With wind shrieking in the rigging and gunmetal gray seas building and beginning to break in the late evening's half–darkness, the scream ripped through the hatch: "Man overboard!"
It is a call we all dread. It doesn't always happen in heavy weather. But it may be no less serious.
I am not particularly proud to admit that I have been on board several sailboats when crewmembers have fallen overboard. I am happy to be able to say that, so far, those particular experiences have had fortunate endings. But that doesn't always happen either.
My first man–overboard event that was more than a mere exercise took place on a Maxi during a Newport Bermuda Race quite a few years ago. The wind was blowing between 12 and 18 knots. The seas were relatively calm. It was warm and sunny. Fortunately, we had a razor sharp crew onboard, many of whom had America's Cup or Whitbread Round the World Race (a precursor to the Volvo Ocean Race) experience.
With wind conditions changing slightly, we needed to change the tack position on the staysail. On Maxi boats, even staysails are sizeable pieces of cloth. The sailmaker and a very big, strong and experienced grinder went forward to make the change. After the port trimmer eased the sheet the two experienced sailors planned to grab the luff, and while the grinder manhandled the sail the sailmaker would relocate the tack shackle. It seemed easy enough, and we had very capable people involved at all positions.
But the sailmaker clutched the luff to snap the shackle closed in the new position, the grinder lost his grip on the luff. The sailmaker, not one to give up easily, tried to hold onto the sail. Since he was about half the size of the grinder, the sailmaker was quickly launched over the leeward rail.
KEEP IT MOVING
"Man overboard!" went the call. Everyone rushed to his position. Commands were issued from the afterguard. The pit and foredeck crews quickly had the headsail on deck as the boat was spun around in a wide arcing turn. Runners where tended to, and the mainsheet trimmer and grinder worked in concert to keep the boat moving in the slow turn to come up behind the man in the water.
One of the afterguard kept an eye on the swimming crewmember as four other crewmembers rushed to the leeward rail. As the main was luffed and the boat slowed down, four strong guys reached down and plucked the man from the water. He was back on the boat in about a minute and a half.
Don't count on it happening that way if you are ever unfortunate enough to have someone go over the side.
In another man overboard situation, we were delivering a boat across the Atlantic. Several days earlier, the engine had taken in seawater and was rendered inoperable. The wind speed was between five and 10 knots, for the most part. I was off watch while we sailed under main and jib. Although I had asked to be awakened in the case of any major changes, the crew knew that I hadn't had much sleep for several days. The wind speed dropped off. Since we were making little headway and the sails were beginning to flap, the crew put the jib away and began to drop the main while heading downwind.
It only took a puff of wind, catching the loose main, to slam the boom to the side, knocking one of the crew in the water. Fortunately, he wasn't hurt in the fall. His wife immediately pushed the MOB button on the plotter, threw the wheel hard over and called for assistance. She launched the man–overboard pole and life ring. We were drifting away from her husband quickly, getting as far as 100 to 150 yards away, but we could still see him in the distance.
Hearing the noise on deck, I launched out of the bunk. Without engines and only the top of the main still partially up the rig, getting back to him in the near future wasn't looking very likely. Another crew member had made sure that the wheel was still hard over prior to my arrival, and as I went to the wheel to survey the sail and wind situation, I could see that the wind had shifted, and we were slowly sailing/drifting back toward him. All I had to do was keep the wheel where it was, do a little fine–tuning and get someone to prepare a heaving line.
"You have one chance to throw the line – make it a good one," were the instructions as we slowly moved down on the man in the water. The toss put the line right across his head, easily within reach, and he was quickly hauled back onboard. While the crew had done all of the "right things" to get the man back onboard, I am convinced that the reason it happened as quickly as it did was simply because fate had intervened on his behalf.
Don't count on that happening to you.
RISKIER CONDITIONS
Of course, man–overboard situations don't always happen in calm or moderate conditions. There are no magic formulas for figuring out when crew are at risk. They are at risk whenever they are near the water. And storm conditions do make things riskier.
Years ago I was racing 60–foot Open Class multihulls, and I crewed with Phil Steggall on Sebago, an Adrian Thompson– designed trimaran. We were doing the Québec to St. Malo race and about 175 miles from Fastnet Rock, one of the marks of the course, we encountered heavy weather. The event was to be the final race for Sebago as our sponsorship deal was about to conclude. I had talked before the start with a fellow competitor, French skipper Olivier Moussy, who was about to build a brand new Nigel Irens–designed 60–foot trimaran. Following the race, I could spend a year working with him in Brittany, building and racing some of the cutting edge multihulls to be found there.
Olivier was a very experienced, competitive guy with a great sense of humor. He had done many miles single–handed and with small crews. Over the course of his career he had a couple of rather bizarre events happen: While sailing single–handed, mid–Atlantic he came across a man swimming, abandoned, no boat in sight. That happened to him twice – on two separate occasions! And, in each case, he saved the man's life. In one instance the swimmer had fallen overboard from a ship, and the other time the man had lost his sailboat to fire.
During the Québec–St. Malo race, when we were caught in storm conditions, Sebago suffered damage to both hydrofoils. The centerboard broke, punching a hole in the centerboard trunk. We took several feet of water in the forward watertight compartment. The same storm caught Olivier on his boat, which suffered some damage to the chainplates on one of the hulls. The crew needed to take the sails down and make repairs.
After getting the sails down, Olivier was working on one of the chainplates while his crew went below to get some tools. When the crew came back Olivier was gone, washed off by a wave that had broken over where Olivier had been sitting.
The other members of the crew raced on deck as the call went out. No one could see Olivier. It took them several minutes to get the sails back up (there were no engines on boats intended for single–handing at that time). By the time the sails were set and they were underway, they later calculated, Olivier must have been at least six miles behind them. Multihulls, even when adrift in storm conditions, move quickly.
The man who had saved two other men who had gone overboard was himself lost at sea and never recovered. It happens, but seldom the way you think it will.
For those of us who spend much of our life at sea, the ocean – or large lakes, or bays, or just cold water – is not an alien environment. But it is a hostile one. Be careful out there.
"Man overboard!" It happens.
Bill Biewenga is an accomplished sailor who has logged more than 300,000 miles at sea and completed more than two dozen transatlantic crossings. He is the author of "Weather for Sailors," and his work has appeared in more than 20 publications. A version of this story was previously published in Blue Water Sailing magazine.
