SELF RESCUE DINGHIES

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Introduction:

Although its rare, cruising boats are occasionally lost due to damage from storms, collision, fire, or structural failure. When this happens, the crew has no choice but to abandon ship. For a well prepared cruiser, it should be fairy simple to deploy the life raft, load the "abandon ship bag", actuate the EPIRB, and safely abandon the vessel. What happens next is the important question. In the sales literature, your 406 EPIRB, alerts the Coast Guard, a rescue helicopter is launched, and your picked up within hours. What the salesmen don’t mention is that Murphy’s Law states that "something will always go wrong, and it always goes wrong at the worst possible time". What this means is that your life raft may not inflate, your EPIRB may fail, weather conditions may delay rescue, or the nearest land is a 3 rd. world country in the midst of a revolution. All cruisers carry a variety of spare parts and most will have a backup ready for really critical functions. The decision to abandon a vessel and implement the Abandon Ship Plan is one of the most important choices a skipper will ever make. It makes good sense to evaluate your Abandon Ship Plan periodically and consider adding a backup capability that will increase your probability of survival.

Self reliance is a basic part of ocean cruising. If you abandon ship and no one comes to your rescue, what do you do next? Are you going to drift around aimlessly until you wash ashore somewhere, or will you take a proactive position and rescue yourself. With some careful planning and a few modifications to your existing rigid dinghy you can develop an abandon ship plan that includes self rescue capability. I define this as "The ability to navigate towards a chosen destination, with reasonable comfort and safety, for a minimum of 30 days, independent of outside help, rain fall, or supplementary food sources."

 

Background

Experience has shown that it is always best to stay with a damaged vessel when ever possible. No matter how unpleasant it may be, weather should never be a reason to abandon ship. You are always safer staying with your vessel until all hope for saving it is lost. The criteria for abandoning ship is simple.

    1. The vessel must be in real danger of sinking or being consumed by fire.
    2. ALL attempts to control damage have been exhausted.
    3. Distress signals have been sent out.

 

When this point is reached, the skipper will order the crew to abandon ship. The abandon ship process should be as simple and fool proof as possible. It must be designed to function smoothly under adverse weather conditions, poor visibility, and limited crew capability (injury, illness, and strength). Ideally, all the abandon ship and survival gear should be stowed in one place on deck, ready to deploy. The weight of the components should be under 80 pounds so that one person can launch the life raft and related survival gear. The procedure should be in writing, and practiced regularly along with fire and man overboard drills. It must be simple. Crew members are likely to be exhausted, confused, and in a state of near panic. They should not need to remember anything but the basics of launching the life raft, which, fortunately, is quite easy.

Even though most life rafts are easy to launch, inflate, and board, they carry limited food and water, are fragile, uncomfortable, and cannot be navigated for self rescue. Virtually all cruising boats carry a dinghy, but often it is stored in a hard to reach spot, or needs to be blown up. Rarely will the cruiser have the time to hunt up the oars, emergency water, provisions, and sail rig, and load them securely in the dinghy. Launching the dinghy presents another obstacle. Most are far to heavy (over 80 pounds) for one person to launch, especially if they contain any emergency gear.

For self rescue, a rigid dinghy with a sail rig is the preferred choice. The dinghy should be a seaworthy design, and as large as possible. Ideally it will be modified to allow storage of food and water, and fitted with handholds on the bottom and foot ropes around the shear. Floatation foam should be located as high as possible, like under the gunwales. Water ballast can improve the dinghies stability. Consider lashing four 5 gal. plastic containers of water under a thwart. If your launching from davits, weight is not so important, and these containers can be pre-loaded with fresh water. If you have to lift the boat over the lifelines, they should be removed and launched separately. Additional gear, such as the oars, sail rig, and emergency supplies, should be lashed securely and attached to the dinghy using a specially prepared painter.

The dinghy painter consists of a 100’ length of " line, preferably one that floats, with a 5’ line spliced onto it every 20’. The dinghy is spliced onto one end of the painter, and the life raft spliced to the other. Between them, snaps at the end of each 5’ line are attached to the emergency supplies, water jugs, oars, and sail rig. Each of these items must be tied securely and stowed so that they can be launched without any snarls. Part of the abandon ship drill should be checking the life raft and dinghy, making sure they are tied together correctly.

Every boat will be slightly different, but in general, the life raft, oars, sail rig, and emergency supplies can be stowed together inside or under the dinghy. If deck space is tight, consider a nesting dingy, which cuts the deck length required by roughly .. To abandon ship, the dinghy restraint or cover is loosened and the life raft launched. The life raft is secured to the boat with its own painter, which is released from the raft. Following the life raft will be the emergency supplies, sail rig, oars, and finally the dinghy. Care must be taken to make sure all lines run freely from the distressed vessel. The crew then abandons the yacht, boards the life raft, and releases from the distressed vessel. The dinghy and survival gear should act as a sea anchor, helping the life raft maintain a stable attitude.

When everyone is safely aboard the life raft and your adrenaline level returns to near normal, take care of any crew injuries, then inventory and stow all loose gear. When conditions are suitable, the dinghy can be bailed out (and assembled, if it’s a nesting design) and loaded with the extra survival gear. Check your position (I assume you packed a small GPS and several sets of batteries), and get out the oars or sail. A small dinghy towing a life raft will not break any speed records, but you will make progress, and the probability of crew survival is reasonable high. During the day, the dinghy crew can fish, collect fresh water when it rains, and stretch out for a nap on a hard, dry surface. If serious weather conditions are encountered, the dinghy can deploy a sea anchor which will stabilize the raft. If it swamps, the crew will retreat to the life raft, and let the dinghy revert to its sea anchor mode.

 

Conclusions

The skipper has the responsibility for ensuring the safety of all persons aboard the vessel, and must plan for emergency situations, including the decision to abandon ship and to implement self rescue. With a little thought and some modifications, your dinghy can be used with the life raft as part of a coordinated abandon ship procedure. The ideal self rescue dinghy will be seaworthy, contain watertight storage areas for food and water, and have a sturdy sailing rig. Even a poorly prepared dinghy is better than nothing. There have been several instances where having the dinghy made survival possible, in one case for 117 days. With a little thought and preparation, your dinghy can give you a self rescue option, just in case Murphy decides to step in and scramble your EPIRB signal.

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