Harnesses can kill

IT’S HARD TO KNOW how many sailors’ lives have been saved by safety harnesses. No disinterested authority seems to keep the relevant statistics. But I know for a fact that a harness killed one sailor and would have killed another had his boat not run aground.

The fatality occurred in a storm off the South African coast when a racing fleet was overwhelmed by a sudden southwesterly “buster.” A fairly beamy 26-foot sloop was capsized by a large wave and stayed upside down a long time. One of her cockpit crew couldn’t release the tether of his safety harness and drowned before she righted herself.

Yukio Hasebe, a singlehanded Japanese circumnavigator, almost drowned when he fell off his 30-foot sloop and was dragged alongside the hull. He couldn’t pull himself aboard. The boat sped on for hours, steered by her wind vane, while Hasebe fought for breath and got badly scraped by barnacles. He was bleeding profusely and almost exhausted when the boat grounded on a reef off Australia. He lost the boat but his life was saved.

Lessons: make sure you can detach your tether at your breast, even under strain; and think hard about how to get back on board if you go over the side.

And one last, but rather important thought: Whenever you can, use a tether short enough to prevent your falling overboard in the first place.

Today’s Thought

Oh pilot, ’tis a fearful night!
There’s danger on the deep.
— Thomas Haynes Bayly, The Pilot

Tailpiece

Overheard at Starbucks:
“You wouldn’t think it now, but Fred used to be the same age as George Clooney.”

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