Foreword

Authorities who write and speak about sea survival usually focus on the issues concerning the loss of a vessel. What do you do when your boat suffers such a catastrophe that there is no choice but for it to join Davy Jones? How do you create a new life within a life raft or lifeboat? That view, though, as these pages will reveal, is rather limited. Survival at sea begins from the time you step aboard and doesn’t end until the time you disembark. What mariners must learn to accept is that survival at sea depends on a whole range of knowledge, training, and skills that regularly come into play even if the mother craft never springs a leak.

No sailor can deny there is a certain truth to the notion that anybody who’d go to sea for pleasure would go to hell for a pastime. Anyone who has ever spent any real time afloat knows that much of the waterborne life is spent trying to fix things that are constantly broken as the vessel bobs about on the world’s biggest corrosive and storm-tossed soup. Murphy loves the sea. But mariners know that they simply cannot capture the incomparable pleasures and fulfillment of boating without accepting the risks, which are many, and figuring out ways to deal with them.

Still, nobody really wants to concentrate on all the things that might go wrong aboard. Some boating magazine publishers get nearly apoplectic if a photo appears on their covers that features a vessel battling a storm, or even out on a wild romp. They do not want the public to get the idea that boating involves the discomfort of getting splashed, not to mention possibly killed. Yet the reality of life afloat is that many, many things can go wrong that can result in injury or worse, and very often the sailor is left on his own to face the music.

Those who embrace the reality rather than the fantasy remain much more functional in a real emergency over which they might have some control than those who live in a state of denial. It is essential for any survivor to transcend a state of denial into a state of acceptance. There often are many crises within an overall catastrophe, requiring many steps to reach a successful conclusion, but by accepting the reality on the waves and attacking problems in achievable bits, you can keep putting one foot above the other until you reach the top.

Acceptance sounds easier than it actually is, though. Studies of oil-rig fires, plane crashes, office-building fires (including the World Trade Towers on 9/11) indicate that as much as 70 percent of an average population will wander about as if stunned when facing a disaster. They may go back to their desks to tidy up rather than fleeing the burning building, for example. The more catastrophic the crisis, the more it will wipe out any continuity, and therefore security, provided by “normal life,” and people will do whatever they can to reestablish some contact with something that is familiar, makes sense, and is under their control. The sense of time also becomes highly distorted. Too often, most people waste precious minutes or hours. Many become consumed by the crisis from which they might have fled.

An additional 15 percent or so will likely be in complete panic or a state of virtually catatonia, totally unable to save themselves and possibly endangering others. I’ve seen footage of a fisherman dragged to the bottom because he could not let go of his overturned boat’s rudder to swim just a few meters to a waiting rescue boat. That leaves about 15 percent who can quickly assess alternative actions and their implied risks, form a plan and execute it in achievable steps. These are the people who are most likely to escape a disaster. Not surprisingly, policemen, firemen, airline pilots, doctors, sailors, and others who deal with various levels of crisis on a regular basis tend to make up this more highly functional 15 percent. And it is they upon whom the two thirds back cleaning their desks depend to get everyone moving in the right direction.

Studies have shown that the survival behavior of cleaners and perhaps even those in panic can be vastly improved if they become familiar with the two key ingredients that foster the positive approaches to disaster evidenced by folks like policemen, firemen, pilots et al: Preparation through the gaining of information and training, and experience in real life.

No book can give you experience in real life or training. What a book can do, though, is to inform you. With an added bit of training, you’ll have a much better idea of what to do when something happens in real life, and you can with greater confidence attack the less critical problems of the seafaring life and gain experience in the process. It sounds too simple, a cliché. It is nonetheless true: Those who are prepared tend to live.

The Sea Survival Manual is not like other survival manuals. Its holistic approach covers vast areas, from international safety standards to flow charts of functional actions when facing a variety of onboard crises, from fire and crew overboard to damage control and life raft procedures. It recognizes that, accept or deny it, going boating is pretty much a constant state of survival, and it shows you what you really should know before one part of the boating experience blows up in your face, which it inevitably will should you do it long enough. It reminds us that the ocean wilderness is a sometime hostile place where we would be wise to hone our self-reliance and skills, and it gives us tools to keep the boat and the crew safe so they don’t have to get into a life raft in the first place. Although it covers life rafts as well, the primary content is best consumed prior to leaving the dock and concentrates on the many challenges that may arise without leaving the deck.

That responsible boating requires us to face such realities and learn how to survive them is not really a depressing awakening. All the long-time mariners I’ve known have not only accepted the inevitable challenges of the sea but also actively seek new frontiers that then help them prepare for crises, should they come. Do we not push ourselves to explore new waters, expand our racing envelope, discover the sudden wonder of life emerging from the depths, all with unknown and possibly dangerous possibilities? Do not we love to spin our war stories over a brew once we get to a snug port? Are not the tales of how we jury rigged our mast, saved a crew fallen overboard, or contained a fire, more lasting and fulfilling than the story of how we won that race? Sailors love a challenge. Just like firemen and pilots and doctors. Maybe we’re hard wired to embrace a certain level of risk, so are predetermined to accept the preparation required to face it.

Even so, few sailors would want to shipwreck themselves in order to be better prepared next time around. Real survival at sea may be a bit more challenging than anyone would really like. Even hands-on survival training at sea or in pools, may not be your idea of a vacation. But if there is anything we know about survival, it is that almost everyone can learn to become a better survivor. Not by jumping into flames or scuttling your boat in mid-ocean, but by experiencing the regular survival scenarios that are the sailor’s life. Provided you are ready. Provided you are prepared.

There’s a lot to consider, as indicated by the following pages. That’s the start. Without information, even survival training can become overwhelming, but with information, you know at least intellectually what to expect and what you should do theoretically, and that gives you a certain freedom. Survival preparation need not be all doom and gloom. Even when the theoretical becomes impossible, with the knowledge of principles, you are more able to improvise and adapt, which can become surprisingly joyous. In the survival programs in which I’ve participated or have taught, I’ve shared a good deal of fun with trainees. Without urging, one group made a game of re-righting their capsized raft without having to get out of it! Should they ever have to step into a life raft for real, they’ll not only know how the thing works but also how it might not work, and what it feels and smells like. Getting capsized will not inspire panic that might kill them. And whatever happens aboard, they are a lot less likely to waste time cleaning.

Adaptability is what it is all about, really. Aboard a boat, one must adapt constantly. But before we can play the adaptability game, we need instruction. Then we’re free to enjoy, or at least accept the challenges before us. Be not afraid. As these pages also urge, when you’re through filling your head with facts, figures, and procedures, if you haven’t already, jump into a pool and play with a life raft, or at least put on your own life jacket and swim around in it a bit. I think you’ll find the game a lot more instructive and fun than you might have imagined. And get whoever is back there polishing the stainless to dive in, too.

Steve Callahan
May 2005

This book is about survival at sea – not just under way, but at all times aboard the yacht. Knowing what to do in an emergency, having the right equipment and knowing
how to use it, are all equally important in ensuring a happy outcome should some disaster occur. This book covers selecting safety and survival equipment for the crew and
the yacht and dealing with the most common accidents or emergencies that can happen afloat, including one of the worst scenarios: the sinking of the yacht. The book is about
being a survivor – not a victim or a fatality.

Preparation is vital; it involves training and planning and includes minimising risks, especially those that can result from the cost-cutting measures that everyone is too guilty of when purchasing safety equipment. The Cruising Association has produced a Code of Practice for cruising yachtsmen so that all who share the sea may do so in safety and without being a nuisance or danger to others or the environment. It makes an excellent offshore checklist, and with the kind permission of the Cruising Association it has been reproduced in Appendix 1.

When a disaster happens it is too late to discover that the fire extinguisher is empty, there is no liferaft aboard, that the EPIRB is registered in the name of another yacht, and that the flares are out of date. Good seamanship is the result of knowledge and common sense and helps to ensure safety at sea. With planning and forethought many disasters can be prevented, but sadly not all. The training needed by the crew, together with the equipment chosen for the yacht, depends to a large extent on the areas in which she sails or plans to sail, the weather conditions likely to be encountered and, to a much lesser extent, upon the size of the craft. A yacht planning to cross an ocean is likely to face greater hazards than another similar boat daysailing, in July, in an estuary. The most important factors influencing the choice of equipment is how likely the vessel is to be caught out in rough weather and how close she will be to the shore. A large yacht may need more of, or a larger size of, some equipment than her smaller sister, but most of the items will be identical if they are sailing in the same areas.