Suddenly Overboard (8 page)

Shouldn't there have been a helicopter by now? “Where are you?” Surely it couldn't take so long.

If only she'd worn a watch. Then she could keep track, do calculations, keep up hope while she waited. Surely they'd radioed. “The damn GPS was working, wasn't it?” She rolled back and changed her stroke, felt her body again. Still working.

When she was quiet too long, the terror returned. It came over her in waves, over and over, always beginning with the horror of abruptly realizing she had been trapped under the boat. In the black water she had been completely disoriented, unable to see or tell up from down, just aware she was underwater and caught on something. She had struggled and torn at the harness webbing of her inflated PFD and tether, and suddenly her fingers found the release and freed her from her PFD. The rushing water had torn her free, and moments later she had bobbed up behind the boat to see its stern light rapidly receding into the night.

It had been all she could do after the sudden immersion to stay on the surface and suck air into her lungs between coughing fits. She heard men on the boat shouting in the distance but was unable to shout back.

She watched the boat disappear, then a minute later saw its green starboard light moving left to right, but it was too far away to hear her shouting. If only she had a light, but her strobe, like her whistle, was clipped to her PFD.

As far as she knew, her PFD was still under the boat. Or maybe by now they'd pulled it up by her tether, still connected to the starboard jackline, which must have been loose to let her go that far under, and found it empty. Maybe they thought she was dead by now.

“I will
not
die this way!” she shouted into the void around her.

She saw the boat make another sweep, right to left this time, with the port red running light showing, but it was still a long way off. She saw it only for a second, from the crest of a wave, and then she dropped down in the trough and the boat was gone when she rose again. The seas were running perhaps 3 to 4 meters; they'd practically have to run her over to see her.

She would die if the helicopter didn't find her soon. Very soon, she thought, then screamed, “No!”

And the terror of being caught under the boat swept over her yet again.

She tried to keep it out of her mind, tried to remember more about what had happened. How far out had they been? How far could a helicopter fly before going back for more fuel?

She'd been in the cockpit one minute, enjoying the wild ride, loving the roar of water along the hull, grinding the winch to trim in the jib, and then something happened and she'd slid under the lifeline. Just like that. She couldn't remember how it had happened. Just the abrupt horror of being held underwater, against her will, as if the sea had become a madman.

Don't think about that part of it. “Girl! Keep paddling!” And she'd lost her PFD. She thought about that: the strobe light, the
whistle, the big inflated tube to float her high and keep the water out of her mouth, a lovely bright yellow tube that would glow like the sun in the helicopter's searchlight.

Don't think about how the helicopter might not see her when it arrived. “Stop it! It's going to find me!”

She was beyond cold. She wasn't sure what her arms and legs were doing now, she was only aware of their leaden weight. She'd kicked off her sailing boots and later her jacket, which had made it so difficult to tread water. But now she felt just as heavy in the water. How much easier it would be just to lean back and let it all slip away.

Her mouth filled with water and she jerked up, thrashing her arms, coughing, then shouted at the sea, “Damn you!”

How long had it been now? What had happened to time?

She had a crazy thought: if a person shouts in the middle of the ocean and there's no one there to hear them, do they actually make a sound?

Then she panicked a moment when she suddenly felt she'd gone blind. It was so dark she couldn't tell if her eyes were open. But when she rose on a big wave and kicked hard to look around, she found what looked like sky glow on a horizon. Was the cloud cover lifting? Or was it the glow of distant city lights?

But it was gone on the next wave crest, and she screamed in frustration.

You couldn't live for hours in cold like this. She wondered how she'd even know when she died.

“Girl! Stop it!”

She started counting waves to stay focused. As she rose on each crest she shouted its number and looked for the horizon. She could make it to 100, she knew. She would!

Sometime after 300 she lost track. She felt confused. But she shouted out a number on each wave nonetheless.

“Seventy!” On the horizon was a tiny red light.

“Eighty-three!” Was she hallucinating? The red light was back, and just to the left of it was a tiny green dot.

“Thirty-one! Hey!” She wasn't crazy after all; there was a red and a green light together. Running lights! A boat, coming at her!

“Eighteen!” She barely got it out, not sure why she was crying, her voice breaking, the tears running down her wet salty face feeling warm. “God! A boat!”

She could barely believe it, she
would
believe it—rising on each crest to see it coming straight on—a light on the masthead now clear, a sailboat! Another sailboat coming home from the races?

She stopped shouting now, thinking to save her energy until it came closer, but she couldn't help congratulating herself. “You go, girl!”

She watched while it came closer.

At the crest of a big wave she started shouting for all she was worth and heard a man's voice shout back.

A minute later they were playing a spotlight over the water and she managed to raise one arm to wave and still tread water with the other. The light found her.

She discovered she was still counting waves with meaningless numbers.

They had her aboard for only a few minutes, just long enough to wrap her in blankets, before the first lifeboat arrived, followed soon by a helicopter. One man in the lifeboat had a worried face, and was saying something about it not being good that she wasn't shivering, and then they had her in a sling and were lifting her up to the helicopter.

The roar of the blades was like the roar of water beneath the hull and the terror struck again—until the basket was swung inside and the door slammed shut and a warm hand took hers.

She drifted off, murmuring—they told her later—what sounded like a string of numbers.

When she was released from the hospital a day later, uninjured, she was able to smile at her friends. When they asked what it was like and how she'd survived more than 2 hours of extreme cold, she could only say that she'd just told herself to.

I chose the preceding three stories for this chapter because they all involve what many consider a fluke or chance. The sailors who lived or died in these incidents did nothing overtly wrong, regardless of any debate about whether the incident could or could not have been prevented.

However, these stories do raise issues about using harnesses and tethers and the risk of becoming trapped. Some have suggested that being tethered to a boat adds an unnecessary risk, particularly if the boat turns turtle or if there are a sufficient number of crew aboard to rescue a sailor who goes overboard. Yet an overwhelming number of other incidents, including many in the following chapters, show a greater risk of becoming separated from the boat due to a wide range of circumstances.

The 21 sailors aboard
Rambler
who all survived the boat's sudden capsize all subsequently recommended against using a tether. Consider, however, that the risk of being thrown or washed overboard is, for keelboat sailors, far greater than the risk of having your boat's keel break off. Even when capsized the boat will generally bob back upright, bringing to the surface a properly tethered sailor.

Consider also the assumption that a crew overboard will be rescued by sailors still on board. (Obviously this doesn't apply to singlehanders, as we'll see in
Chapter 10
.) Most offshore sailors do wear a PFD—at least sometimes—and have attached to it a strobe light or whistle to make it easier to be found. PLBs are also being used more frequently. Chartplotters almost universally have a crew-overboard button to instantly record the location where someone goes overboard. And most offshore racing and rally rules require carrying a tall crew-overboard pole to be thrown overboard to help mark the location.

All of this may give the impression that if someone goes over it's simply a matter of turning the boat to pick them up.

How safe is it to assume that?

While this book was being written in 2012, one of the worst American sailing disasters in recent decades occurred during the Farallones Race off San Francisco. An unexpectedly large wave struck a 38-foot boat, sweeping six of the eight crew overboard. Winds were about 25 knots, not unusual for the area, and certainly not storm conditions. All were wearing PFDs. The two still on board immediately focused on getting the others back on the boat when another large wave struck, sending one of them overboard and knocking the boat out of control. Waves soon swept it onto nearby rocks. Immediately an emergency call was made and a Coast Guard rescue effort began. A helicopter rescued three crew and recovered one body.

An extensive search continued the rest of the afternoon, through the night, and all the next day for the four who were still missing. When there was no longer the slightest hope that they could have survived that long in the frigid water, the Coast Guard discontinued the search after it became obvious no more survivors would be found.

Several weeks later one of the three survivors wrote a personal account of the disaster to correct inaccuracies in news reports, and he concluded with thoughtful reflections about the importance of using a tether. Like the others, he had not been clipped in and his time in the water had been terrifying. But tethering shouldn't be a personal choice, he argued, because even one person overboard puts the whole crew at risk when they have to act to attempt a rescue.

Three months after the incident, the investigation team of U.S. Sailing published its report. Two of the safety issues cited were a “failure of seamanship in negotiating shoal waters on a lee shore” and “inadequate safety gear for offshore conditions,” including the use of appropriate PFDs and tethers. It quoted the U.S. Sailing Prescription recommendation in the ISAF Offshore Special Regulations that tethers should “be employed whenever conditions warrant, and always in rough weather, on cold water, or at night, or under conditions of reduced visibility or when sailing short-handed.”

F
or most sailors, sailing in a good wind on a day with good weather is one of the great joys in life. You're out in the natural world, feeling the warmth of the sun over the cool of the water, feeling the breeze on your face and the boat's responses to natural forces, enjoying time away from land and all that entails, enjoying a time either social or solitary—and often feeling a great peacefulness. You may also thrill to the adrenaline of a race or simply the challenge of controlling your boat through continually changing circumstances. There may be as many ways to enjoy sailing as there are sailors; we all have our own experiences and joys. But in the back of our minds we must remember that water is not humans' natural environment and that whenever we are on the water we are at some risk. This mindfulness isn't fear and needn't detract from the pleasure in any way, and can actually enhance the joy of sailing, but it is needed if we are to stay safe in case something unexpected happens. And as these stories show, the unexpected happens often
.

Remember, too, that regardless of how warm the water or air may seem there is always some risk of hypothermia. People in cold water may have as little as 10 minutes of functional movement before losing the effective use of their fingers, arms, and legs, making drowning a risk even for a good swimmer who believes he or she can tread water until rescue arrives
.

“Great day for sailing, eh?” Dave was grinning as he came down the dock with his brown lab, Rusty.

Shannon looked up from the cockpit, smiled, then gestured out at Chesapeake Bay, where not a boat was in sight. “Nice day for December, anyway,” she said.

Rusty, a good boat dog, bounded down into the cockpit and sniffed the bag that held their lunch.

The handheld VHF clipped to Dave's belt was tuned to NOAA weather, and the robotic voice was forecasting a southwest wind of 10 to 15 knots. The report from the nearest automated buoy included an air temperature of 54°F, a water temperature of 47°F, and a chop of 1 to 2 feet.

“Won't break any speed records today,” Dave said. “Too bad.”

Shannon stowed the last of her gear. “That's better for Steve, anyway. Don't want to scare the bejeebers out of him on his first sail.”

Dave laughed. It felt great to sneak away from work for a halfday sail, and there was maybe only one other thing he'd rather be doing with Shannon. He stepped down into the cockpit and gave her a quick kiss. “Maybe we shouldn't wait for him after all,” he joked.

Steve arrived a few minutes later, but they barely recognized him at first under all that clothing. Dave had told him it would be cold on the water, but he hadn't anticipated Steve would wear a ski parka, heavy gloves, and a winter stocking cap. He saw them looking at his cap—they, so experienced, in their high-tech miracle fabrics—and said, “Gotta stay warm! But I brought some cold beer in case we get too warm.”

Rusty trotted over to sniff Steve's bag and then his boots.

Steve was older than both of them, in his forties, Shannon guessed. A whole generation older, almost. He was also a very big man. She stared at his heavy black-soled boots as he gingerly stepped over the rail and down onto the cockpit bench, imagining black scuff marks all over her new boat's gleaming white deck. Oh, well.