Online Book: Crew Overboard Prevention & Recovery

There are countless articles, books and courses that focus on recovering a crew overboard, but what really matters to the short-handed crew offshore is making as sure as humanly possible that a crew overboard situation never happens in the first place—we need prevention, not cure. This chapter introduces this Online Book and that basic concept.

Before we can come up with good and effective crew overboard prevention systems, we need to think about and clearly understand the risks we are dealing with, which I examine in this chapter.

We have written a lot about gear in our ongoing Crew Overboard Prevention Online Book, but all the gear in the world won’t keep you safe if you don’t heed this tip.

The key to crew overboard prevention is never losing contact with the boat. In this chapter I take you through an easy-to-use (with a little practice) system, which we have evolved over 20 years sailing offshore short-handed on our boat, that will enable you to stay clipped on at all times and still have the mobility and reach to sail your boat properly.

Most of us offshore sailors rely on clipping our harness tether to a jackline to stay safe. But, in many cases, we are totally deluding ourselves, because if we do go over the side, something may break and cast us adrift, or we will drown by dragging.

There is so much wrong with commonly-used crew overboard prevention systems that I couldn’t fit it all in one chapter…here’s Part 2.

In the last two chapters we discovered that the jackline systems most of us use for COB prevention are pretty much useless. Now we are moving on to what to do about that—the good stuff.

Centre line jacklines are the right thing to do…but not easy to rig so they actually work. Here’s how we solved the problems from mast to bow.

Are you making or ordering jacklines to keep your crew safely on the boat? John takes a deep dive into the right material, stitching, and attachment techniques. This is truly a project where the details matter.

Our project to improve crew overboard prevention systems has been a long and winding three-year-to-traverse road. But we are nearly there. Here’s the first of two chapters on tethers.

In the last chapter, John wrote about the two different types of tethers he and Phyllis use on Morgan’s Cloud. In this chapter he follows up with the details of how they build each type.

Your harness, its fit, and how you use it are among the most important parts of staying safe on a boat offshore. In this chapter I share what we have learned in 140,000 miles of offshore sailing, most of it short-handed, about harnesses and lifejackets, the features to look for, and their use.

What about using a climbing harness with tether for Crew Overboard Prevention (COB)? John takes a look at this oft-suggested idea.

Can we stay safe just by following generally-accepted rules like always wear a lifejacket? John doesn’t think so and takes a deep dive into the issues we need to think about.

Assuming that we have decided to buy and use auto-inflated lifejackets, we have yet another decision to make: Which of the two available activation devices should we select, hydrostatic or dissolved tablet? John interviews an expert and makes a selection.

The Quick Stop crew overboard recovery maneuver has become the standard taught in most every safety at sea seminar. But how effective is the method really likely to be, particularly for short-handed crews offshore? John takes a look.

A recent tragedy, together with excellent work by Drew Frye over at Practical Sailor, has exposed a dangerous weakness in a snap hook used on tethers by many offshore sailors. John explains the problem and calls on manufacturers to take the lead on getting these hooks off boats.