Over the holidays we ran into a lot of old sailing friends at parties and caught up with a lot of sea stories from the last year. One really got my attention. A doctor friends of our, the surgeon who long ago repaired my torn Achilles tendon, is a veteran sailor who enjoys racing in an event our of Newport, RI called the Bermuda One-Two. The skippers sail solo from Newport to Bermuda and then sail doublehanded back again.
In the last race, my doctor friend owned up that he had in fact fallen overboard over the transom during the singlehanded leg to Bermuda. He was wearing his harness and the tether was clipped into the jacklines on the side decks. But, the jacklines were cleated off on the stern cleat, right on the boat’s aft quarter, so when he fell he found himself in the water and being dragged by the tether as his boat sailed on at six knots. It was only, he said, a feat pure adrenaline that enabled him to haul himself to the boat and climb back aboard. He admitted he never could have done this in any normal conditions.
The thing that struck me was that that’s how I have always tied on the jacklines…on the stern cleat…so if I or crew were to fall toward the stern, we’d end up in the water just like my friend. Note to self: before heading offshore again, I need to install solid pad-eyes for the jacklines on both side decks close to the cockpit but far enough from the stern so a falling crew will fall on deck instead of into the water.
What do you think? Tell us how you have solved the jackline issue to prevent a sudden man overboard emergency. Email to: cruisingcompass@bwsailing.com
