This weekend marked a milestone in our race preparation as Brave passed her safety inspection. To race offshore, you are rightly expected to equip the boat with every reasonable item of safety equipment.
To race under RORC, you are required to complete and sign a six-page form confirming that you have all the appropriate gear on board (and the requirements cover everything from the height and tautness of lifelines to spare torch bulbs.) To race under EAORA (East Anglian Offshore Racing Association) you are required to have the boat inspected by a flag officer of your club, who has to complete and sign a mere four-page form!
Fulfilling all the requirements of every line of those two forms has proved a lengthy and somewhat costly business. You can't really resent spending money on something that could save your life, and so we fork out reasonably cheerfully for liferaft, lifejackets, flares and so on. But having gone right through the inventory, line by line, I do query a couple of issues.
You are required to carry a lifebuoy with a self-igniting light and a drogue, or a lifesling with a self-igniting light and without a drogue. Fair enough. A lifebuoy without a drogue might easily be blown out of reach of your MOB, and at night a self-igniting light is obviously essential.
You are also required to carry another lifebuoy, equipped with self-igniting light and drogue, and also a whistle and a pole and flag, which must be attached to the lifebuoy with ten metres of floating line, and ballasted so that the flag flies at least 1.8 m (6 ft) off the water.
Again, it all makes sense: a whistle should help the MOB to attract rescuers' attention (although he should also have one attached to his lifejacket, and probably another in the pocket of his oilies) and the pole and flag should help the crew locate the MOB.
But have you ever thought how difficult it would be to throw that little bundle overboard, especially in a state of panic? The chances of drogue, self-igniting light, whistle, pole etc and their associated lanyards getting caught up somewhere on the pushpit/backstay/lifebuoy bracket in the heat of the moment seem considerable.
So we normally sail with one lifebuoy with all the gear attached, for use at night, and one completely unencumbered, which would be the first line of defence in daylight. That is why when racing we're going to be carrying a lifesling above and beyond the safety requirements, to ensure that we have something we can throw instantly without risk of getting in a tangle should the need arise, which we sincerely hope it will not.
Most of the requirements are simple common sense. But it's always seemed very strange to us that the single most useful item of safety equipment normally carried on board, namely a boat hook, is not included in the Special Regulations.
In a MOB situation, a boat hook could be vital - for hooking on to the casualty's lifejacket, for example, or to give him something to hold on to while parbuckle, block and tackle or whatever mechanism for getting him back on board is organised.
But with so many racing yachts so weight conscious that they carry nothing aboard that is not specifically required by the rules, it would be interesting to know just how many are racing without this essential piece of kit?
Meanwhile, for anybody who owns a boat, whether racing or cruising, the ORC Special Regulations provide a useful guide as to what safety equipment should be carried for the sort of sailing you do. There are five categories, covering inshore waters (Category 4), short offshore passages (Category 3), longer offshore passages (Category 2), ocean crossings (Category 1) and extreme conditions like the Southern Ocean (Category 0).
If your sailing is mostly coastal, the Category 4 requirements should cover your needs. If you occasionally venture further afield, Category 3 should fit the bill.
For most offshore races, Category 3 plus liferaft is stipulated, and this should also be the norm for family cruises across the Channel or the North Sea. Category 2 - the most significant additional requirement is an Epirb - is required for the 600-mile plus Fastnet, and would be appropriate for longer distance cruising - delivering a boat across the Bay of Biscay to the Med, for example.
To download the Special Regulations, visit www.rorc.org
