wrote in message
...
On Fri, 09 Apr 2010 18:46:48 +0100, goofball_star_dot_etal
wrote:


I just tell people that if they fall out they are dead and I am not
going to pick them up.

Well, I think you should at least try to pick them up, but this
warning has a lot of truth to it. Off the top of my head, I would
guess that if you fall off a moving sailboat, your immediate chance of
survival drops to something less than 50%. If you are still in the
water 15 minutes later, I'd say it has dropped to more like 10%.

That would be in daylight, and calm to moderate conditions.

Practicing recovery is a great thing to do, but I don't believe it
makes you more than marginally safer at best. One of the benefits of
practicing is that it makes you realize just how unlikely a successful
rescue really is.

The odds are heavily against you if you fall off.



I disagree about the practice not helping that much if a real situation
comes up, although I do agree that it gives you the insight into how
difficult it can be. I think the main advantage to practice beyond the
"knowing what to do" portion is that it gives you a way to calm down enough
to get your sh*t together (e.g., get your crew to calm down, get the boat
under control, etc.). It also, with enough practice, tends to move in the
direction of muscle memory, rote sort of decisions. For example, when I took
my latest instructor cert. test, part of it is doing two successful COB
drills with two different techniques. It was on a boat that I'm not really
all that familiar with. But it was no big deal, even in the 20kts or so we
were in. I just stopped analyzing the situation at one point and relied on
"instinct" to do it. The wind then increased to the point where gybing
(e.g., the Quick Stop) wasn't a safe option. I elected to do another F8,
which the tester seemed fine with for the qualifying 2nd drill.

I think your percentages are pretty accurate. Kind of reminds me of the time
delay for a cardio event... as the time before treatment increases the
survival rate drops precipitously.

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