Safety Equipment

Hi All,

As we prepare to leave in the coming days I thought you should all know what we have on board to keep us safe.

• Life Raft: If the boat sinks we can jump into our 4 man life raft (or in this case 1 man and 1 woman). The raft is in a medium sized suit case and inflates via CO2 cartridge. It has a rigid top with a full canopy and it uses water ballast to right itself in case it is flipped by a wave.
• EPIRBS: This stands for Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon and we have three on board. One in our ditch bag, or bag we grab when jumping into the life raft, and both Colleen and I have a small personal one attached to our auto-inflating life vest/harnesses. When in distress we can activate these beacons and they will alert the US authorities to our whereabouts and they will send the appropriate help. If we are near land the Coast Guard will come and if we are in the middle of nowhere they will contact the nearest vessel to divert it's course to help. These devices have saved many lives and we hope to sell them on eBay at the end of our voyage!
• Jacklines: These are long pieces of webbing that stretch the length of the boat starboard and port and we can tether ourselves to them to prevent our falling overboard.
• Life Vests/Harnesses: We each wear an inflatable vest that doubles as a harness to attach to the life lines. These are the latest models and have strobe lights, a cushion to keep one's head above water in case of unconsciousness, and can hold thousands of pounds under pressure.
• Satellite Phones: We have two satellite phones so that we can communicate with local authorities, get medical advice, and generally stay in touch.
• Life Tags: We each wear a small device similar to a watch that sets off an alarm if it goes farther than 30 feet from the receiver, i.e. falling overboard. Once the alarm goes off it places a way point in the GPS and allows the person on board to steer Sandwitch back to that exact spot. These are relatively new devices and make double handed passagemaking much safer.
• MOM8: This stands for Man Overboard Module (no idea what the 8 means) It is a small white box on the stern that can be activated to deploy a life ring, a six foot tall marker, and other items that the person in the water can swim to while awaiting help.
• Lifesling: This is also a small white box on the stern and when used allows the person still on board to retrieve the person in the water. The MOM unit is for the person overboard the the Lifesling if for the rescuer.
• Flares: We have enough flares on board to blow up a large container ship, which is obviously not their intended use. In the even that we need to indicate our location to rescuers we can set off a multitude of different flares to make our whereabouts known.
• Radar Reflectors: We have four reflectors in our rigging that allow ships to see us on their radar. If Colleen and I are below chatting and another boat sees us they can call us up and ask our heading and speed and we can avoid collision. Our boat is not tiny, but clearly on the open ocean it does not win in the law of greater tonnage.
• VHF Radio: We have a normal VHF that can transmit to a range of about 12 miles, allowing us to contact any vessel we see and are curious about. All vessels are required to monitor VHF Channel 16 while under way so it is fairly easy to call them up. Ours is also plugged into our GPS so if we call the Coast Guard they will know our position and heading.
• Radar: At night or during fog we can activate our radar to set off an alarm if another ship gets too close thereby avoiding collision.
• Medical Kit: Thanks to Dr.'s Parker and Harris, Dr. Mike (Colleen's Dad) and the advice of our friend Heik we can extract teeth, perform neurosurgery, and do breast augmentation.
• Repair Equipment: We have on board tools and equipment that will allow us to fix small holes in the hull, repair our engine, water maker, etc. Whether or not we know how to use everything is another question, but, as they say, necessity is the mother of all inventions.
• Bazooka: No explanation necessary...
• Sea Anchor: This basically looks like a large parachute with holes in it. In adverse conditions we would deploy this from the bow and go below and drink tea. It works just like a normal anchor by keeping our bow into the waves and allowing the boat to weather the storm. During its deployment we would only make minor leeway.
• Good navigation equipment and weather reporting: As they say the best medicine is preventative. If we don't hit a reef or run into a storm the likely hood of having to use the stuff above becomes much less. And as you can tell from our long wait up here in the cold we are not in a hurry to get ourselves into trouble.
• Redundancy: Almost everything on board is redundant. We have 5 GPS's, two which are hard wired to the boat, three boats (Sandwitch, the dingy and the life raft), two sources of propulsion (the motor and the sails), all lines are pre-rigged with spares, two computers identically set up, two sources of charts, two phones, two battery banks, two alternators, two solar panels, three water tanks, foot pumps for the water tanks in case the electrical system goes down, and on and on...
• Common Sense: Lastly, we strongly believe that a good dose of common sense and awareness will keep us out of trouble.

Our greatest worries, as many of you may be surprised to find out, do not come from the sea itself. Wind and waves are unlikely to sink Sandwitch and we are unlikely to be in too bad conditions. They may tear sails and cause some damage but that is preventable with good seamanship and preparation. Our biggest worry is falling overboard. We have very strict rules aboard regarding being tethered, wearing life vests, and not going forward without supervision from the other. The next biggest worry is collision with a sunken object or whale. There is nothing we can do to prevent this and the likely hood is low so keep your fingers crossed. Our boat is well built and should be able to handle a collision without sinking too fast (and we always have our life raft). We also worry about collisions with other ships, but as technology gets better and better this is less of a worry. We also keep a good watch which is the best prevention. Another fear is that the engine dies while we are near a leeward reef. This would mean that we could possibly be pushed onto the reef. This is not so much of a life threatening situation as a potentially disastrous situation for the boat. Thank God for insurance!!! Pirates are no worry as we have a bazooka. All in all, I believe that we have done everything possible to ensure our safety and must rely on a little luck for the rest. Of course luck is when preparation meets opportunity!!

Till the next time...