Nearly Lost a Passenger- Lessons Learned

[JoLin]

We had no intention of going boating yesterday, but some appointments we had made fell through and we accepted a last-minute invitation from some friends to run over to Kismet (Fire Island) for the afternoon and a barbecue at a house they own there. Our friend's sister and BIL needed a ride, so we had them meet us at our dock and we all rode over together. My wife and I anchored the boat and we waded ashore. Without thinking I had put the boat key in the pocket of my trunks instead of leaving it aboard.

Had a nice afternoon and waded back out to the boat. I retrieved the stern anchor, climbed aboard, and no key! It had floated out of my pocket as we were coming back. I spotted it in the water about 100 feet away. Dang! I was about to put on a PFD and go after it when the BIL (I'll call him "Jim") said he could get it no prob. Jim's a big strapping guy, a strong swimmer, and no stranger to boats or those waters. He jumped in,retrieved the key and started back. About halfway back to the boat it bacame apparent that a current had him and he was making only a little headway. I kept calling out to him..

"Are you OK?" "Yes"
"Are you OK?" "Yes"
"Are you OK?" <pause> "No"

S**T!

I tossed out a PFD in his direction and it floated within reach. He managed to grab it, but he was pretty well spent, and now he was slowly drifting away from the boat. I grabbed a flotation cushion, tied my longest dock line to it and tossed it out. Too short. Grabbed the stern anchor line and added that on, and FINALLY got the cushion to him and hauled him back in. Later, his wife thanked me for remaining so calm and acting so quickly, but I'll tell you, I was scared to death that we were going to lose him. It was absolutely amazing how quickly we had gone from a simple, short swim to a potentially life-threatening situation. The entire incident. from him tiring, to me hauling him aboard, took less than 10 minutes, or, just long enough for someone to drown. Lessons learned:

NOBODY leaves the boat "for a swim" w/o wearing a PFD.

By next weekend, there will be one flotation cushion permanently attached to 100' of polyproplene line and ready for immediate deployment. I had all the pieces aboard, but wasted precious moments jury-rigging the setup I needed for this particular situation.

Spare key? I swore it was aboard in our "gear bag." I later found it in my truck. It never quite made it to the boat. It's there now.

 

[tomdinwv]

Re: Nearly Lost a Passenger- Lessons Learned

Glad he is ok. Good thing you were able to think and take care of the situation. Goes to show it pays to remain calm and take care of the problem without panic.

 

[wingless]

Re: Nearly Lost a Passenger- Lessons Learned

Good save.

Similar thing happened to me.

The wife likes to anchor near the inlet, to watch the ocean.

But, the tidal currents are severe, so we've got lines and floats hanging off the back. The women just hang onto the floats and chill.

The wife and MIL use the ladder to ascend and lower into the water, but I just jump on and off as I swim around to do my stuff.

The MIL thought jumping was better, but as I was 'splainin' she should hold a line first, she jumped in w/o a line!

The current was so strong, she popped up past the 25' lines / floats and kept going at a good clip.

I dove in after her and we were fine, 'cept the boat was getting smaller as we were pushed futher into the inlet. I had my wife release the floats, which we snagged, but there was no way I could swim both of us back against the current.

Once we were far from the boat / inlet the current dropped a lot but we weren't swimming back.

This was early and not many boats around. Fortunately instead of the wife having to pull the anchor a boat motored by and gave us a lift back.

It was good this didn't happen on a falling tide, 'cause going through the inlet in a boat can get interesting, I wouldn't want to try it floating.

 

[windsors03cobra]

Re: Nearly Lost a Passenger- Lessons Learned

Man that gets scary fast too, a throwable with 50 or 100 foot of line would have saved a yout here a week ago.
I think I will tie the 100' of 1/4 nylon braid I have little use for to my throwable ASAP.

 

[JoLin]

Re: Nearly Lost a Passenger- Lessons Learned

Glad he is ok. Good thing you were able to think and take care of the situation. Goes to show it pays to remain calm and take care of the problem without panic.

I appreciate the kind words, and my wife said basically the same thing, but at the time it seemed like I was frozen and not thinking or acting nearly quick enough. There was an almost overwhelming instinct to throw on a PFD and go after the guy, but all that would have accomplished was to have 2 of us in the same predicament. I'm just very thankful that I didn't have to watch him go under. I don't know how I would have lived with myself after that.

I kick myself for letting him go over the side in the first place, but the keys seemed to be SO CLOSE that for a second I debated just jumping in myself without a PFD, and I'm not a real strong swimmer.

 

[JoLin]

Re: Nearly Lost a Passenger- Lessons Learned

Man that gets scary fast too, a throwable with 50 or 100 foot of line would have saved a yout here a week ago.
I think I will tie the 100' of 1/4 nylon braid I have little use for to my throwable ASAP.

I intend to keep 2 throwables aboard from now on- one secured and one not.

 

[Blue Crabber]

Re: Nearly Lost a Passenger- Lessons Learned

Good job on keeping your cool and acting fast!

Glad that you learned some lessons and everyone was safe.

Sounds like some good lessons that we all can learn from without hopefully ever getting into them ourselves.

Thank you for the reminder to keep safety first!

 

[rs2k]

Re: Nearly Lost a Passenger- Lessons Learned

I have experimented with trying to get back to a boat. It's a weird feeling to to be swimming all out and still watch the boat go away from you. It's amazing how quickly you get tired and how even trading water becomes hard to do.

 

[lkbum]

Re: Nearly Lost a Passenger- Lessons Learned

My story and a recent one also... Three weeks ago my wife, daughter and 4 friends (all 17) were on Lake Lanier for an afternoon. We decided to cool off stopped, grabed noodles and jumped in. As I bobbed up, I saw my boat moving really quickly away from me. Seems it was windy that day, MUCH MORE than a normal summer day. WInd had caught the boat and it was on it's way bye-bye. Fortunately, my wife was just getting ready to jump in, I screamed DON'T get in and get ready to drop anchor (she had never done this before). I swam as hard as I could and managed to catch the boat, A good 30 yards from my other floating guests. By the time I got in and caught my breath, we were 50 + yards away from the other guest. I stayed on the boat the rest of the day. Amazing how the adrenalin kicked in as I swam for the boat. After getting on borad, I neraly threw up. Proabably would have been ok, but the way/direction the wind was blowing, our boat would have stopped on the opposite shore about 1/2 to 1 mile away.

 

[wingless]

Re: Nearly Lost a Passenger- Lessons Learned

One of the "drills" we practice is man overboard recovery.

This includes a dedicated spotter, with no other task except watching the target, or the last location of the target.

The helm must bring the boat up against the target, without running over.

This is practiced with roles reversed.

It isn't as easy as it sounds and could come in handy.

 

[mlg1998]

Re: Nearly Lost a Passenger- Lessons Learned

Thanks for posting this and I'm glad you were able to get him back in. Before we go out again, I will tie 100' line to a PFD in case of emergency.

 

[Andy in NY]

Re: Nearly Lost a Passenger- Lessons Learned

last spring we were vacationing in ft myers fl and had rented a 21' cc for the day. we had stopped in san carlos bay to figure out where we were going to head, when we heard HELP HELP HELP HELP. we spotted 2 people in the water. they were first time boat owners, and had anchored out in the bay and went for a swim. the current carried them a good 50 yards before we got to them. luckily the woman was smart enough to have a flotation cushion with her... he had been treading water for 20 min he said, but she gave it to him for a few min in between.

we brought them aboard and back to their boat.


they learned a good lesson that day

 

[JoLin]

Re: Nearly Lost a Passenger- Lessons Learned

last spring we were vacationing in ft myers fl and had rented a 21' cc for the day. we had stopped in san carlos bay to figure out where we were going to head, when we heard HELP HELP HELP HELP. we spotted 2 people in the water. they were first time boat owners, and had anchored out in the bay and went for a swim. the current carried them a good 50 yards before we got to them. luckily the woman was smart enough to have a flotation cushion with her... he had been treading water for 20 min he said, but she gave it to him for a few min in between.

we brought them aboard and back to their boat.


they learned a good lesson that day

WOW- how lucky were THEY that you happened along when you did? Good job, man.

 

[wingless]

Re: Nearly Lost a Passenger- Lessons Learned

A 100' line w/ float is an okay tool, but what if the target is 120' away?

Or, what if they are 75' away and the line fouls when thrown and drops at 25'? Or, what if you miss the target?

Or, what if the target is "dead weight" and must be hauled aboard? I carry a home-made rig that permits me to haul a body aboard by myself.

My preference is to have an unattached throw ring that I can get really close to the target. It also marks the location in case the target goes under.

Practice, practice, practice the man overboard drills. Swap roles in case the captain goes over. Don't leave the wife an excuse for your demise.

 

[kg5388]

Re: Nearly Lost a Passenger- Lessons Learned

got 2 of these in the boat one clips to side of the console on the bass boat next to the fire extinguisher other sits on top of the throw cushion behind the passenger seat back.

http://www.karstsports.com/dide70wareth.html

just grab the tag end of the rope and throw the bag

 

[redone4x4]

Re: Nearly Lost a Passenger- Lessons Learned

I intend to keep 2 throwables aboard from now on- one secured and one not.

me too, after reading this thread. thats an excellent idea.

 

[wajajaja02]

Re: Nearly Lost a Passenger- Lessons Learned

take it a step further and get a laundry sock bag to put the rope in , and practice tossing the throwable a few times, always throw it beyond the victim and pull it back, you cant push a rope.

 

[JoLin]

Re: Nearly Lost a Passenger- Lessons Learned

A 100' line w/ float is an okay tool, but what if the target is 120' away?

Or, what if they are 75' away and the line fouls when thrown and drops at 25'? Or, what if you miss the target?

Or, what if the target is "dead weight" and must be hauled aboard? I carry a home-made rig that permits me to haul a body aboard by myself.

My preference is to have an unattached throw ring that I can get really close to the target. It also marks the location in case the target goes under.

Practice, practice, practice the man overboard drills. Swap roles in case the captain goes over. Don't leave the wife an excuse for your demise.

Not sure I get your point. What if they're 200' away, or 300'? There's a limit to how far anyone can throw anything. My first action was to throw an unattached PFD, and I'll be putting an additional unattached cushion aboard. I'll have to look into the "throw ring", because offhand I can't think of anything that I could throw that far (120 feet?), that would also provide flotation for a person. It isn't like winging a baseball. Got a link?

Dead weight? If the person is too heavy to bring aboard you secure them to the boat as well as you can and proceed at slow speed to shallow water or a place to get help. Would like to hear more about your homemade rig.

Bottom line, though, one does what one can. The experience pointed up a few things I can do to better protect my passengers. There's ALWAYS the potential that a situation will arise that simply can't be resolved with the people and equipment at hand. The goal is to be as well prepared as possible.

 

[JoLin]

Re: Nearly Lost a Passenger- Lessons Learned

always throw it beyond the victim and pull it back, you cant push a rope.

Good tip in general, but in this case I couldn't throw it that far anyway.

 

[tashasdaddy]

Re: Nearly Lost a Passenger- Lessons Learned

every one is safe, thanks. added this to the thing you need to know thread.