Never to late to learn...

[Richard B]

I reckon that reading the wind and tide (working from last known position) is probably the only way.

[The Jackeens]

Scary story, Daniel...so glad you're OK.
Support hubby's feelings (&waveh.) on footstraps and so glad you said that about not boating alone. Main reason I got into this = to crew for hubby. (Didn't anticipate enjoying it as much as I have!!!)
Things go wrong for everyone and by sharing your story you are helping everyone else's preparation & thinking.
Give us a ring if you're in the Solent doing your sea trials - not to keep up with you!!!!!!! but at least if you didn't have a buddy boat we'd know where you were & times due in etc.
Kathleen (Missus)

[thewavehumper]

Re Lifeboats being interested as much in boat as you.. nah the primary concern is to save life Yours. the Harbourmaster /Coastguard would also share the same opinion but if the boat was found in the search for you then all the better

I don't really think A floating rib is a hazard to shipping, unless it's packed full of C4. Your average ferry will just run it over.

Re recovering the boat, your responsibility is to save yourself, if the worse comes to the worse then the insurance can pay out for another boat or they can pay out for an Ex Daniel it's your call!

The fact is it's unlikely to happen to you again for a while whilst you a e on your own and it wouldn't have happened at all if you had footstraps, so get em fitted and get back out there!. ( I really must fit mine)

Interesting thought train about the MMSI, I wonder if that button could be triggered from a second Kill cord and a time delay or an altimeter. problem is you'd have to have a failsafe to stop it firing everytim you moored the boat

[Rene]

Why would you need the mmsi to be working.

What about one of those alarm systems sold here on rib net, where you send an sms from any mobile phone to your boat, and within seconds you get an sms back with your boats position.

Better, cheaper and safer. This way you don't alarm everybody with your mmsi call.

Regards
Rene

[prairie tuber]

Daniel, glad to hear to hear you're OK. I'll definitely heed your recommendations.

[Bilge Rat]

Daniel glad to hear your ok

DSC only works if you hit the button but thats no good to you half a mile from the drifting boat, only suggestion would be to carry a VHF or EPIRB on yourself, then i suppose you'd need a flare pack too to be able to signal on comming help, i have a diver friend who spent 7 hours drifting up and down the channel with his buddy after an aborted hard boat dive, they could see the dive boat but had drifted away with the tide and no matter what they did to attract the attention of the boat skipper he kept drifting away, they contemplated dumping there gear and swimming for the boat, but due to the sea state and the tide carrying them they decided they'd just wait it out and hope the boat searched around for them, in the end the boat went back in and initiated a search, all they could do was wait and dodge the ferries for help to arrive, they knew that swimming for it would probably be suicide and swimming any sort of distance in diving kit is near imposible.

Back in the summer i thought about what i might do and how i'd get back in the boat if i fell out alone after falling in and trying to get back in, if the wind catches the boat and sweeps it away your'll have a job to catch up to it, also raises the question of self inflating life jackets. So Dan if you fell in and your jacket had inflated as it should have had would you have been able to swim back to the boat like you did ? maybe the jacket not going off in this situation saved you a long float in the water and the problem of a wrecked boat.

Then raises the question should one go out alone, in an ideal world no but i dont have that many friends that want to go boating this time of year so it means i sometimes go out alone !! but i try never to go outside my own limits or that of the boat.

Richard

[Alan]

Interesting the way this thread has developed - the assumption now seems that getting thrown over the side of a RIB is inevitable. I'd submit that whilst being well prepared for the unlikely is good practice most of the stories of crew and or skipper being ejected from a RIB are down to poor driving. Given the seaworthiness and performance characteristics of a good RIB then there is a real risk in trying to hard and driving beyond your skills and conditions. If its that rough, if you are that airborne then frankly you are trying too hard! Big air and screaming props look / sound cool but IMVHO the point of trying to helm a RIB in rough conditions is to keep the boat in the water and the crew as safe as possible. Hence working the throttle, reading the sea ahead and being aware of the people sitting behind/beside you who dont have so much to hold onto is paramount. It is very easy, even as an experienced RIB coxn to get wrapped up in the thrill of making progress in rough conditions and to lose sight of the fact that your crew is cold (cos they are not working as physically as you are), bruised (cos they may not be reading the seas / able to see ahead) as much as you are and downright scared (cos they may not have the experience or faith in you or the boat that you think they do!)

I've only really been worried about losing a crew member over the side once and that was at 14kts going through a F5-6 off Landsend in Cyanide. We were going though the waves rather than over 'em and I was worried that the Crazy Canadian was going to get washed off the executive lounge at the stern!

'Course there are also the instances where we do something silly in milder conditions - Daniels escapade is one. I've done damn near the same thing showing off to a female crew, fortunately we both are here to learn from our mistakes! Not trying to hold myself up as some paragon of virtue here but I think taking a moment to think about prevention rather than what if might be time well spent!

Alan

PS. Daniel, Glad you survived!

[MeMe]

I think this has been a really good thread and has given me quite a lot to think about. One point....I've done a lot of blue water sailing (bla..bla..bla) and have always, when making a crossing either at night, in bad conditions or alone, worn a safety line attached to my harness/lifejacket. Now days you can get these really cool bungee types which, if longer than the kill cord would allow one to fall in the drink, kill the engine and return to the boat. Further, I've gone to the trouble of making sure that both my daughter (7) and the dragon (too bloody old) both have a reasonable degree of competance at the helm if anythigng should happen to me (heart attack) etc. I also (Mr Safety) drill everyone who is new aboard what to do incase of an emergency. i.e How to start/stop the engine, PTT, steer and use the VHF. All of which takes no more than 3 minutes and I've found, adds to the fun of their experience.

[Daniel]

Wow what a load of replies. Thanks for everyones best wishes, prehps i would have been missed after all!!!

I shall try and address most of the issues and suggestions that have been raised because i have something to add to them all...

DSC / Position request

Mr Bilge Rat and wavehumper i was not talking, really, about hitting the big red button upon my ejection, rather that an inbuilt feature of DSC is ability to transmit a vessels position to another (requesting) vessel. Accepting that the RNLI have (and quite correctly so) no interest in finding my boat could i hop in my friends boat and go find mine??? I think in this situation transmitting a position request would be a good idea but am sure my DSC set would be ringing away on my boat awaiting acknowlegment before it transmitted it. I'll look into this in practice and let you all know.

MeMe

Your idea about a harness is a good one but you would have to be 200% sure the kill cord would give first. Worth considering when boating alone though. I could not agree more with the rest of your comments.

Alan

Well summed up i feel, lets review the real problem here, boat, weather/sea conditions, or driver? Driver every time. I bought the boat the 8 miles home in the dark alone Sat evening, slowly, with more equiptment attached to me, a new lifejacket...

Rene

Good idea about the alarm, but thats more £'s when i'm already over budget. I was just trying to see if a bit of kit i already had could have been used or could be modified to be used in such a situation.

Jackeen

Mr + Mrs; we'll be down before Christmas, hope you'll join us, maybe another night time excursion!

[thewavehumper]

Over on boatmad, there is a guy that posts called The Garfish and he is in my opinion a really witty guy. He is one of the Hardboat crowd and this his latest communication on Ribs, which I think is hilarious, I hope thi let's you see the lighter side of this Daniel, Remeber the reason why you are still here is that you took all the right safety equipment with you and used it when you needed to.


I don't know how to post accross forums so from now on it;s the garfish, although it's difficult to tell his spelling from mine!


i kite aggrea wiv yew minsa. de skawppian duz av a fyne ull an de toob kwolitty iz sekund too nonn. de onnly trubbul iz dat thay downt lyke eechuvvers kumpanny verry muchh.

ifn yew gow too see onn a mowtorrized trampowlin yew kan eckspekt too gett flikkt owt ov de fkker onn a regyewlarr baysis. inn fakt sow regyewlarr wee shud av a kompitishun four de rib mobb too see ow kwik thay kan swimm bakk to de bote. az itt appuns sow offen thay cud mek itt an olimpik sporrt

gArf

peaess. .humper iz nott allowid in dis kompitishun cuz hees orlreddy bin traynin four itt.

[Daniel]

Stu i did see this (and other) posts of his on Boatmad when i followed JK's link earlier in this thread. I've also seen them before over there, but never bothered to read them beause i can't work out a single sentance.

If you think it's that funny i'll read it for 10 minutes now, but i feel you need to translate.

How is posting like this constructive? Seams a waste of time, hence i can only be bothered with RIBnet.

This is'nt a dig at you at all Stu, i like a laff, really

[Daniel]

Right, worked out most of it, but no idea what this says...

Originally posted by thewavehumper
de skawppian duz av a fyne ull an de toob kwolitty iz sekund too nonn.

Funny, but looses it edge when it takes ages to read. Sorry to be so boring.

[Richard B]

Ahh... looks like:
"The Scorpion does have a fine hull and the tube quality is second to none"
What excellent taste that chap has!

I suppose you could say that he's done for the spoken word what Les Dawson did for piano playing

[Bilge Rat]

I think to sum up we all do silly things from time to time or things we wish we had not done, but whatever anyone says or the analogies we've all come up with here Daniel went out with a lifejacket on, wearing a dry suit, kill corded up and carried a radio on the boat and thats a hell of a lot more than i see some people going to sea with !!! So whatever happened it could have been a lot worse than a swim if he had not been well equiped.

The sea is a dangerous place lets not forget that, maybe these unfortunate things that happen to others make us all think about our own safety and that cant be a bad thing.

Richard

[thewavehumper]

Daniel, yes you are right, Boatmad is more flipant When I read this I roared laughing but then it takes all sorts. the spelling is really the funny part of it, plus his off the walls comments

I really enjoy the Boatmad forum, as I do this one ( my spiritual home so to speak). The good news for you , I guess, is that JK would not encourage that sort of thing here!

RB I think that's possibly an insult to Les Dawson's piano playing but you are on the right track

[Dirk Diggler]

Originally posted by thewavehumper
JK would not encourage that sort of thing here!

Oh really, not sure I agree with that statement.

Hey Humper, I've only been running on 5 cylinders for a few days, but I'm back on all 8 now!


Profile For The Garfish Search for all posts by this user.

Date Registered: 19 August 2003
Status: New Member
Total Posts: 0 (0.00 posts per day)
Last Post: Never

Contact The Garfish: Click here to email The Garfish
Send The Garfish a Private Message!
Homepage:
ICQ Number:
AOL Instant Messenger Handle:
Yahoo Instant Messenger Handle:
Birthday N/A
Country unitid staytes of yewrop
Town
Occupation bockser
Interest in RIBs fishin
Boat name punchdrunk
Boat make warrior
Boat length 6m
Engine(s) force 100
Add The Garfish to Your Buddy List Add The Garfish to Your Ignore List


Administrative Options: User Options


< Contact Us - RIBnet >

Powered by: vBulletin Version 2.3.0
Copyright ©2000 - 2002, Jelsoft Enterprises Limited.

[thewavehumper]

This must mean I am wrong, err, what a strange feeling. Glad you are better by the way

[bryan edwards]

im glad your safe and well, even though im inexperienced ive messed obout on my own in the humber , you raised some points ive never really considerd up until now . thank you regards bryan.

[Brian]

Further to Daniels tale of ejection.................
I carry in one of my drysuit pockets, a fag-packet sized strobe unit (in the other pockets I carry lots of fags and lighters, of course!).
The strobe is built to some NATO spec. or other and is "bomb-proof" as well as (properly!) waterproof.
It's value is threefold:
1. It can be used as a normal torch
2. It is a powerful strobe with a long lasting battery and....
3. The strobe is powerful enough to bounce off the underside of clouds, hence both at night, and in dull, cloudy weather, you can be "seen" over the horizon.
It can be hand-held, clipped onto your life-jacket or fastened somewhere on your boat so that in an abandon ship situation, it can be taken and used by any crew member.
Piggin useful bit of kit.

[thewavehumper]

hmmm, how much and where do you get them from