Clipper Round the World Race sailor Andrew Taylor is found by his crew after floating for more than an hour in big seas, trying to stay conscious after going over the side during a sail change and by now in the advanced stages of hypothermia. Fellow crewman Jason Middleton had to go into the water to help manhandle his near-unconscious friend back onboard
Dan Houston’s disturbing coverage (Update) of the separate loss – on the same day – of two yachtsmen racing in the English Channel in rough but far from extreme weather prompts us to look again at a subject that can never be revisited enough. Across the pond Rich du Moulin and the Storm Trysail Club have never eased up in their ongoing efforts to improve the safety of yachtsmen at sea. Du Moulin brings us up to date with some of their latest learnings
Once is too often – Part I
Larchmont Yacht Club juniors to perform quick-stop MOB recoveries aboard a Tripp 41. Racing at sundown in 20kt of wind a 15-year-old girl fell overboard. Within three minutes the juniors made a safe recovery. After that the race sponsors asked Storm Trysail to train all the teams, so in 1997 they organised the first ever Junior Safety at Sea Seminar at Larchmont YC. Dealing with juniors we needed to 1)
make it interesting, 2) emphasise hands-on teaching, and 3) feed them generously! Attendance totalled 200 juniors on 22 off- shore yachts ranging from J/105s to J/44s. We had classroom sessions on MOB
Advances in MOB recovery My years of association with the RORC and here in the USA with the Storm Trysail Club, and also the seamanship committees of CCA, NYYC and US Sailing, have given me the opportunity to be involved with some of the best offshore sailors. My pri- mary focus has been on Leadership and Safety at Sea (SAS) – opposite sides of the same coin since you can’t have one with- out the other. In this two-part series (thank you, Editor Andrew!) we will focus on advancements in MOB recovery. Some of the ideas and observations are mine, but the practices and recommendations are a blend of the inputs from figures including Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, Stan and Sally Honey, Chuck Hawley in California, Dick York, Adam Loory and Kelly Robinson in New York, and too many others to name. In preparation for our local Junior Overnight Race back in 1996 I trained our
recovery techniques and preparation for squalls. Outdoors we did real firefighting (run by the fire department) and a dockside demonstration of winches, bosun chairs, jacklines and harnesses, reefing and storm sails. Out on the water the juniors practised MOB recovery (using tallboy mooring buoys) and general safe sail handling. Every boat had two volunteer Storm Trysail member-coaches. After sailing we stuffed the kids with 100 pizzas. In 2006 at the Kings Point Merchant
Marine Academy, chaired by Ralf Steitz and Butch Ulmer, Storm Trysail ran the first ever Hands-On SAS Seminar for adults, directly patterned on the Junior SAS sessions. Noting the struggles of the adults, Ralf remarked, ‘The kids are better than the f---ing adults.’ Consistent with Ralf’s sophisticated observation, Storm Trysail recognised that Hands-On is best for both juniors and adults. Storm Trysail has continued to develop
Hands-On training, which in recent years has become the standard for American sailors achieving International Offshore Certification: survival swimming, fire and pyrotechnics, damage control and so on. However, on-the-water training – par-
ticularly MOB – is not a requirement for the certificate. Nevertheless, Storm Trysail believes it is essential and sends all students – juniors and adults alike – onto the water. These few hours cannot teach expertise,
but we can demonstrate the best available techniques to recover an MOB and con- vince the sailors to practise on their own boats. In summary, Storm Trysail now has the unique experience of practising MOB recoveries on the water at over 100 Junior and Adult Seminars over the past 25 years, using boats ranging from Figaros up to the three-masted 100ft Spirit of Bermuda. Our most important takeaways are: l ‘Train the way you fight; fight the way you train’ (US Marine Corps). For MOB and other emergency drills this means practise on your own boat, with your own crew, in all conditions: medium/heavy, day/night. Develop your own best proced - ures and document them. l Every boat is unique – with handling characteristics that must be taken into account to develop the best MOB recovery technique for that boat and that crew. l The owner/skipper has a responsibility that goes with leadership. And being responsible is the definition of leadership. The 2022 Newport-Bermuda Race wit-
nessed the tragic loss of one of our Storm Trysail members, Colin Golder, who was
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