Loss of life due to falling overboard is particularly tragic, especially when the boat is highly maneuverable, crewed by 12 experienced hands, daylight, warm (70F) water, 20-25 knot winds, and 5-8 foot seas.
The recent release of a report of the loss of a crew off the TP-52 IMEDI in last summer's Chicago Mackinac Race is sobering reading..
https://www.cycracetomackinac.com/assets/1/7/25Feb19_Imedi_Incident_Report.pdf
Primary blame was laid on the apparent lack of inflation of an auto-inflate PFD. Though that was certainly a factor, there are many others to be gleaned and some mentioned in too brief passing.
A big one in my opinion was a lack of safety ethos on board. There were few, if any, hand or footholds on the aft deck for security. Somehow, the MOB went through or under the lifelines. Unfortunately, the report does not mention if the intermediate lifelines were taut, or had been loosened to facilitate hiking, as is often done on this type of boat.
IMEDI's PFD's were never properly inspected and cylinder dates ascertained. In addition, having a hat overboard while under power in calm seas and winds behind a breakwater, with some crew below, and calling the attempted recovery a "Man Overboard Practice" doesn't cut the mustard, nor the Race Rules. This detail is little mentioned in hindsight also.
Once the recovery was underway, no attempt was made to launch the single most important piece of equipment, the LifeSling. Why not? Was anyone detailed for this? Confusion reigned, the jib wrapped around the forestay and could not be fully lowered. Violent crash jibes were undertaken, endangering both the rig and most everyone else on deck.
As Chuck Hawley comments,
"Practically, modern race boats make terrible rescue boats. They are very difficult to depower (no reefs, halyard locks); difficult to operate under power (Saildrives 20' in front of the rudder(s), high aspect keels that stall, engines that have to be started below decks and hull forms that don't power slowly without falling off the wind."
Stan Honey adds to the point about characteristics of high aspect keels:
"Once the keel stalls, at about 3 knots of boat speed, the boats make very rapid leeway, and as you point out rapidly spin. That is why boat captains of modern boats come ripping into slips at such high speeds (4 knots) and then stop. They’re not showing off. If they try to maneuver to a dock or into a slip slowly, they lose control, but when motoring over 4 knots or so they have terrific control."
Stan continues, "
The hard bilges, i.e. flat bottoms of modern boats make them more dangerous to the MOB. If you try to pull the boat alongside a MOB, you slow down, suddenly make significant leeway, spin, and can easily drift over the MOB and in a seastate the boat can slam on their heads. Older slack bilged boats would make much less leeway, would hold their heading longer, and would tend to shove the MOB to leeward with the boat because of the slacker bilges. The flat bottomed bow and stern are particularly dangerous because of the pitching."
In the case of IMEDI, on the 2nd pass, now with the engine running, the boat went over the MOB, came down hard, and the MOB surfaced on the opposite side, likely on his last breath. By the third pass he was no longer able to grasp a line, and sank just feet from the boat.
Stan's analysis continues, "
With 20:20 hindsight, what a boat in IMEDI's situation could consider would be to first make a “fly-by” of the MOB with no intention of stopping but instead to pass very closely under good control, and just hand off some flotation. This would be perfectly safe as the boat would keep speed up and could easily pass within 6 feet of the MOB assuring that you could get them a cushion, foam PFD, MOM, or whatever.
Then knowing that the MOB had flotation you’d dowse your sails.
Then circle them underway with the LifeSling trailing.
When the MOB reaches and puts on the LifeSling, then stop the boat, in some location not upwind of the MOB. The boat will start to drift to leeward at about a knot, towing the MOB slowly. The bitter end of LifeSling line remains belayed at the stern as usual. Then hook a halyard onto the LifeSling line, outboard of the boat, and hoist with the 1:2 disadvantage of the halyard snap shackle. By the time the MOB is close to the boat they are being pulled sufficiently vertically to keep them from getting swept under the boat."
"The key to this is Robin Knox Johnston’s observation that it is important to not try to hook the halyard to the MOB harness or to detach the tether or LifeSling line from the boat to get a fair lead. Instead just hook the halyard outboard of the boat to the tether or LifeSling line and hoist. You might bend a stanchion or kink a lifeline but it works and it’s quick."
"You folks might remember when we asked RKJ how the Clipper boats retrieved folks being dragged by tethers. He said that it took them years to figure it out but the answer was to just immediately hook a halyard onto the tether outboard of everything, completely ignoring whether the tether ran under, through, or over the lifelines, and then hoist."
"I hesitate to suggest that we teach it, but if in the first drive-by, when you pass flotation to the MOB, if the MOB was obviously in trouble another crew, with a working PFD, could jump in to help."
"Downwind things change. On most race boats, in much wind, you’ve got to dowse conventionally so that the halyard lock will work. Then turn around and go back. You probably have time on the way back to reef or dowse the main. It still might make sense, however, to do an initial flyby of the MOB to make sure that they have flotation and then do the LifeSling recovery as described above. I think the key is knowing that the flat-bottomed, drifting, boat is deadly and you don’t want it near the MOB until the MOB is being pulled vertically and so can’t be run over by the drifting boat."
Amen.
My observation is can a short handed crew (DH or otherwise) use a standard halyard winch to lift a MOB from the water if the halyard is clipped to the LifeSling tether (1:2) as RKJ suggests? This would be a good test for someone to conduct.
I would add that there is no such thing as a usual MOB or textbook recovery. Each one is unusual, unexpected, and though required, likely unpracticed (or practiced in unrealistic conditions.)
I've been involved in several MOB's, including a crew person having fallen asleep on the weather rail while short tacking at night up the coast of Molokai, a person bathing in the sugar scoop, as well as a crew cleaning kelp from the rudder. A bowman doing a back flip from the bow pulpit when the boat hit a rock. 3 MOB's flipped from another boat attached to WILDFLOWER's LifeSling was problematical, especially as I was singlehanded.
We are also reminded of a MOB with a crew aloft when the mast broke, a bowman hit in the head and knocked overboard by the spinnaker pole, a skipper in a Farallone's Race dragged astern by his harness until drowned, hiking racks breaking, a crew trapped under a tramp, a skipper going overboard while fending off the bow of a (starboard tacker) about to collide, and a crew being flipped over the lifelines when the back of the boat flexed..
If there was going to be a good outcome, IMEDI's should have been textbook. But it wasn't.
Panama to San Diego in Spring is not gonna be easy, whatever route Chiles decides on. At least he's made it to the Pacific side of Panama at a cost of $5-$6000 for the 1.5 hour overland trip.
