I guess I'm not the only one who keeps watching the Hobie capsize video over and over. In that thread Bob mentioned that the best tool in that situation is man overboard expertise and using your head on shore before putting your boat in the water. I can't speak much on the latter, but I have some questions about the former:

How often do you do MOB drills, and what exactly do you do?

I'll start: When I owned my Prindle over 15 years ago, we ran MOB drills constantly. Not just every day we went out, but typically several drills each time the boat left shore. We didn't race, so this wasn't hurting our standings or anything. We just had a lot of fun, and MOB drills were part of it. Most of our sailing was on the Highland Lakes in Central Texas. And most of that was during the summer. We had a black tramp on our boat, and in the Texas summer sun it got HOT. Two fixes for that: Go on a screaming reach so the tramp gets soaked, or fall overboard and cool off in the water.

It got to be a game with us: See how long it takes the skipper to notice you're gone, and see how fast they can come around and pick you up. It got to where it was hard to spend more than sixty seconds in the water. The chop on the lakes never got so bad we lost sight of anyone, so it worked out well.

Two events hammered home just how well it worked. At one point we were sailing on Canyon Lake, and a storm rolled in while we were on the opposite end. We raced back as fast as we could go, double trapped and still having to depower to keep from flying a hull. All of a sudden I'm in the water and the boat is GONE. My dogbone had come untied from the trapeze line, and I'd been dumped. We had three guys on the boat that day. My crew (and co-owner of the boat) grabbed the tiller, and our passenger took the jib. They were back at my location and I was back onboard (minus the dogbone) in two or three minutes. We managed to outrun the storm and get the mast down before it got hairy.

The other happened during a monohull race. For about a year the co-owner of that Prindle and I crewed on another guy's Cal 9.2. It was winter and the weather was really ugly. A lot of boats had dropped out, but we stayed in. We came around the last mark and headed downwind for the committee boat. One of the other boats rounded the mark and put up a spinnaker in way too much wind. We watched, a little sickened, as they started oscillating and finally went into a death roll. The boat rolled and one of their crew went overboard.

And that's when it got scary: no one knew what to do! Other boats swerved around the person in the water, but no one DID anything. No one made any attempt at a rescue. After two boats had done this our skipper ordered us to drop sail, and we came around to help. By the time we reached them they'd been in cold water for over five minutes, wearing a jacket and boots, but no PFD or foul weather gear. They were barely holding on by the time we got them aboard.

That's when it really hit me that almost none of the people on any of the boats in that race had ever done a MOB drill. EVER. They really didn't know what to do.

On the whole I've found cat sailors a lot more likely to do MOB drills than monohull sailors. I'm not sure why, except that there's some expectation of being soggy when you're on a catamaran. It's also a little easier to haul someone out of the water when you only have to haul them a foot or less. Still, the skills are the same. I'd love to see more sailors doing MOB drills, regardless of their choice of boat.

Tom

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Tom Benedict
Island of Hawaii
P-Cat 18 / Sail# 361 / HA 7633 H / "Smilodon"
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When we were sailing in Canada, my sons and I would practice MOB drills often. We would go out, taking turns at the helm. One of us would throw a life jacket overboard, and the captain would have to turn the boat around.

We were teaching ourselves how to sail. It wasn't unusual for us to capsize several times per outing at first.

What is really disconcerting is when you take a complete newbie for a ride. If the skipper goes overboard, he or she is probably swimming ashore. What becomes of the passenger is another matter altogether.

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Karl, Captain of Stayin' Thirsty
2011 Hobie 16SE
Atlanta, GA
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My wife and I have been sailing together for over 30 years. We were out on our San juan 7.7 (26' mono hull) with some friends who were essentially ballast. They held the chips and moved from the port side of the cockpit to the starboard side when asked...eventually.
Our lake had been low all last summer, as have all the lakes in Texas an recently filled up.
We were approaching a point of land and watching the depth meter closely as we hadn't been anywhere near that point in over a year. we saw 39', 11', 3' in the matter of 15 seconds. "Hard to lee" but it was too late and we ran aground. Not hard aground but enough to stop us suddenly. Everybody but me was seated and they all watched me fly from the tiller to the companionway hatch.
My lovely bride, when recounting the story, you remember the one with 30 years sailing expereince...says: "The first thing I though of as I watched you fly by was ...who's going to sail the boat?"
If I ever fal overboard with her...I'm screwed.

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What is really disconcerting is when you take a complete newbie for a ride. If the skipper goes overboard, he or she is probably swimming ashore. What becomes of the passenger is another matter altogether.

i brief my crew (esp if they are not sailors) on how to react to several situations.. if we capsize, if they fall off, if i fall off.

i dont do mob drills often, but i do sunscreen overboard, plastic bag-O-B, floating trash, and the occasional Hat-O-B drills.



Edited by MN3 on May 16, 2012 - 11:34 AM.

Those last three comments really sum up my current concerns. The last time I sailed, my wife and I didn't have kids. Now we have three. All three are excellent swimmers and spend their weekends swimming in the surf where we're planning to sail. But none of them are sailors yet. We're going to spend the summer teaching them. And yeah, MOB drills and SOB (stuff overboard?) drills will be a big part of that.

But I get the feeling we're also going to play host to a bunch of our friends and to folks who have helped us get our boat in shape to take out on the water. That's a bigger concern since we won't have the opportunity to teach them the way we're teaching our kids. If my wife and I both go in the drink, several people are up a couple of different creeks, and no paddle in sight.

I like the idea of the stuff overboard drill (throwable floatation, big rubber ball, water bottle, etc.) Especially if it gets to be a game we can play with our passengers as part of the whole "let's have fun on the water!" experience. It would sure give me a lot more peace of mind once I see them take helm and sheets and rescue stuff we've jettisoned from the boat. If any of them are likely to become regulars, they're going to go through the same MOB routine as the kids. As Karl said, it's disconcerting just to think about.

Tom

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Tom Benedict
Island of Hawaii
P-Cat 18 / Sail# 361 / HA 7633 H / "Smilodon"
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