Overboard: Stories from off the boat

Falling overboard can occur unexpectedly and end tragically. Staying onboard is always a priority, but even the most experienced can find themselves off the boat. Greg Schultz shares his experience.

My overboard happened near the end of our ten year world circumnavigation on our 32-foot sailboat. The wife and I were almost exactly half way across on the Pacific sailing between Galapagos islands and the Tahiti group.

A quick glance at any atlas will show this is one of the furthermost points from and dry land on the planet, the first of many ironies in this story, though there was some land a lot closer but it was covered in about 1400 meters of water!

We were sailing with full main and genoa poled out in 15 to 20 knots of tradewinds. I was on watch and enjoying the champagne sailing while Jane was below resting. Suddenly, the trailing fishing line twanged tight and we had a large Mahi Mahi on.

Landing these big fish into our small cockpit was always exciting so as a precaution I called Jane up to lend a hand. As I got the fish alongside, she passed me the gaff hook but on my first attempt I missed getting a positive strike, and in the perusing fracas the gaff was lost overboard.

Looking back I could see about 4 inches of the wooden broomstick handle bobbing in the wake. ‘Now here’s a challenge’, I thought to myself, and without really thinking the whole thing through I called out, “Man overboard practise…drop the sails …we’re going back for it.”

Jane, who had just been roused from a deep slumber and understandably thought this was a ridiculous call, argued very logically that our total investment in the gaff was a broomstick and a large shark hook which in total cost about $4. But I insisted we don’t practice MO drill often enough, and only when we had thought about it and worked out the maneuver well in advance.

Here was the golden opportunity for some realism.

So the motor was started and the genoa rolled up with the pole pulled tight against the forestay. As we came round into the wind and had the mainsail sheeted in hard, I started to question the sensibility about the whole call. Our little 13hp would hardly made headway into the fairly large sea that was running.

The waves were steep and curling on top, but as we slowly inched our way into them, I was amazed to suddenly get a glimpse of that same 4 inches of bobbing broomstick handle I had last seen disappearing in our wake. I don’t have any idea how far we traveled since losing it, but it must have been quite a distance so luck was obviously running our way.

Spurred on by our good fortune at finding what was literally a needle in a haystack, I called for Jane to take the helm while I moved forward to make the recovery, and yes, I broke our golden rule of always wearing a harness when leaving the cockpit.

Laying flat on the deck, I was proud of the way Jane maneuvered the boat right up to the gap in such big seas. I didn’t even have to stretch out far beyond the gunnales to make a snatch at it, but that’s about all I remember of the proceedings as the next thing I knew I was airborne with nothing below me but a deep ocean.

An extra large wave had lifted the boat so rapidly it left me in midair, and a roll the other way put me outboard of everything. Surfacing my first thoughts were ‘Oh Sh*t, what now?’ But then I was amazed to find I was tethered to the boat with the stainless steel handrail line which had obviously parted as I was thrown through it.

This was S/S wire with a breaking strain supposedly many times greater than my body weight. I don’t recall hitting it at all, let alone wrapping the broken end around my hand and wrist, but it goes to prove how we react unconsciously in such circumstances.

So here I was, tethered along side the slippery fibreglass topsides, and more under water than on top of it. The boat would rear up well above me on a wave and then I would get sucked under the hull when it plunged downwards into a trough.

I called as loud as I could to Jane to disengage the prop as it was still in gear and I could see its whirling blades spinning only inches from my feet and legs. She did so very quickly but then offered some real words of wisdom, ‘Get back on the f#cking boat immediately’ she screamed.

Not known for her normal use of such salty sailors language, I was surprised at her demands which I did think a bit superfluous to the situation at the time but we have had many a chuckle over them since.

So only minutes would have gone by and I knew I wasn’t going anywhere, but I still faced the problem of how to get back on board. As I pondered the situation, I was aware that another extra big wave had lifted me well about the decks. Looking down I saw the port sheet winch almost directly below me, and as the wave passed under me and I began to drop rapidly, I reached and wrapped both arms around it.

I was left dangling in midair till the next wave swept through and I used its momentum to throw my body inboard and rolled back into the safety of the cockpit where, much to my surprise, I found not only the fish but also the gaff which I must have subconsciously thrown back just before my rapid and unplanned exit from the midships deck.

It was then I began to shake as the realism of how stupid I had been, and how close that had been to a real disaster sunk in.

And while reliving this incident, I would like to add a footnote to this story.

When we first got the boat ready for offshore, I fitted a 3/8 S/S U-bolt through the cockpit floor. In rough weather or when going on deck alone, we religiously clipped our harness lifelines to it before even going up the companion way.

When we eventually got home, I was lifting the gearbox out and used the tail ends of this U-bolt to attached the lifting tackle. I had only applied a little weight and the bolt snapped like a carrot. The lesson here is to beware of 316 stainless steel enclosed in an airless situation!
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