Members' Online Book: Medical Emergencies, Chapter 4 of 7

First Aid, Prevention Is Better Than Cure

Published Jun 1, 2011 8 comments Updated April 2, 2018
Phyllis Nickel takes a turn on the jib sheet during a sunny summer afternoon off the east coast of Newfoundland, Canada.

Even on a gentle sailing day like this, the loads on a offshore sailboat are substantial and deserve respect.

While updating our first aid skills we have been lucky enough to spend time with two doctors who both sail and, in addition, have a lot of emergency room trauma experience. They confirmed one of the items Blair, our wilderness first aid instructor, taught us, which is that there are at least three things you really don’t want to do to yourself in a remote location:

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Meet the Author

John

John was born and brought up in Bermuda and started sailing as a child, racing locally and offshore before turning to cruising. He has sailed over 100,000 miles, most of it on his McCurdy & Rhodes 56, Morgan's Cloud, including eight ocean races to Bermuda, culminating in winning his class twice in the Newport Bermuda Race. He has skippered a series of voyages in the North Atlantic, the majority of which have been to the high latitudes. John has been helping others go voyaging by sharing his experience for twenty years, first in yachting magazines and, for the last 12 years, as co-editor/publisher of AAC.

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Nothing on this website or in direct communications received from us, or in our articles in the media, should be construed to mean or imply that offshore voyaging is anything other than potentially hazardous. Dangers such as, but not limited to, extreme weather, cold, ice, lack of help or assistance, gear failure, grounding, and falling overboard could injure or kill you and wreck your boat.

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