When a Life Hangs in the Balance – Emergency at the Club
By Rich Jepsen and Steve Saul
All sailing instructors and program directors are trained in the ‘what ifs’ of safety and risk in our jobs teaching kids and adults how to sail, while providing them opportunities to enjoy their new found skills.
We all know it is a question of when rather than if we will need to use that training and planning. On April 30, 2014 OCSC Sailing, a keelboat school in Berkeley, CA, had its staff training and preparation put to a heavy test when one of our staff members was struck with cardiac arrest while traveling on a 21’ Zodiac with another instructor just outside our marina.
This staff member is an OCSC instructor and has been with us for well over a decade, teaching sailing from the basics to bareboat cruising and helping to lead international flotillas of OCSC members and friends around the world.
Below in italics is a slightly edited version of the official incident report from Steve Saul, the driver of that Zodiac, the victim’s fellow instructor and the person who set the entire process of saving this individual’s life into motion.
Showing posts with label safety. Show all posts
Showing posts with label safety. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Implementing an Offshore Safety and Preparedness Plan
By Chuck Hawley & Sally Lindsay Honey
Here are some items to consider when creating and implementing an offshore safety and preparedness plan:
1. Start with a safety ethos for the event
2. Implement pre-departure training
3. Select an equipment list
4. Identify skipper/crew/yacht qualifications, if any
5. Pre-departure inspections – make them useful
6. Communication plan appropriate for the event
7. Emergency Action Plan - anticipate problems
8. Post race inspections? All? Some? None?
9. What can we learn from the sailing incidents over the last three years?
Learn more about offshore safety and preparedness plans in this presentation from the 2014 Sailing Leadership Forum.
Here are some items to consider when creating and implementing an offshore safety and preparedness plan:
1. Start with a safety ethos for the event
2. Implement pre-departure training
3. Select an equipment list
4. Identify skipper/crew/yacht qualifications, if any
5. Pre-departure inspections – make them useful
6. Communication plan appropriate for the event
7. Emergency Action Plan - anticipate problems
8. Post race inspections? All? Some? None?
9. What can we learn from the sailing incidents over the last three years?
Learn more about offshore safety and preparedness plans in this presentation from the 2014 Sailing Leadership Forum.
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Reflections from the President
A few years ago we finished a windy fall series race in the Great Lakes region and decided to sail back up to the weather mark where we thought we saw a capsized boat. It was choppy and the safety boats did not see them. After perhaps 30 minutes in the water, the three people were too cold to move or think. We pulled the coldest one aboard our Thistle, got their sails down and righted their boat, then towed their swamped boat with the other two guys in it to the yacht club, which luckily was downwind. Their distress and near disaster was a wake-up call for our team.The loss of popular Olympic champion Andrew Simpson this week reminds us all that our favorite recreation can be dangerous. Sure, he was sailing in an extreme version of the sport, the speeds and forces profoundly exceeding what almost all of us encounter. We don’t yet know exactly what claimed Andrew Simpson. We know that the AC teams are serious about safety, but there is always some unmanageable risk. We do know, and most of us can immediately relate to, the obvious risks we see in this story - superhuman forces at work, entanglement under a boat, and cold water.
US Sailing is the leading expert on safety and seamanship. Ten years ago, President Dave Rosekrans created a Safety Task Force at US Sailing to evaluate and re-design what we do. Our Safety at Sea Seminars are very highly rated and well-attended. We recently added Coastal Safety at Sea seminars. Keelboat cruisers and racers benefit from these training courses designed for offshore and coastal big boat sailors. The latest piece of this safety agenda is the new book, Safety, Rescue & Support Boat Handling, as part of our Powerboat Certification Series of books and courses. Highly-respected experts and considerable research drive our safety programs. No matter how nautically smart you are, you will learn something valuable reading this and attending a course. Check our course calendar for more information.
US Sailing has organized teams of experts to study five tragedies in the last two years. Read our reports and take action on your boat and at your home port sailing venue.
The good news is that sailing has an excellent safety record compared to other water sports. We have by far the highest rate of PFD wearing among water sports, thanks to the younger generations who have grown up in a US Sailing training culture that makes wearing it the normal thing to do. The Coast Guard likes what we are doing in sail and power training and we have grants to broaden our efforts. But one death is too many; we can do better. It starts with each of us being smart and disciplined about seamanship and safety.
US Sailing is the source of expertise and training for boating under sail or power. Your support enables US Sailing to continue providing and improving the resources that make sailing a better and safer experience.
Tom Hubbell
President of US Sailing
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Daily Lift - Setting up the hull
Setting up the hull: Most of the time, you will probably leave the hull
rigged, but it's always a good idea to give it a quick look over before
you leave the dock just to make sure it's safe and ready to go. Check
over the hiking straps, bailers and airbags.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Improving Yacht Club Safety
with Dan Cooney
As the Associate Executive Director of US Sailing and Rear Commodore of the Beverly Yacht Club (BYC), Dan Cooney sees safety issues through multiple lenses – what more can US Sailing do to help clubs and sailors become more educated about the issues and what practical steps can his club take to leverage US Sailing resources. This was the case when US Sailing organized an independent review panel to research a tragic accident that occurred on Severn River with a junior sailing program participant in 2011.
Cooney took the US Sailing recommendations to the BYC with the goal of implementing new and revised procedures in safety planning. In this Q&A with US Sailing, Cooney discusses how the Beverly Yacht Club put these safety recommendations in motion.
US Sailing: What prompted Beverly Yacht Club to form a Safety Committee?
Dan Cooney: Two things were happening at the same time. Last summer, a couple of our more experienced PHRF racers, led by fellow member Barry Steinberg, were becoming increasingly uncomfortable about the lack of a formal process for determining whether our Wednesday and Thursday night racing should take place or not in the face of inclement weather. First and foremost our members’ safety was at stake, not to mention significant club and member property. Our PRO’s are volunteers with varying levels of experience and so having the right tools and process available for proper decision-making is key. Although we were initially concerned about our evening races, our club runs over 300 races per year so our work needed to address our entire program.
At the same time, I was following the investigations we were doing at US Sailing and the Severn Sailing incident report written in the fall by John Rousmaniere hit me like a ton of bricks. I had also been a PRO on a night where we just missed getting caught out and thought we could do better, for starters, than using my iPhone to track thunderstorms when there were 40 boats and 200 people on the water. Our club’s board agreed that we ought to have a safety review and our Commodore appointed a committee led by Barry.
US Sailing: What was your goal?
Dan Cooney: We eventually decided we wanted to review our club’s operations on and off the water and evaluate and improve our safety preparedness in each of these areas. There’s an important cultural piece here as well and we are trying to strike the right balance between organizational mindfulness and attention to safety issues while still embracing the joys of sailing and racing despite their inherent risks.
US Sailing: Did you have comprehensive written safety procedures in place before the committee started?
Dan Cooney: We had a lot of the pieces. We had a comprehensive Storm Preparation Plan and employee handbooks. We had a solid Race Guide, proper Sailing Instructions and we had good Junior Sailing documentation but it was incomplete and not tied up in the bow it deserved.
US Sailing: Who was on the Committee?
Dan Cooney: We brought together a broad cross-section of our membership – racers, cruisers, race managers and junior sailing volunteers. It turned out to be a good move to include a lawyer and a doctor who happened to represent one or more of these constituencies, and of course our General Manager.
US Sailing: What did you look at first?
Dan Cooney: The US Sailing investigation of the SSA tragedy put 420 trapeze harnesses at the top of our list. We also were committed to do something to support PRO decision-making on GO/NO-GO calls.
US Sailing: How did you end up on the harness issue?
Dan Cooney: Our Junior Sailing representatives on the Committee looked at all the options, but we ended up retrofitting 17 harnesses with a quick release hook system. We are also going to require every 420 sailor to go through drills where, under controlled circumstances, they will capsize to windward with their harnesses on. We will have US Sailing-certified instructors on scene and a rescue diver in the water that happens to be an MD. The idea is to simulate a situation that young sailors may encounter and to help them to understand how to self-rescue if necessary. The thing that got me personally about the SSA incident was that at first people were saying that this was a freak accident and what the investigation found out was that while the tragic consequence was rare, entrapment itself was not uncommon. I should have known that but I didn’t.
US Sailing: How did you improve the GO/NO-GO process?
Dan Cooney: We struggled with that because in the end we all know that you are relying on good judgment and common sense of the PRO’s to make sound decisions. You could probably find a reason not to race about half of the time for one reason or another but we were not looking to become risk-averse in the extreme. We ended up creating a document with the idea to make explicit some of the things an experienced PRO would think about when judging potential inclement conditions – who the PRO should consult before making the call, what weather resources are available to consider, what are the options for postponement and abandonment, how and when they should communicate decisions to the fleets – simple things all. We’ll refine the document as we go but it’s a start and it pushes us in a better direction. We also put an iPad on the signal boat which allows us a larger weather radar display and that’s an improvement on a phone’s small screen!
US Sailing: What else did the Committee do?
Dan Cooney: Barry and the committee did a great job of looking broadly at the problem. We’ve taken the excellent US Sailing Burgee Program/Gowrie safety manual templates for both the clubhouse and the Junior Sailing Program and customized them for our club. This moved our documentation level up several notches. We moved our AED to a more visible location and scheduled an OSHA/EPA expert to walk through our club to suggest improvements.
We’ve put together an “Emergency Communications Card” and will place laminated copies in every support boat. The idea of the card is to breakdown very clearly who to call in an emergency with all the numbers immediately available in addition to the 911 call. We have met with our town’s Harbormaster and have included him on regular club emails so he and his staff are better informed about our activities. He met with our instructors during their boat prep week and the officers and our council (Board) have invited his entire staff over for a cook-out just to build relationships.
We ran a CPR/First-Aid training for the general membership and we were fortunate that two of our more experienced sailors were already planning to run one of the excellent CCA-developed “Suddenly Alone” programs. I believe the Suddenly Alone program was originally conceived by Ron Trossbach, a member of US Sailing’s Safety at Sea Committee. Both educational programs were enthusiastically embraced by the membership.
After some discussion, the club committed to invest the resources to add a support boat to our regular racing program. In the past, a beloved past Commodore voluntarily patrolled our racing fleets and towed in or assisted too many boats to count over the years. When he retired from that service several years ago we never found another way to continue that coverage. This year we are staffing the support boat with a paid US Sailing-certified instructor with CPR training and we hope to add a volunteer rotation to the support boat program soon.
After the Full Crew Farallones tragedy off San Francisco this spring, there was a local Coast Guard communication reminding sailing organizations in our area to file for Marine Event Permits for all organized sailing activity. In the past, our club had only filed the permits for special events but this year we filed for our entire regularly scheduled program which includes racing five days a week. I think some might argue how much the permitting process enhances safety but it’s a regulation and it provides the Coast Guard the right people and cell phones to call if they need to reach us. We filed the permits so that it bundled multiple classes and racing series so the paperwork wasn’t overwhelming.
US Sailing: What’s next?
Dan Cooney: There’s plenty more to do, I’m confident other clubs have done more. I’m hopeful this Q&A opens up a dialog and draws out what other clubs are doing on this issue. One of the best things I think US Sailing does is increases collaboration among clubs and speeds the learning curve for volunteers tackling similar questions. I looked back at the April 2011 Yacht Club Summit presentation list and while many topics touched on safety, there wasn’t a single specifically focused panel on safety. Our sailing world has changed since then. You can bet that won’t be the case the next time around, and until then, I hope we learn a lot from each other.
How has your club’s safety planning, procedures and equipment evolved over the years? What have you learned from US Sailing's recent safety reports? Share your stories and ideas on best practices with readers by commenting below.
As the Associate Executive Director of US Sailing and Rear Commodore of the Beverly Yacht Club (BYC), Dan Cooney sees safety issues through multiple lenses – what more can US Sailing do to help clubs and sailors become more educated about the issues and what practical steps can his club take to leverage US Sailing resources. This was the case when US Sailing organized an independent review panel to research a tragic accident that occurred on Severn River with a junior sailing program participant in 2011.
Cooney took the US Sailing recommendations to the BYC with the goal of implementing new and revised procedures in safety planning. In this Q&A with US Sailing, Cooney discusses how the Beverly Yacht Club put these safety recommendations in motion.
US Sailing: What prompted Beverly Yacht Club to form a Safety Committee?
Dan Cooney: Two things were happening at the same time. Last summer, a couple of our more experienced PHRF racers, led by fellow member Barry Steinberg, were becoming increasingly uncomfortable about the lack of a formal process for determining whether our Wednesday and Thursday night racing should take place or not in the face of inclement weather. First and foremost our members’ safety was at stake, not to mention significant club and member property. Our PRO’s are volunteers with varying levels of experience and so having the right tools and process available for proper decision-making is key. Although we were initially concerned about our evening races, our club runs over 300 races per year so our work needed to address our entire program.
At the same time, I was following the investigations we were doing at US Sailing and the Severn Sailing incident report written in the fall by John Rousmaniere hit me like a ton of bricks. I had also been a PRO on a night where we just missed getting caught out and thought we could do better, for starters, than using my iPhone to track thunderstorms when there were 40 boats and 200 people on the water. Our club’s board agreed that we ought to have a safety review and our Commodore appointed a committee led by Barry.
US Sailing: What was your goal?
Dan Cooney: We eventually decided we wanted to review our club’s operations on and off the water and evaluate and improve our safety preparedness in each of these areas. There’s an important cultural piece here as well and we are trying to strike the right balance between organizational mindfulness and attention to safety issues while still embracing the joys of sailing and racing despite their inherent risks.
US Sailing: Did you have comprehensive written safety procedures in place before the committee started?
Dan Cooney: We had a lot of the pieces. We had a comprehensive Storm Preparation Plan and employee handbooks. We had a solid Race Guide, proper Sailing Instructions and we had good Junior Sailing documentation but it was incomplete and not tied up in the bow it deserved.
US Sailing: Who was on the Committee?
Dan Cooney: We brought together a broad cross-section of our membership – racers, cruisers, race managers and junior sailing volunteers. It turned out to be a good move to include a lawyer and a doctor who happened to represent one or more of these constituencies, and of course our General Manager.
US Sailing: What did you look at first?
Dan Cooney: The US Sailing investigation of the SSA tragedy put 420 trapeze harnesses at the top of our list. We also were committed to do something to support PRO decision-making on GO/NO-GO calls.
US Sailing: How did you end up on the harness issue?
Dan Cooney: Our Junior Sailing representatives on the Committee looked at all the options, but we ended up retrofitting 17 harnesses with a quick release hook system. We are also going to require every 420 sailor to go through drills where, under controlled circumstances, they will capsize to windward with their harnesses on. We will have US Sailing-certified instructors on scene and a rescue diver in the water that happens to be an MD. The idea is to simulate a situation that young sailors may encounter and to help them to understand how to self-rescue if necessary. The thing that got me personally about the SSA incident was that at first people were saying that this was a freak accident and what the investigation found out was that while the tragic consequence was rare, entrapment itself was not uncommon. I should have known that but I didn’t.
US Sailing: How did you improve the GO/NO-GO process?
Dan Cooney: We struggled with that because in the end we all know that you are relying on good judgment and common sense of the PRO’s to make sound decisions. You could probably find a reason not to race about half of the time for one reason or another but we were not looking to become risk-averse in the extreme. We ended up creating a document with the idea to make explicit some of the things an experienced PRO would think about when judging potential inclement conditions – who the PRO should consult before making the call, what weather resources are available to consider, what are the options for postponement and abandonment, how and when they should communicate decisions to the fleets – simple things all. We’ll refine the document as we go but it’s a start and it pushes us in a better direction. We also put an iPad on the signal boat which allows us a larger weather radar display and that’s an improvement on a phone’s small screen!
US Sailing: What else did the Committee do?
Dan Cooney: Barry and the committee did a great job of looking broadly at the problem. We’ve taken the excellent US Sailing Burgee Program/Gowrie safety manual templates for both the clubhouse and the Junior Sailing Program and customized them for our club. This moved our documentation level up several notches. We moved our AED to a more visible location and scheduled an OSHA/EPA expert to walk through our club to suggest improvements.
We’ve put together an “Emergency Communications Card” and will place laminated copies in every support boat. The idea of the card is to breakdown very clearly who to call in an emergency with all the numbers immediately available in addition to the 911 call. We have met with our town’s Harbormaster and have included him on regular club emails so he and his staff are better informed about our activities. He met with our instructors during their boat prep week and the officers and our council (Board) have invited his entire staff over for a cook-out just to build relationships.
We ran a CPR/First-Aid training for the general membership and we were fortunate that two of our more experienced sailors were already planning to run one of the excellent CCA-developed “Suddenly Alone” programs. I believe the Suddenly Alone program was originally conceived by Ron Trossbach, a member of US Sailing’s Safety at Sea Committee. Both educational programs were enthusiastically embraced by the membership.
After some discussion, the club committed to invest the resources to add a support boat to our regular racing program. In the past, a beloved past Commodore voluntarily patrolled our racing fleets and towed in or assisted too many boats to count over the years. When he retired from that service several years ago we never found another way to continue that coverage. This year we are staffing the support boat with a paid US Sailing-certified instructor with CPR training and we hope to add a volunteer rotation to the support boat program soon.
After the Full Crew Farallones tragedy off San Francisco this spring, there was a local Coast Guard communication reminding sailing organizations in our area to file for Marine Event Permits for all organized sailing activity. In the past, our club had only filed the permits for special events but this year we filed for our entire regularly scheduled program which includes racing five days a week. I think some might argue how much the permitting process enhances safety but it’s a regulation and it provides the Coast Guard the right people and cell phones to call if they need to reach us. We filed the permits so that it bundled multiple classes and racing series so the paperwork wasn’t overwhelming.
US Sailing: What’s next?
Dan Cooney: There’s plenty more to do, I’m confident other clubs have done more. I’m hopeful this Q&A opens up a dialog and draws out what other clubs are doing on this issue. One of the best things I think US Sailing does is increases collaboration among clubs and speeds the learning curve for volunteers tackling similar questions. I looked back at the April 2011 Yacht Club Summit presentation list and while many topics touched on safety, there wasn’t a single specifically focused panel on safety. Our sailing world has changed since then. You can bet that won’t be the case the next time around, and until then, I hope we learn a lot from each other.
How has your club’s safety planning, procedures and equipment evolved over the years? What have you learned from US Sailing's recent safety reports? Share your stories and ideas on best practices with readers by commenting below.
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