What safety equipment should a newbie cruiser make sure he/she has

A few useful safety resources...

I'm just getting into this stuff in the SF Bay Area with my Ericson 35-2.

The thing that's been most helpful so far in thinking about safety is a two day US Sailing safety at sea course. Take the two-day version for offshore, which involves a practical component of jumping into the water, deploying your PFD, entering a life raft, righting a life raft, and practice with flares. The class at San Francisco Yacht Club taught by http://www.racingyachtmanagement.com/isaf.php (list to course description and various resources) was very well taught.

US Sailing offers a book to complement the course. Here is a link to a free book by some other rather reputable folks: http://honeynav.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Safety-At-Sea-Core-Topics-Handbook15.pdf

Going through the list, I find it useful to outsource some of the thinking to the local Ocean Yacht Racing Association. The Northern California YRA has a great list of regulations with locally relevant amendments: http://norcalorc.org/ . This page links to a PDF and Excel version (make sure to filter so that both offshore and coastal items show up) with a full list of safety requirements.

Finally, it seems useful to analyze past mishaps and accident reports for learnings and to visualize alternative outcomes and courses of actions. With that, here's a link tot he Yachting Monthly Crash Test Boat series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPb5AV7BaD4&list=PLKUg-wF-eKBw0w5OR6SpBt6sjD6XMdY7a

Fair seas!

If you are considering bolt/cable cutters...

For all keel stepped masts, the mast butt should be securely attached to the mast step or other hull structure.

Mark

Emergency Prep.

Another tidbit: since one of the primary threats you might face aboard is fire, take a course in basic fire fighting.
This might sound esoteric, but several years ago a group of us from our yacht club did this at the headquarters & training facility at PDX.
With advance planning and scheduling, the airport fire guys do this for interested groups. I would not be surprised if other venues where you are do the same thing.

On a Saturday morning, we all sat for an hour of classroom time, learning about the types of fire and how to extinguish. Then moved out to the tarmac where every single person got to "attack" a real mass of flames, in a large steel pan. The fire was fed by an LPG hose and erupted thru a steel mesh across the pan. Every person was given a charged dry powder bottle and got to put out the fire. Pull the pin, sweep from side to side starting at the front and base of the flames, stay focused.... :0
It was all sailing couples, with varying experience and skill. Everyone (some with more coaching) put out the fire.

We all agreed that the best training is "hands on" along with the lecture part.

Actually, it was good experience to have for any threat of a fire, at home or on the water.

Another takeaway: the minimum requirement for # and size of extinguishers to have on board is kind of skimpy. More and larger is way better. Those little 2.5# bottles do not last very long.

Anyhow, something to consider.
Regards,
Loren

Effective Bolt Cutter for Stays

I bought this bolt cutter in 2014 at the Home Depot in Kauai. Two hurricanes were coming and my old one looked small. No way to test it, of course.

Turns out that it cuts an Ericson 38 stay like butter:

https://vimeo.com/217254055

Now never to use it again.

Re: My previous post. Those were both high-tech race boats with, one might assume, shrouds made from some exotic material. Or maybe tools were just old and inadequate? I don't seem to recall having any problem cutting my forestay with a hacksaw, when I installed it.

Re: The Safety At Sea seminar. There are so many people signed up for these that there really is no hands-on training with fire extinguishers, flares, etc. You can watch from a distance, if you are tall enough to see over the shoulders of the people in front of you. You do get to jump in a pool with your PFD and foulies, and climb into a liferaft. Maybe the first group in the morning gets to inflate the raft? (Hint, buy a spare refill cartridge for your PFD before the seminar - not afterwards with the other 99 people making a beeline for the nearest West Marine.)

I was worried about a bolt cutter just smashing the wires apart and not being effective cutting wire rope. I'm surprised how well Christian's bolt cutters worked on his old stay. I bought these from a "Chinese Distributor" for $30. I've cut a bicycle cable that was 18mm. (Way bigger than the listed max of 12mm.) The thickest wire on my 30+ (according to the standing rigging specs that Sean uploaded here) is 9/32" - or a little more than 7 mm.

Jim, that is exactly the same product I bought at HD under another name and color.

woolamaloo said:

surprised how well Christian's bolt cutters worked on his old stay.

Click to expand...

Me too! That really was like butter.

"Back the in day", we only used centering cutters (the best ones were made by "Felco") because the straight-jawed kind would only mangle the wire.

I tried out my Harbor Freight bolt cutter on some rigging wire rope. Cut it cleanly, no strain. The cutter is staying on the boat.

just upgraded my safety gear.Adult Lifejackets now have two flares, mirror, whistle and glow stick. kids just have whistles. Two primary lifevests also have strobe lights. Survival suit also has two protein bars ,water and a knife.