Suddenly Overboard (3 page)

All the stories included here are true and have been documented. In the United States, the Coast Guard maintains records for all boating fatalities and reports on most rescue attempts. Equivalent agencies in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand do the same, often conducting extensive investigations. Other groups such as sailing associations also frequently investigate fatalities. Sometimes, as in a dramatic storm or race disaster, these are reported in sailing magazines and the popular press, these being the stories sailors
do
hear about. But for every disaster that makes headlines, like the
WingNuts
fatal capsize in a 2011 race (see
Chapter 1
), there are literally hundreds of other sailing disasters we seldom hear about.

I discovered that these stories too can be found when you go looking. Small-town newspapers post online stories of local incidents that can be searched out. Boating fatalities in the United States are required to be reported to state agencies, typically law enforcement, that then provide reports to the U.S. Coast Guard to be included in national statistics. Such statistics often do not include much detail about what actually happened in the series of events that resulted in a “death by drowning.” To understand—and learn from—the original causes and other factors involved, we need the details from witnesses at the scene, investigators, and journalists.

With an average of about 700 boating fatalities in the United States every year, and hundreds more reported in English-speaking areas around the world, that's a lot of stories. Add to this the literally thousands of incidents of rescues and injuries and near fatalities every year. Fortunately for sailors, sailboats are involved less frequently than other types of watercraft, yet there are still hundreds of incidents a year. Those stories, from all those sources, form the raw material for this book.

Again, these are all true stories, and I have recounted them as truly as I can. In some cases there were hundreds of pages of information related to a single incident. In some cases I've spoken
to survivors or others with knowledge of the incident. But in other cases, such as when a solo sailor went overboard without witnesses, I could tell the story only through what documentarians call “dramatic reconstruction,” based as faithfully as possible on the facts but still, of necessity, partly speculative, based on my knowledge of similar events.

A final note on the sources and the retelling. Most U.S. and international government agencies attempt to preserve the anonymity of victims and survivors in their public reports. Names and specific identifying information are redacted. Not only does this respect the privacy of the individuals involved, but it also helps maintain a climate in which people are not hesitant to report details they might otherwise not want to share for fear of public embarrassment. In many cases, as I read those anonymous reports, I recognized the incidents and knew the names of the people involved, as printed in local news reports at the time. Nevertheless, this book follows the same principles of anonymity. A story is just as true without the person's name, and there is simply no compelling reason to include identifying information in these stories, except in a few cases already somewhat famous in the press and therefore identifiable. So most names and some other specifics of identity have been changed to maintain that anonymity.

While there are hundreds of incidents every year, there are not hundreds of conclusions to be drawn. The more stories I read, the simpler the “lesson” seemed to become.

First, a few statistics. While numbers are often ultimately less convincing than experiences, they provide an interesting and useful backdrop for the stories.

Here's a quick overview of the most recent year's statistics available from the U.S. Coast Guard. Of all fatalities involving sailboats, the cause of death in 83% of cases was drowning. That number is even higher if hypothermia caused by water immersion is
included. No surprises here; water is not the normal human environment, and our bodies are ill equipped for unplanned immersion in deep water. Nor is it greatly surprising that in 89% of sailing fatalities by drowning, the victim was not wearing a PFD. And in all sailboat incidents, the most common contributing factor was classified as “operator inattention.”

This much is perhaps obvious—if you end up in the water without a PFD, you're at risk for drowning—but it doesn't tell us much about
how
the victims ended up in the water and
why
they weren't wearing a PFD.

For a start in that direction, we can look at other Coast Guard studies and surveys of boater behavior. Now it gets more interesting. Only 22% of adults in all sailboats say they wear a PFD all or most of the time. The rate is higher for those in small daysailers but is only 12% for sailors in cabin sailboats. Further, despite many boating safety campaigns and other efforts to increase the use of PFDs (including emphasis on more comfortable and less bulky inflatable types), in the 12 years since the Coast Guard started these studies, the percentage of boaters wearing PFDs has actually decreased.

Data comparing sailors with other classifications of boaters adds an interesting dimension to this picture. A higher percentage of sailors (over 62%), compared to other classes of boaters, have taken a boating safety course. So why then are sailors less likely to wear a PFD? Another interesting statistic is that a higher percentage of sailors know how to swim than other groups of boaters. Could overconfidence when on the water be a factor here?

Just a few more numbers. Regarding what victims were actually doing with the sailboat at the time of an incident that resulted in a fatality,
only about 50% were actually sailing
. The other half were at anchor, docking, motoring in the harbor, swimming off the boat, etc. Again, these are times when many people might not be wearing a PFD because they didn't perceive they were in a risky situation.

Finally, I developed my own analysis of the circumstances of sailors in the water, based on all reported fatalities over the last 4 years. Only about 25% of victims were in the water because the
boat had capsized, mostly small daysailers you'd expect might capsize in a gust and therefore should be prepared for. In another 15% of cases, the person was deliberately in the water, swimming or for another reason. And in a perhaps astonishing 40% of cases, sailors drowned with the boat still upright and usually nearby after unexpectedly, for a variety of reasons, ending up in the water.

Okay, that's lots of numbers, and still they don't really show
exactly why
most fatalities occur. What they do demonstrate, however, is that
the most dangerous time for sailors is the least dangerous time
. That is, the sailors about to become victims perceived no significant danger or risk at the time. Life was going well, the sailing was good, it was just another day on the water. In perhaps only 5% of cases would the sailor about to die have said he or she felt any danger.

The Coast Guard and every boating safety course urge all boaters to wear PFDs at all times, and obviously this would make a huge difference in the fatality statistics. But as we've already seen, saying it doesn't make it so, and that change alone still would not completely solve the problem and ensure sailors' safety.

My own view is that staying safe on a sailboat begins with an attitude of thinking ahead about anything that can happen at any time on the water. Again, this means not just simply being ready for storms and having lots of gear on the boat for emergencies, and not just the traditional seamanship skills of navigation and boat operation, but always thinking ahead and asking yourself “what if” this or that happens right now. If you know the odds are greater that you'll die after falling overboard on a calm day in the goofiest of circumstances (and you'll know that after reading these stories), then you're more likely to wear your PFD and take other actions in such circumstances.

Unfortunately, it's hard to teach an attitude in a boating safety course. And you won't read much about it in the safety or seamanship
chapters of most sailing books, which often focus on skills and equipment and emergency preparations. Indeed, in a survey of dozens of such books I found only one expert directly confronting this issue of attitude and how it may be formed. Don Dodds, in
Modern Seamanship
, a now-out-of-print 1995 book, wrote the following in his introduction to a chapter on common emergencies:

[Most] accidents are the result of bad planning, poor judgment, or failing to think. Not much can be done about poor judgment, but something can be done about bad planning and failing to think. . . . Talk is cheap, consumes little time, and attracts little attention. Take a little time to talk about fire on board, people lost overboard, and other common emergencies. It can be done at lunch, over a cocktail, or anytime the crew is gathered and there is a lull in activity. Detailed discussion will encourage each crewmember to think about emergency procedures ahead of time. Thinking fast is a myth. Show me a person who thinks fast and I'll show you a person who has thought the situation through beforehand
.

Exactly! Now all we need to know is what those “common emergencies” really are so we can think and talk about what to do if they occur. A fire extinguisher is important, yes, but fires account for less than 1% of sailboat incidents;
what else
should we be talking about?

In short, what accounts for the 99% of disasters? What
really
happens out there on the water that leads to so many incidents and deaths?

Read the stories.

T
his book includes stories from around the world, most of which include descriptions of measurements such as boat length and weight, water and air temperatures, distance, and so on. Including both imperial and metric units for each measurement would in many cases have introduced errors because of customary rounding. For example, in the United States a 26-foot boat may in reality be 25 feet and 8 inches or even 26 feet and 2 inches, yet it is still referred to as a 26-foot boat. To add its metric length (7.9 meters for 26 feet) could therefore be incorrect, as the number 7.9 implies a level of precision that may simply be false. In the United Kingdom this boat may or may not be referred to as an 8-meter boat. Yet to refer to it as a “26-foot (8-meter) boat” would be mathematically incorrect.

For this reason, and to avoid the intrusiveness of giving two numbers in every instance, the units used in these stories are those mentioned in the source materials, whether from Coast Guard and Marine Accident Investigation Branch reports or journalists' accounts.

Following are standard (approximate) conversions between imperial and metric units appearing in this book:

Nautical miles (n.m.) are used for all distances on the water. Boat speeds are given in nautical miles per hour (knots).

1 n.m. = 1.15 miles = 1.85 kilometers (km)

Example:
120 n.m. = 138 miles = 222 km

Water and air temperatures in Fahrenheit (F) and Celsius (C) vary in part because 0°C (the freezing point) is 32°F. Each degree F is approximately 5/9 degree C, but the 32° must be added or subtracted when making the conversion.

Wind speed is generally given in nautical miles per hour (knots) in the United States, and according to the Beaufort scale (Force) in the United Kingdom.

Force 1 = 1–3 knots = “light air”

Force 2 = 4–6 knots = “light breeze”

Force 3 = 7–10 knots = “gentle breeze”

Force 4 = 11–16 knots = “moderate breeze”

Force 5 = 17–21 knots = “fresh breeze”

Force 6 = 22–27 knots = “strong breeze”

Force 7 = 28–33 knots = “near gale”

Force 8 = 34–40 knots = “gale”

Force 9 = 41–47 knots = “strong gale”