The possibility of finding the person in the dark will be greatly enhanced
if you have a strobe that is water activated. For an offshore, short-handed
journey, it's a small investment.

--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com

"Evan Gatehouse" wrote in message
...
Roger Long wrote:
Someone once suggested to me pretending like the freeboard was 1000 feet
and then thinking how your would approach deckwork.

I'll admit to being rather casual on this point but I'm really thinking
about this.

My wife and I discussed this when offshore cruising. Our thought was that
either of us fell overboard at night with the other sleeping, you're dead.
Simple as that. Always wore our harnesses and clipped on to the jackline
when leaving the cockpit. Never slipped or had an incident but you should
take it seriously.

We look upon lost hats overboard as improptu man overboard drills and
usually recover them in about 2-4 minutes. But they are easy to miss and
hard to see. A floating hat is similar to a head in the water. Makes you
appreciate the usefulness of a Dan Buoy.

Evan Gatehouse