The Offshore Voyaging Reference Site

Harnesses and Lifejackets and How to Use Them

Phyllis Nickel at the helm of "Morgan's Cloud" during a sunny windy afternoon sail off Jonesport, Maine.

In this chapter I’m going to look at harnesses both separate and built into lifejackets. But before I get started I want to make one thing crystal clear. This chapter is not about what you should do. Rather I’m going to explore the way our thinking about harnesses has, and continues, to evolve.

My hope is that the chapter will inspire you to think carefully about your own practices, because this, like most everything about person-overboard prevention, is an area where (despite what various “authorities” may try to ram down our throats) there are few, if any, hard and fast rules that work in every situation.


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richard dykiel

Thanks for this informative post. I have been using West Marine’s inflatable life jacket with harness and West Marine tethers which are simple webbing (no spring). Your spinlock jacket is an improvement over this and I can’t wait to read what you have to say about tethers.

Nick Hallam

Yes – you’re so right to remind us how important it is to be able to put a harness on quickly and easily. Crotch straps are definitely not great. Have you seen the new harness/lifejacket developed in England by a young designer? It is designed to tow you on your back if you go overboard, so you don’t drown (not a bad idea). The harness tether attaches at the front in the usual way, but rips out of a hook-&-loop channel to form a double bridle originating below each shoulder-blade. He has tested it by a simple method: jump overboard at ever-increasing boatspeeds and get an assistant to record if he drowns…. Really. It may not be the answer to all harness/tether questions, but it’s great to see minds at work on the problem. Have a look at http://www.teamomarine.com

I just have to salute your fabulous picture of ?Phyllis at the helm, the epitome of heroic glamour. No tanker captain is going to phase this sailor!

Chuck B

Agreed, I’m glad folks are actively thinking about and working on this. I do feel a little concerned about the TeamO design though for 3 reasons relating to the way the tether attachment deploys around to the back: 1) it seems to increase the distance you can go, which could mean ending up on the wrong side of the lifelines; 2) the added distance can mean increased forces at the end of the fall; and 3) is it at all possible that the bridle straps could wind up around your neck in a fall?

Steve Guy
Dan

Hi John

Thanks for that Lion accident link. I find these terrible accidents push me further. I didn’t know about the Sydney Hobart tragedy until I took the SAS class in Charleston 2011. As I researched that event, I was encouraged to be able to sail those conditions. There’s so much we can talk about in the Lion incident. I know we’re on a harness topic but as a solo guy, my tether falls just short of reaching the toe rail and I’m in my climbing harness. I know we’re on the water but it’s not a water thing for me. NO overboard period! I do realize that it’s different for racing and the Lion is small with a small narrow foredeck. But still those condition are screaming at me for NO overboard. I’ve been looking at the spinlock’s and considering another look at my entire restrain system. Thanks for the stimulation. May re-evaluation stay alive.

Nick Hallam

Since launch of the “Team O” lifejacket/harness at Southampton boat Show last autumn, a great silence seems to have descended on the project. There was talk about the designer hoping to license the idea to mainstream manufacturers, so I can imagine what a world of pain THAT will turn out to be, but I hope something finally emerges from the process. I also read on a forum some thoughtful criticism of the prototype: you don’t necessarily want the tether to deploy from your back simply because you have lurched across the cockpit. Perhaps the water-activation bladder-inflation system could be used to release the tether from a ‘normal’ front position once the user had definitively ‘left the building’ and the lifejacket was inflating. Until that point, you would really want the tether to remain fixed at the front of your chest and to have the same sort of SWL as existing ones, but as soon as the bladder inflates, it could withdraw a stainless pin from a jaw, thus releasing the tether to pull out into its ‘towing’ position. Better brains than mine (I’ve been told there are quite a few) should soon have that detail sorted out.

I was very attached (sorry) to the old foul-weather jackets I used to wear in my yacht-delivery days, which had the harness built-in. That had to be the easiest thing to put on in a hurry: the fact that it might not be wet on deck really didn’t matter; you just put it on. I also have a pair of (French) Guy Cotten oilskin trousers which have two soft webbing eyes at the waist, forming a harness-attachment point: not perfect, but it allows you to rush on deck, half asleep, and clip on a tether to keep you on board. I’ve never seen this before and I like it; sadly, I think it is no longer offered. The steamroller of conformity flattens many an innovation…..