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I’m starting this off to avoid hijacking another thread on advice to a new Nonsucher that started raising a bunch of points relevant to single handing.
I hope people will use this to talk about a range of issues, e.g.:
- PFDs and handling overboard situations
- Avoiding and handling injuries
- Signalling and communications with others
- Staying on board
- Making it easier to control and operate the boat
- …
Let me start with PFDs, reacting to an “inflatable PFD, pro or con” set of comments in that other thread.
Although I agree with the folks who’ve said that inflatable PFDs keep you from swimming, I disagree with blanket advice on what type of PFD to use.
I feel there’s some questions each singlehander should ask about themselves, their sailing grounds, and their boat before choosing one life vest over another.
Where do you think you’re going to swim to, and how good a swimmer are you? What’s the water like where you sail? And, if you’re gonna try to get back to your boat, how’re you gonna get back in?
With my swimming skills, if I was in Florida warm water, my chances of swimming to shallows I could stand up in are decent. If I my boat had a swim step or was rigged so I could pull down the swim ladder while in the water,
and if it stayed nearby, I might be able to get back in. A vest PFD that maximizes my mobility makes sense.
Where I actually sail, in the situations where I’m most likely to go overboard, I’m at least a mile offshore in deep, cold water. I probably have 5-10 minutes before hypothermia sets in and I wouldn’t be able do much of anything for myself, either swimming
or getting back in the boat. It’s a survival situation and I want a PFD with maximum flotation while I focus on preserving heat and hoping for rescue. I’ll take my inflatable PFD promising 37.5 lbs. of flotation over a vest with 15 lbs.
In point of fact, if I go overboard under my conditions while singlehanding, I’d regard my chances of surviving as under 50% at best. So, while I wear an inflatable PFD, I need to focus on staying in the boat. That’s a topic for other posts on this thread,
but I’ll stop here for now.
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