MOB Drills

[tonymac]

Many of us on here are fully supportive of and engage in good practice both in keeping ourselves and our passengers safe while on the water. I note in many threads the support given to those who encourage us to practice our MOB drills. Of course this is very necessary and especially in our type of boats. But what do YOU use to conduct this practice drill?

Lets see some photos and hear your stories. It would be of great service to us all and especially to the newer members of our type of boating.

So lets hear it then - what do you use for MOB drill training?

[Hightower]

I tie a bucket to a Bouy and chuck that into the water for my MOB training. I've always wanted an element of surprising my crew, but a bucket and bouy are a bit of a give away when you don't normally carry them.

[Steve_B]

Large white fender (70cm in length), with two lead dive weights attached so that it floats upright and about half submerged. It then drifts with the movement of the water and not so much the wind.
Will try to take a picture when out over the weekend
Steve

[Simon B]

25 litre container almost full of sea water with a small marker buoy on it. Simulates tide rode object quite well, using something with more windage is not representative of how a diver or MOB would be in the water.

[Doug Stormforce]

There is no need to make up anything fancy or carry any extra kit. Use whatever is on board. A fender tied to a coiled warp usually does the trick. Fender does not need to be especially large. Line needs to be sinking (not floating) to act as a sea anchor.

As already said don't use a fender on its own as it will blow across the surface.

[martini]

On my PBA the instructor used 2x 2l water bottles tied together, one full of water for ballast, the other empty as a marker.

He sneakily dropped it over the side near Hythe marina then told me about it after being moored up at Universal marina for nearly half hour
Apparently you're not expected to find it, it's just an exercise in the procedure.
Gave him a bit of a shock when I handed it back to him

[boristhebold]

I use a white fender with a small length of chain attached, similar to what a specific training company use, last summer I practised it on three different days. And was glad as shortly after one day I picked up a cannoist from the water who had swomped his canoe and was drifting out to see off Lulworth Cove.

[Rogue Wave]

I agree with Dougie,

I practice MOB drills ever time I take people out, I even used to do it when I drove for Sabre and the customers loved it.

I go through the drill once with me at the helm and everybody on the crew doing different jobs then we go through it with everyone of the crew at the wheel taking the opprtunity then to explain wheree the kill chord is and that it is to be removed once the wet person is alongside the boat but before recovery.

I've been in a few times when I was learning how to get a Rib into EV mode(Enhanced Velocity) and the one thing i recall is that the water is hard as well as cold and it always steals your Killchord and it can disorientate you, allowance needs to be made for this when communicating.with the person in't water

I teach the Williamson turn with the emphasis on the very slow speed approach to casualty, but if I'm not happy with the boat handling I also teach them to lob out the Perrybouy on a rope and circle around the swimmer AT A DISTANCE OF 5 METRES This brings the rope/bouy to the wet person.

Recovery if possible from the transom (killchord removed first) if the casualty is unconcious /injured the it's gotta be from the side and I deflate a couple of tube sections if it helped.

One last point during the drills empasise that anyone who goes in is not too move towards the boat until told to do so by the helm, reinforce this when someone is in the water, You don't want anybody swimming into your prop!

Happy new year

[tim griffin]

Fender and chain on the rib fender and warp on the Motor Cruiser anything that slows down the rate of drift is ideal.
Tim

[alystra]

Divers and open water swimmers. There is a difference when it comes to recovery. The divers can usually help themselves, the swimmers have difficulty and need assistance because they are cold or exhausted. Surprisingly difficult to get them aboard if you're singlehanded - man overboard drills using a buoy don't help with this bit.

I've tried rolling them in while horizontal and getting them in by 'dunking' vertically and getting their trunk aboard. The legs come separately - though hopefully still attached to the rest.

Both ways are difficult, both have worked. The secret is not to let go of any bit of a MOB you manage to get hold of - tie them on, be it arm, leg, wrist or head. Then you can use both hands to get a bit more aboard until you've got the lot.

It was Hogmanay, it's now New Year. Happy New Year.

[CJL]

Fender attached to a car tyre with about a metre of rope works well.

Reflective tape around the fender works nicely if you want it back.

Chris

[martini]

Originally Posted by CJL

Fender attached to a car tyre with about a metre of rope works well.

Reflective tape around the fender works nicely if you want it back.

Chris

We'd all be grateful if you did get it back!

[hobbit555]

75 kg dummy on our workboats

[C-NUMB]

Last summer when doing watersports(donuting) with my teenage daughters I was suprised how hard it was to recover them even on a low SIB like the Aerotec. They do not have much strength in their arms so without help from me they would have strugled to enter the boat.

Even if the conditions usually are much more favourable during watersports activity than during a "real" MOB situation, still can be used as training, especialy for the recovery phase.

[BogMonster]

Having never done a MOB drill and been thinking reading this thread that I should have a go, I had to recover somebody from the water for real on New Year's Day, admittedly not completely helpless but a swimmer floundering in thick kelp and getting fairly tired. New Year's Day every year sees a raft race held in Stanley Harbour and it's a not to be missed event, this was one of several who had abandoned their raft on the edge of the kelp having found that it is not easy to row something constructed out of oil drums, buoys and in this case an old bathtub through a kelp bed.

With two of us heaving (myself and the missus) it was bloody hard work pulling him in over the side, admittedly not helped by the fact he had about half a ton of kelp entwined around his extremities trying to come on board with him. We got him out OK and deposited him back onto another boat but it was a lot harder than I thought and he probably only weighs not much more than half what I do.

I also learned something else which is that 100 yards to shore is hell of a long way if there is 100 yards of kelp in the way. This guy, though he would be in his mid fifties, is pretty active and I would not have thought he would have had any problem swimming that distance but he looked pretty knackered to me and he was maybe about 10 yards into it when we picked him up. Apart from the drag moving through the water, it just wraps around everything - I had never really considered the danger to swimmers before but he looked like he was fighting with a brown octopus. I found a cure though - trim out till the prop is just under the water and give it some beans

[gotchiguy]

Originally Posted by BogMonster

trim out till the prop is just under the water and give it some beans

Just a quick question in relation to this: how far can you trim up whilst maintaining a strong pee stream? Our prop can be a good couple of inches out the water - is this just due to the low intakes on the Lightning gearcase or a normal thing - although our old Suzuki had to have the prop in the water to maintain a stream?

Oh and we also always do MOB drills. Always great fun to lob a fender overboard at high speed

And one thing - lets have a vote on method, what do we all use?

"Drift on" where you position yourself upwind of the strongest element from the MOB and drift onto him

or

"Drift off" position downwind so that you don't shelter the MOB and allow him to drift onto you. This of course has the advantage that an unconscious MOB cannot (harder) to be swept under.

When we practise the temptation is always to just pick it up like a mooring buoy, and in calm conditions with a strong swimmer this would be fine. However when its rough a proper technique obviously needs to be used.

Two more q's: what sort of ladder to people carry? and has anyone tried the
"climbing up the engine" technique?

[chewy]

Down wind, tell crew which side you want to recover them, one crew pointing to the casulaty and shouting the distance as you get closer, bring them along the portside (no throttles to obstruct you) into neutral about 10 feet off, shout neutral so your crew AND casualty are aware, drift upto the casualty, crew in the bow will grab them and keep hold of them until they are onboard. We recover them onto the bench seat.

Various ways of getting them on board, you can deflate the tubes, use a harness clipped length ways so the casualty can use it as a step, use two harness/rope clippes to the life lines fed under the casualty and pull on the harness to roll them up and over the tubes, it sounds hard but works really well.

Others I've heard are climbing onto the engine and using the trim tilt to lift you back in.

[SPR]

If anybody in Fife area, or want to travel ! We have a 75Kg MOB dummy down at the club, complete with Life Jacket! we will holding a Sea Safety Day this year where we will be doing MOB as part of the day.

I will post details once confirmed, you more than welcome to attend that day or you can give me a shout i will arrange to meet you down at the club and let you feel what a "dead" weight feels like, once our boats go back on water April/May.... a 5 gallon drum only weighs approx. 25Kg - 1 litre = 1Kg

We going to do MOB with Yachts, i think will be most interesting.

We will be holding The 4th Open Power boat Cruise in June. I will post these details once confirmed too.


regards

Scott

[CJL]

Originally Posted by martini

We'd all be grateful if you did get it back!

LOL!!

We do an exercise on Adv PB courses where two boats go out, drop an MOB, then exchange position and go find each others MOB's.

It is startling how many times the MOB is lost when done at night but when you flick a torch across the sea the reflective tape does it's work and comes up trumps.

Very good a teaching candidates to be extra careful at night and fit a light to their life jacket before going afloat!

Chris

[Rudders999]

That so many already carry out these drills and are exchanging information
The more who do them the better

If it saves one life it would have been worth it