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Lexington - 3/10/17. On Watch



Sally Shafer asked about our safety measures. A lot of money is spent on things that you hope you will never use. I will try to organize this post a little.
Flares: We have a whole set of flares which we will keep safe and dry but hope to never use. We have red , white, parachute and smoke (orange) signals
PFD: Personal Flotation Device. We have automatic PFDs. Each has a strobe light, signaling mirror, whistle, spray hood and crotch strap. The spray hood is something most people are not familiar with. It is a hood that you can pull over your head so spray blowing into your face does not drown you. I made ours several years ago for our first Caribbean 1500. I made them out of reflective material on the back and sides and clear plastic in the front. The plastic is attached with Velcro so if you get claustrophobic you can peel down a small opening. I was even anal enough that I sewed a pocket that you could put your strobe light in that was at the top of your head so it reflected off the material and was as high up as possible. In each of the PFDs we have a personal AIS locator. If you were to go overboard, it would sound an alarm on the chart plotter and mark a man overboard waypoint on the chart plotter. This man overboard waypoint would also show up on any other boat's chart plotter that had AIS that was within about 25 miles. We also have tethers which we use to attach ourselves to the boat if we are alone in the cockpit or it is rough.
Life Raft: We have an 8 man life raft for off shore sailing. It is packed with lots of safety gear. We have grab bags with more safety gear, food, water, water maker and a list of about 30 required items.
EPIRB: EPIRB stands for Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon, I think. It would put a signal out to a satellite which would then signal rescue services. Ours also has an EPIRB which would also send our position.
SSB Radio:  We have our SSB radio that can send MAYDAY signals with our position from our GPS with the push of a button
VHF Radio:  We have VHF radio with DSC Mayday calling. DSC is digital select calling.
Emergency Bilge Pumps:  We have emergency bilge pumps. We have two electric. One is automatic. We have two manual pumps, one that can be operated from the cockpit. We even have a valve that will use the raw water cooling system pump to pump water out of the boat.
Plugs:  We have plugs to place in a thru hull if it were to leak.
Triangle Tarp:  We have a triangle tarp that we could pull down under the boat to cover a hole if we were taking on water.
So all in all we are pretty prepared. World Cruising Club, which organizes these events stresses safety. They go by offshore racing regulations. They inspect the boats to check for all required safety gear. It is a little amazing how much preparation this trip took. We have worked slowly for 2 years preparing.
May fair winds fill your sails with safety and security Bob

 


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