2014 MASCF - The Rescue

After watching the start to the sailboat race for the Mid-Atlantic Small Craft Festival sailboat race I had the option of being dropped off with the race committee at the corner of the Chesapeake Maritime Museum harbor to watch the finish or, stay with the CBMM workboat, Volunteer, and motor through the fleet as it beat toward the finish. I chose the latter but as soon as we poked our nose out of the harbor there was, dead ahead, a sail with no hull, a sight that brokered further investigation.

It turned out it was one of the racers that needed assistance and it was also someone I knew. Larry Haff, a canoe sailor, was racing his homebuilt Polynesian outrigger canoe and as we drew near, we could see his main hull awash, Larry sitting forlornly in what was now a bathtub with the outrigger bobbing alongside, completely detached. The outrigger attachment point had failed when Larry had hardened up to go upwind and he was now discovering that he didn't have enough buoyancy in the main hull to support his weight and the sloshing water. I wondered how difficult this rescue would be as we would have to maneuver this longish workboat alongside but Lad Mills did a great job. Thankfully, the aft freeboard on Volunteer is low, the aft deck wide so we were able to work efficiently to get the rig out of the canoe and onto Volunteer, the outrigger stowed onboard and then, with some tugging and grunting, roll Larry up onto Volunteer's deck.

On our initial approach, the crew on Volunteer viewing the half sunken canoe. From left to right, Tweezerman, Rick Scofield, Lad Mills with Larry Haff in the water. Photo lifted from the CBMM Facebook page.

Rig and outrigger secured on Volunteer, Rick watches closely that the canoe main hull, still with very little freeboard, doesn't veer off or dive under the water as we slowly tow her in.

Lad Mills at the helm. Larry Haff  adding another pair of eyes astern. Other than the outrigger attachment failure there didn't seem to be any other major damage.

Larry Haff's outrigger canoe, back on shore, loaded up for the journey back to Massachusetts and some engineering modifications over the winter.

Crash Boat Operation; Crash boat design

I guess RIB's (those V-bottom inflatables) would make the best crash boats but I must honestly say I've never operated one as a crash boat. (I did recently work out of SSA's RIB doing mark boat work, the soft sides do make it nice when you're leaning over, hauling anchors and marks.) The really difficult part about rescues is dragging sailors out of the water and onto the rescue boat, particularly ones who are so exhausted they can not help pull themselves into the boat.

I was looking through Professional Boatbuilder and they had one of those design contests for motorboats using low powered, more fuel efficient 35 hp outobards. One design by Morabito caught my eye. It was a Classic looking runabout but also had a low freeboard back deck platform, ideal for rescuing sailors in the water! Why can't we see someone build something just like this for a crash boat? (This back deck would also be ideal for waterskiers, probably why Morabito added it to her design.)



Links to my other crash boat posts;

The Lowly Crash Boat Operator
Crash Boat Operation, Tip 1
Crash Boat Operation, Tip 2
Crash Boat Operation, Tip 3

Crash Boat Operation; Tip #3; Be Prepared to put a Rescue Swimmer Overboard

Many crash boat operators seem to be content to work from their crash boats. But there are times when you really need to put a competent person overboard to complete a rescue. The key is the safety of the competitors. If the skipper, or crew, or all of them are exhausted or cold or dazed they should be retrieved onto the crash boat. If the person in the water is inexperienced, they need help. I usually take a complete sailing kit on the crash boat. I've changed into a wetsuit and gone into the water several times to right a boat because the crew is borderlne hpyothermic and incapacitated, or the boat is waterlogged and needs a steady hand on the tiller while we tow it. Ideally in the really rough stuff, it would be nice to have three on a crash boat with one designated as a swimmer if need be (I know this rarely happens). And all crash boat operators need to have a good sailing knife readily at hand.

Links to my other crash boat posts;

The Lowly Crash Boat Operator
Crash Boat Operation, Tip 1
Crash Boat Operation, Tip 2
Crash Boat Design

Crash Boat Operation; Tip #2; Go for the Mast

When the crash boat goes in for a rescue it's usually for two things; a breakdown that has rendered the sailboat unsailable or a capsize situation that has rapidly deteriorated (a capsize, then a righting, to another capsize, to another righting, to a capsize, to a very tired crew sitting on the daggerboard). For that second situation, when I'm faced with an exhausted crew or a crew that has had difficulty in righting the boat, I make a beeline for the mast. My goal is to get the mast pulled up and then laid across the crash boat. It may take some work (I'll even work extremely hard to pull up a mast of a boat that may be attempting to go turtle) but it makes much shorter work of a rescue. For a tired crew, the key is to get the sails down. It is extremely difficult to get the boat righted, a crew onboard and the sails down, without capsizing again. If one can get the mast stabilized on the crash boat, it makes it much easier for the crew to work at the halyards from the water. The boat is stable on her side, the sails aren't flapping a mile a minute. The crash boat operators can help lower the sails, or if need be, release the halyard shackles if there is a problem with the halyards being snarled up. Many times it makes the situation more manageable if the crash boat operators just takes the sails from the capsized boat and stuff them onboard the crash boat. Once the sails are off, getting the boat righted and under tow is much easier. I've gone for the mast rescue on dinghies as big as a Lightning and catamarans as big as a Nacra 20.

Links to my other crash boat posts;

The Lowly Crash Boat Operator
Crash Boat Operation, Tip 1
Crash Boat Operation, Tip 3
Crash Boat Design

Crash Boat Operation; Tip #1; Work from upwind

When the wind is strong and the waves are lumpy, this is most often when crash boats are needed for rescue, and this is also the worst possible combination for low speed maneuvers in an outboard motor craft. Many times I've seen crash boats come up from leeward, make several passes and then after gunning the motor, ending up smacking into the capsized sailboat. If I'm operating a crash boat, I make my approach from upwind, place the crash boat abeam of the wind, switch to neutral and then drift down to the capsized vessel.

The advantages;

1. Downwind drift speed is slow and controlled. If I need to make contact with the capsized vessel, I'm approaching at a slow enough speed where it is easy to grab onto the capsized boat or, if need be, fend off.
2. I can assess the situation without worrying about jockeying the boat. I can count heads. I can talk to the crew on the boat or in the water without yelling over a motor in gear.
3. The motor is in neutral. No fear of wrapping lines or injuring someone in the water.
4. If I decide I need to be somewhere else, it is easy to shift into gear and slowly motor sideways away from the capsized boat.
5. It's also easier to throw a line downwind.

Links to my other crash boat posts;

The Lowly Crash Boat Operator
Crash Boat Operation, Tip 2
Crash Boat Operation, Tip 3
Crash Boat Design

Race Committee; The Lowly Crash Boat Operator

It's winter in North America; the season of the yacht club seminars. Lets see, there is always a seminar about how to improve your racing results (probably several of those), a seminar about the racing rules and one for proper race committee procedure; but I have never, ever seen a seminar about the best ways to run a crash boat. Even our hallowed NGB, US Sailing, has yet to put together a course on crash boat operation! Odd, because crash boat operation is such an essential part of safety for the sailors in a regatta. "Ah!", you say, "No big deal in running a motor boat to and fro, righting capsized boats and plucking those hapless dinghy sailors from the water." Well, it definitely is a bigger deal than most clubs plan for. Operating crash boats safely and effectively in big winds and big seas takes quite a bit of skill and experience. Unfortunately in most U.S sailing clubs, the crash boat operator is the low man on the race committee totem pole; they are usually the volunteers with the least experience. And to compound the problem, most clubs plan on just two crash boats, no matter the size of the regatta. Things can go south quickly when two crash boats with inexperienced operators are faced with multiple boats down!

I've done a fair bit of crash boat work (though now, I too am mostly consigned to the main RC boat these days). There are things that work and things that don't work as well. There needs to be some national discussion on best crash boat practices, maybe even a crash boat manual drawn up. And these procedures should be taught every winter!

Well at this point, I was going to drop into a well done YouTube video by an English club on crash boat procedures. The video had just popped up in the last week, prompting me to climb onto this soapbox. Unfortunately, after getting all this verbiage out, I found the post had been taken down. (Sigh!!)

Well not to worry. This subject is certainly worthy of a thread of future posts. I would like to hear of other experiences with crash boats, either as an operator or as one being rescued; good and bad.

Links to my other crash boat posts;

Crash Boat Operation, Tip 1
Crash Boat Operation, Tip 2
Crash Boat Operation, Tip 3
Crash Boat Design

Gorge Blowout from the Crash Boat

This time the view from outside the Laser.......

Footage of the 2010 Laser Gorge Blowout as shot from the crash boat..........



Brutal!

Staying Alive; How much should the RC do?

A post over at Tillerman's blog highlighted a man overboard incident at the recent Star North Americans.

The incident in a nutshell;

• Elderly Star skipper, way at the back of the fleet, falls out of the Star in a broach.
• His crew cannot sail the Star back to him and the skipper in the water has an inoperable inflatable life jacket.
• The skipper in the water is close to going under when the skipper of a nearby dismasted Star swims over towing a spare life jacket and keeps the man afloat until the Canadian Olympic support RIB shows up.

Tillerman's post has the link to the original post and the subsequent discussion. Most of the discussion centers around the

• skippers culpability; he's too old to be out there, he's wearing a life preserver that was clearly inadequate.
• the response when the crew's VHF distress call was picked up at the club (but not picked up by the RC).

Well folks, when you are organizing the race committee, let's just shitcan the personal responsibility argument. Yes, in a perfect world, all or us are wearing life preservers that work and our boats are immaculately prepared to handle 25 knots of wind and we are all in superb sailing shape but the reality is that all of us at one time or the other have got into trouble on the water; sometimes it is a fine line between getting out of it on our own or needing assistance .... many times sailors out on the race course are inexperienced, over confident, over their heads. Bottom line, if as RC you had to rely on an outside boater to perform a rescue, then you have had a failure as an RC, a bigger failure than not setting the starting line properly or flying the wrong flags.

My questions to Cedar Point YC;

You had two Stars in distress in the same area; one flailing around with one sailor and another dismasted and, as the story's been told, a Cedar Point YC crash boat never made it to the site. A fellow competitor and a coach boat had to perform the rescure.

• Did Cedar Point YC have crash boats for the Star North Americans?
• If they did, were they tied up with other rescues? Meaning was there inadequate rescue resources for the number of boats racing?
• Were there any Cedar Point RC personnel watching the race course and keeping track of the distressed Stars?
• Why did the Cedar Point RC need to be alerted by VHF radio from the home club about the incident?

These are the most important questions the RC need to address.

Unfortunately, in the U.S. crash boats are usually an afterthought in RC planning and are usually manned by the most inexperienced volunteers.