Gladwell's Line- Safer Boating Week launched against tragic backdrop

by . on 17 Oct 2014 Today, Friday marks the start of the inaugural Safer Boating Week - an initiative of the National Pleasure Boating Forum.

The need for this program is underlined by the fact that there have been two and probably three boating deaths in the past two days.

That is more than the road toll for the same period and probably the whole week.

Already the number of boating deaths in just over ten months is higher than the 12 month average.

The awful point is that probably all of those deaths could have been avoided.

And that is not to trigger the hoary argument about whether wearing lifejackets should be compulsory. That is almost a red herring. There is a great quote from an aircrew briefing in wartime Britain. A bomber pilot asked why they were required to wear lifejackets when they were being told that if they ditched an aircraft it was probably unsurvivable. 'They make the bodies easier to find' was the blunt reply.

That is not the situation now. Most, if not all boating incidents are survivable. Wearing a lifejacket will not prevent an incident, but it will help you float, and it will extend your survival time in the water.

In boating, it is not your first mistake that creates the critical or fatal situation, but the second or third.

While the emphasis is often put on check-lists of essential gear, the missing element is almost always seamanship. Most, if not all boating accidents are caused by poor seamanship. Unfortunately, it is very hard to teach someone commonsense and seamanship in a classroom environment. That is only something that can be taught in an on the water practical situation, and then hoping that people having the wit and commonsense to stay within the limits of what they can confidentially handle.

The most essential piece of safety equipment on a boat is an anchor that is adequate and works. If there is an incident, anchoring the boat will secure the boat's position while help is summoned. It allows the rest of the crew to deal with the problem without risking drifting onto rocks, getting blown further out to sea or whatever.

Then comes the communication devices and life jackets - all assuming you listened to the weather forecast before leaving and had considered its implications on where you intended to go.

One of the downsides of the plethora of technology that is available is that people have forgotten to look for the natural signs of weather change and tell tales of sea conditions. More serious is that they don't run this level of thinking as part of their everyday lives - on land.

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Knowing when bad weather is forecast and then watch the sky to see the warning signs should be part of any boatie's life. Practice on land, and you will be much more adept on the water. It will come to you as second nature.

Similarly, water does not just suddenly have a little rough spot - it is usually a hidden rock or obstruction, a shoal or tricky piece of tide. Hit it, and you might find out to your cost what is underneath. That is why keeping a good look-out is essential. Remember that if your boat travels at 20kts then you have to be twice as sharp as in your father's day, when he travelled at 8-10kts.

Back to the lifejacket debate.

In our experience, most boaties fall into one of three categories. Those who grew up in dinghy sailing, and regard wearing a lifejacket or PFD as being completely normal, and have their own gear which fits like the rest of their clothing and gear.

Then there are the non-dinghy sailors who don't seem to have quite joined up the dots with wearing considerable amounts of wet weather gear, without thinking what will happen to them if they fall into the water (which happens awfully quickly). For some reason they seem to think that the encumbrance of them wearing a lifejacket, in a race, will make the boat much slower than if the boat had to turn around and pick them up if they happened to slip overboard.

Almost always now I wear a full harness/lifejacket whenever I wear wet weather gear on a boat. Yes, I get some weird looks, but after thinking about a couple of incidents that happened in the previous 12 months I decided I was an accident waiting to happen, and got some proper kit.

Ironically three weeks after buying it, I went over the side for the first time in 50 years of sailing, and the new gear worked perfectly.

As can be seen in the video that is part of one of the stories in this edition, you have about a second or two to stop yourself going over the side - and that is it. You get a hell of a fright over how quickly you change from being on deck and then in the water in your wet weather gear. You have to hope that you don't hit your head on something solid on the way overboard - the the gunnel or a spar. Going into the water unconscious, no self inflating lifejacket, and wearing wet weather gear is the deadly trifecta. It happened to Eric Tabarly, probably the toughest trans ocean sailor the world has ever seen - and it can happen to you.

The third group are the bulk of recreational boaties, who don't come from boating backgrounds, aren't members of boating clubs, think that going on the the water without any training or licence is one of the last of life's great freedoms. Last year 19 of them died. That number will be exceeded this year. It's a hell of a price to pay for freedom, and a price that is completely unnecessary.

What is overlooked before the incident is the anguish that a boating death causes to family and friends.

One of my enduring memories of a Christmas cruise many years ago was the drowning of three brothers who had gone out fishing in a tin boat and clearly got into trouble in strong offshore winds. Can you imagine the anguish of the parents who had lost three sons, all in their 20's at that one time? It did happen very occasionally in wartime - but should not happen in the Christmas break in peacetime when families are happy to be all together.

The incident was completely avoidable. They should never have gone out in the forecast winds - even though they were blowing offshore, and the water was initially flat.

Maybe the motor wouldn't start when they came to head home. Couldn't get the anchor to hold. No shore communication. Boat blows offshore. Seas get bigger. Boat swamps. Boat has no floatation. People in water. No lifejackets - and the outcome is probably inevitable.

In that chain of incidents, the situation probably didn't start to get serious until about the third issue. Maybe all they had to do was start the motor before pulling up the anchor. But that is where seamanship comes in - and too often a lack of seamanship is the fatal ingredient.

The other vital part of boating safety is being able to talk about an incident, and learn from it. What would you do differently? What should you have spotted that could have avoided the whole situation? This is not blame-storming, but learning, and improving your knowledge and that of your crew and others with you.

Even if there is not an incident, but could have been, but for stroke of luck – then have a chat about it and debrief. You’ll be better prepared for the next time.

Safer Boating Week is most opportune. It is to be hoped that it achieves its objective and that next year there are less boating drownings than 2014, and that over time they are eliminated completely.