[Public-List] Going Solo M.O.B. Drills

Wed Jun 6 11:29:01 PDT 2012

On the Alberg 30 it is not difficult to reach the rail from the water, and the tenderness of the boat means you can reduce the freeboard further if you put some force on the rail amidships. While it may be difficult to get aboard, it's very likely that you can get hold of a line - a  jib sheet for example, and tie it around a stanchion, turnbuckle or winch. If you know the "Alpine Butterfly" knot you can make footholds in the line which greatly eases getting your hips to the level of the rail. 

The general MOB strategy is of course different from the solo-sailor  strategy.
My general MOB procedure (I think about this a lot, but have only partly practiced it)
1)FIND the MOB
2) Stop the boat - exactly how depends on conditions, crew, etc.
3) Deploy the Life Sling and Maneuver it  in way of the MOB
   IF the MOB is conscious and capable
	MOB gets into Life Sling
   ELSE
	Someone with a PFD and a tether has to go in and help.
  ENDIF
4) Bring the MOB in close and secure to boat
5)  IF the MOB is not exhausted,
          Deploy the swim ladder and help MOB aboard
    ELSE
         Deploy 4:1 block and tackle from a halyard or boom end and clip to life sling and hoist
    ENDIF

I absolutely agree that this all takes TIME and the idea is to reduce the biggest risks first. To me the scariest risk is that you simply can find them! It is amazing how difficult it is to spot something low in the water on a bright windy day. Second is getting them secured to the boat and third is getting them aboard.  

-----Original Message-----
From: public-list-bounces at lists.alberg30.org [mailto:public-list-bounces at lists.alberg30.org] On Behalf Of crufone at comcast.net
Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2012 11:44 AM
To: Alberg, Public List
Subject: [Public-List] Going Solo M.O.B. Drills

Richard, 

I think it was Sailing World or U.S. Sailing in conjunction with Boat U.S. The article I read 4 to 5 years ago was that this team went through all the latest and, thought to be the best strategies for M.O.B. drills. What they discovered 100% of the time was that the seemingly best drills in theory were not all that effective in practice.  The most revealing part of the exercise was that crew aboard the boat could fairly effectively get back to the person in the water the critical issue was getting them back on board once they were reconnected again. Almost all forms of the accepted practice methods failed to recover the MOB back inside the boat in anything approaching a timely fashion. The article surprisingly summed up the situation with "do everything possible to stay on the boat or at least connected to the boat but still above the water line". 

My belief is that MOB drills should be performed with a true MOB and not just trying to sail back to a throwable cushion. None of us can imagine the difficulty of getting back on board or getting someone else back on board until we actually try to do it for REAL. Also realize that what you could do twenty years ago you might have difficulty doing tomorrow even to save your own life. Practice for REAL and more often than every five years. When I was racing Dinghys on a regular basis I could recover from a capsize pretty effeciently and continue on with the race. Today ten years later would be an entirely other story. Practicing for real the MOB will give you first hand knowledge of what works and what does not. Better yet it puts you in the actual situation and that real experience may be what saves your life. 

I agree that this has been a very useful thread. I have heard of sailors towing a line with loops tied in place so it would be easier to climb the loops back to the boat and also back on board. Any thoughts? 

Michael #133 

----- Original Message -----

From: "richard hazlegrove" <richard.hazlegrove at wellsfargo.com> 
To: public-list at lists.alberg30.org 
Sent: Tuesday, June 5, 2012 4:42:55 PM 
Subject: Re: [Public-List] going solo 

To Chris's comment about how fast the boat must go before it becomes impossible to re-board;  I recall some years ago that one of the sailing magazines - Practical Sailor? - performed a series of tests with strong swimmers and Coast Guard supervision. They determined that the maximum boat speed was very low for these swimmers to pull their way back to the transom using a line dragging in the water. If I recall correctly, at anything above about two knots, one had to be in very good shape to do this.  Above three knots these athletic swimmers could not do it. I concluded that this was not much of a strategy in anything other than light air sailing.  Certainly not in conditions that had made me want to drag a line.  Better to figure out a way to disengage the autopilot and hope the boat rounds up.   

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