Sailing Incident Series No. 2 - Can you identify the lessons?

10:20 PM Sat 11 Jul 2009 GMT

'Folding prop with tangled lines' .

Judgment is for God, but the best mistakes to learn by are other people's. This is especially so with sailing.

In this anecdote, the second of a series, we present a real sailing situation which was investigated by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB), and some lessons deduced. Can you identify the lessons?

(Find the answers at the end of the story)

An 11.2m yacht, drawing 1.5m was being professionally delivered from south-eastern Spain to the East Coast of the UK. There was a crew of three, including the skipper who had a Yachtmaster Offshore qualification with a commercial endorsement.

The voyage took longer than planned due to persistent, often light, headwinds and poor performance under power. They were unable to motor at more than about 3 knots. They began the final leg of their journey in poor visibility, having had a tiring voyage up-Channel.

All three were awake in the early hours of the morning, one on the helm, another keeping a lookout, and a third monitoring the radar. They were crossing a major river estuary on the East Coast, notorious for shallows and shifting banks, and were doing so on a falling tide. There was no wind, the sea was smooth, and with the tide in their favour they were making about 4 knots over the ground.

The skipper was navigating using a chart with a scale of 1:250,000, and a small portable GPS chartplotter temporarily fixed just forward of the wheel. They were following a route on the chartplotter to a waypoint several miles distant
that would take them into very shallow water.

They ran aground with about 11/2 hours of tide still to fall, which would have amounted to about 60cm. Attempts were made to refloat using the engine, and by heeling the yacht by putting the boom to port and adding weight to the end.

When this failed, the skipper elected to strip to his underclothes and go over the side with a line tied around his waist, attached to the starboard quarter. This was with the intention of finding deeper water and laying a kedge anchor with
which they might winch themselves off.

Later, when in the water, the skipper was speaking to the crew who was on the helm, and had instructed him to leave the engine running astern. Suddenly the line that was round his waist became caught around the propeller and shaft.
The skipper was dragged underneath the yacht, where he was trapped below the water with the line tight around him.

The other crew, who had been working with the anchor, quickly went over the side, carrying a knife. He dived underneath, but found it very difficult to free the skipper. Despite the crew himself becoming very tired in the water, on the fourth attempt he managed to free the skipper and bring him to the surface. He was able to be brought back into the cockpit but, despite attempts at resuscitation, he showed no sign of life. It is probable that he had been underwater
for 10 minutes.

A "Mayday" call had been put out as soon as the skipper became trapped and, in due course, two lifeboats and a helicopter arrived. The skipper was flown to hospital where it was confirmed that he had died. The two surviving crew were taken aboard one lifeboat while the other took the yacht in tow.

After the yacht had been lifted out of the water, to remove the rope that had been around the skipper, a further line was found tangled in the folding propeller that was preventing it from properly deploying. The line showed signs of
having been there some time, and was probably the cause of their reduced speed under engine
power.

There are six lessons that the Marine Accident Investigation Branch deduced from this scenario. Can you identify the six?

Click here for the answers.

Sail-World Cruising is grateful to MAIB for its permission to use these incidents

by MAIB/Sail-World Cruising