This sounds incredibly worthwhile. I’m constantly amazed when I see folks boating without PFDs. I try not to be one of those “Safety Nazis” wagging fingers every which way, but even so, I do a double-take each time I see it. It’s about as jarring to me as when I see somebody driving without a seatbelt, or bicycling without a helmet.
Deborah Bach has the story at Three Sheets Northwest:
[Sailors practice a group "huddle" technique to stay warmer and be more visible to rescuers. Photo courtesy of David Sutcliffe.]
A Northwest sailboat racer for 20 years, Steve Blaine considered himself a good swimmer and typically only wore a lifejacket in the roughest of conditions.
That changed a few weeks ago after Blaine, the skipper of a 40-foot Hanse, took a safety course that required him to jump into a swimming pool wearing foul weather gear but no lifejacket and swim to the end of the pool and back. It was an eye-opener.
“Imagine two or three bath towels wrapped around you that are totally soaking wet, and imagine trying to move your arms and legs,” said Blaine, who lives in West Vancouver, British Columbia.
“You get tired very, very quickly. And what hits home is that this is a pool – it’s not particularly cold, there are no waves and I’m still having this much difficulty.”
Sailor Cam Telford, who’s raced for almost two decades and also took the course, summed up the pool training more bluntly: “You start thinking, if I’m in colder water with some waves, I’m basically dead.”
