Sea and be Seen

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Sailors can learn from the crash of flight 8303. We can, on occasion, get into a situation that gets more and more difficult from which to recover. This can be caused by ego, or by a sudden change in the expected circumstances, or a lack of “forehandedness”, which was one of the late Capt. John Bonds’s favorite words to throw out at Safety At Sea students. Forehandedness, he’d lecture, was the ability to anticipate possible changes in the current situation and to be ready… Read more

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I like to think that the courses and articles and online tutorials are complete and easy to understand, but anyone who teaches knows that the best way to check comprehension is to listen to the questions that are asked. After my “story” in Lectronic Latitude was published, I received several excellent questions from a sailor whom is living on her boat in La Paz, Baja California. Alison Osinski, PhD, asked me the following: Read more

Several years ago, I was asked to serve on the National Boating Safety Advisory Council, which is a group that (as the name suggests) advises and coordinates with the Coast Guard on issues related to recreational boating safety

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Six key points to keep in mind when docking the boat. Chuck explains it all. Read more

Coast Guard Safety Alert: This safety alert reminds all inflatable life jacket users of the importance of performing periodic maintenance on their equipment. Instances of fatal accidents where inflatable life jackets failed to properly inflate have been documented. When a life jacket fails to inflate properly, the results can be life threatening. Unknown bladder leaks may exist, fabric degradation or an improperly installed CO2 cylinder is all it takes to render an… Read more

Racing "Big Boats" on SF Bay aboard a classic wooden schooner highlights the need to brief crew on the specifics of their roles onboard. Read more

The failure rate of life jackets can be alarmingly high without proper attention Read more

After several fatal short-handed crew overboard incidents involving members of the Sailing Foundation in Seattle, three of the members (Fred Hayes, Dick Marshall, Doug Fryer) began to search for a solution to short-handed overboard accidents. Their research into accidents, both successfully and unsuccessfully executed, found that a consistent theme for recreational boaters was that the skipper or the more experienced sailor was likely to be the one who went overboard.

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Whether you call them flares, or visual distress signals (VDS), or pyrotechnics, some visual form of getting attention from boaters or rescue agencies has been a mainstay of the Federal Recreational Boat Equipment requirements for decades. And during that time, boaters have cursed the negative attributes of these devices: their need to be replaced every 3 ½ years; the difficulty of disposing of them; their potential risk to health when in use; and their relative… Read more

"What If?" is an excellent game to play onboard or ashore, with both experienced and inexperienced crew, day or night, at anchor or underway. Read more