existed. And they will never understand how we could leave the house without a mobile phone.
Now let's check if we're getting old...
1. You understand what was written above and you smile.
2. You need to sleep more, usually until the afternoon, after a night out.
3. Your friends are getting married/already married.
4. You are always surprised to see small children playing comfortably with computers.
5. When you see teenagers with mobile phones, you shake your head.
6. You remember watching Dirty Den in EastEnders the first time around.
7. You meet your friends from time to time, talking about the Good old days, repeating again all the funny things you have experienced together.
8. Having read this, you are thinking of forwarding it to some of your other friends because you think they will like it too...
Yes, you're getting old!!
Sums up the over-prtotective world we live in. It s always someone else's fault. No-one takes responsibilities for their owen actions. Yes, a sad death and the instructors were prosecuted under Greek law re sailing supervision of minors.
Gareth
Thank you Gareth!! People this was an ELEVEN YEAR OLD!!
Please let me decide for myself what is an acceptable level of danger.
In no case do any of us do anything more dangerous than operate a car! 50,000 deaths per year in the U.S.
Sailing ain't broke, please don't fix it! 
And at 14 she would still be too young to do what she was doing!
. . .mast floats clearly save lives, with little downside, why aren't they used?
Because YOU aren't in charge 
!
Scoob,
Ain't that the truth !
I must be getting old.
Wouter
LOL.
I've done most of the above, including helming a Dart 18 at 13 with a similar aged crew.
Gocart crashes, cycling to school down hills (something you are a little short on in NL) faster than the cars !
Life it far too soft for the kids these days.
I am old.. but water from the hose did _not_ taste like water from the spring! I am old enough to remember that clearly.
Having mast floats on rental boats (if that was what the boat was used for) should be a no brainer tough. Not only for safety, there are plenty of other ways to kill or hurt yourself, but to relieve pressure on the rescue boat in such a setting.
Ever stood at the beginning of a very busy 2 km long narrow old shopping street with a group of other younsters and agree that the last one to come out at the other end is a sissy ?
I still remember ducking my share of car trying the park blocking my way and seeing me crossing behind them at full speed to the sidewalk trying not to hit any pedestrians and other old ladies before making a break turn between another set of cars to get back onto the street again.
At one time I was too late and a car parked me together with him between two other cars. Nice pile-up. If I ever see my future son pulling stunts like that then something will be swinging.
(but I'll be REALLY worried if he didn't even try to get away with stuff like this !)
Wouter
I agree with Rolf on both counts; RENTAL boats, and garden hoses! 
We old guys have to stick together!
Simon, I started reading that and said "yea I know what he is talking about, I remember all that".
THEN it hit me 
YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT MY KIDS I am OLD 
Okay with all that..... BUT WAHT ABOUT MARK'S ORIGINAL QUESTION? "Is there a consensus on what system works well?"
If you could start right now with any trapeze system with safety as the primary concern which would you use?
I am taking the lead here and saying flat out that I am switching stuff over to the ball system. With the promise of taking more and more kids out this summer I want to try and make this as safe as possible. I'd rather they fall out of place unitentionally than risk not being able to release the hook in a panic situation.
What do you think?
Greg
It’s nice you guys can find a little something humorous here.
Maybe if you had a young child of your own you’d be more curious as to how she got so entrapped, and how the fatality could have been prevented.
The ball and socket thing works great. I have been using it for two years now. There are zero drawbacks it's just safer.
I dont have more faith in the ball/plate than the regular hook setup. The trapeze harness can trap you anyway, what is needed is a quick release harness that is as simple to escape as pulling the reserve on a parachute rig. That dont solve all problems either, as you can get trapped in sheets, beneath sails (especially spis) and I know not what..
As mentioned earlier, everything we do, and I mean everthing, has some elements of risk. We can minimize them, but never eliminate them.
Maybe if you had a young child of your own you’d be more curious as to how she got so entrapped, and how the fatality could have been prevented.
If I had a young child, I would have been parenting that child and not have left the responsibility to others.
Okay, how about a soda can sized compressed air cylinder with mouthpiece similar to what helicopter pilots and some scuba rescue folk use?
Mounted somewhere on the body (preferably out of the way but within easy access to a distressed person), this would allow the person to at least have 1 -2 minutes of extra air to calm down and figure out a way to get un-tangled (regardless of which trapeze system they are using).
Even 30 seconds of extra air can work wonders.
How about streamlining the whole boat to minimize the risk of entanglement? Internally run control lines come to mind.
A quick release system wouldn't have to undo the entire harness (in the case of a full harness), but just the spreader bar in the case of the hook system. I'm not sure what would catch on the ball system.
The lycra stretch "rashers" that go over all the person's sailing equipment would also tend to reduce the likelihood of something tangling up on the sailor.
Most of all - adult or competent sailor supervision when sailing with small children or those not used to the "dangers" of sailing.
I know that as an 11 year old, I was not allowed to take our sunfish (or H17 with my brother) out unsupervised until I was able to tip it over and right it myself several times in various conditions.
Of course, once we found out it was fun to flip those things over, we didn't get much sailing done on light air days. More of the following situation played out:
(2 sunfish in lake, small triangle race course, light winds)
- Boat 1 approaches boat 2 prior to "start sequence" (someone saying "Go")
- Boat 1 announces "You can't even sail that thing!" (or some similar smack talk)
- Boat 2 responds "STAY AWAY FROM ME, MAN"
- Boat 1 driver sails astride boat 2, jumps to boat 2, stands up and grabs mast, hikes out and dumps boat 2
- Boat 2 driver grabs Boat 1 (currently unattended) and does the same
- First boat to right usually wins race.
It took me a few more years of actual racing to realize that sailboat racing is a game of tactics, not "last boat upright gets the lead" (well, that is still the case in heavy wind, but not because the skipper swam over and dumped the competitor's boat).
But still, there was a sort of twisted enjoyment in the "australian rules/Full contact" sailing....
Good times..
I think we all need to start carrying a knife with a serrated edge that will cut metal. To hell with ruining the sails or rigging it your going to die!!
Doug Snell
Hobie 17
www.tcdyc.com
I believe the knife is the best option and always carry one.
If traped, don't be shy...... Straight through the trampaline.
If traped, don't be shy...... Straight through the trampaline.
Straight blade would be best. But, I'm more concerned about being run down by a jet-ski or similar craft.
Any comments?
Pete:
I believe you need a straight one side serrated the other so you can cut shrouds or what ever wire you hook on. Thinking of getting a scuba diver type to attach to leg. What is latest on Blade?
Doug Snell
Hobie 17
www.tcdyc.com
Straight blade would be best. But, I'm more concerned about being run down by a jet-ski or similar craft.
Any comments?
Two words:
Glock
H&K
Both can fire in marine environments. You'd be doing us a favor, too.... No bag limits on jet-skis last I checked...
Pete:
Take a cooler filled with ice balloons and a water balloon sling shot. A few of these upside the head will get rid of the problem REAL fast and target practice is FUN.
Doug
It's a crazy world, I'm seriously considering the firearms option; the water balloon doesn't have enough stopping power.
If traped, don't be shy...... Straight through the trampaline.
I carry a knife as well but....... The idea of being under water with someone panicky and with all the grabbing at you and pulling I'm not convinced I want a razor-sharp utensil slashing around at whatever is holding them down. I think it would be fine for me to use if I was the one trapped but I can't see releasing anyone else in panic mode.
Do you think the ball and socket and the mast float ball are about the best you can do to keep people afloat beyond safety floatation vests (of course)?
Greg