A friend who coached junior sailing on Lasers told me about boats going over and the sailor being trapped under the sail. He said he'd get along side as fast as possible and push them down and towards the hull with his foot. It's always something.

Let's be careful out there.

I'm hearing over and over again how dangerous this sport is... Do you really think so? I always tell my wife that it's probably more dangerous driving to Massachusetts twice per week than sailing but maybe I'm wrong?
Statistically, do you think is it PROBABLE that one of us who frequents this forum eventually DIES while sailing? IF not PROBABLE then what do you think the risk is? 20%? 10%? Less than 1%? Seems to me, for all the people who sail, you hear of very few fatalities. Less than other sports popular around here. Certainly less than snowmobiling where at least 5-10 people died just this winter.... and every past winter about the same number. How many actually die from sailing activities? Does anyone know of anyone who died of a catamaran capsize? I don't.

Just wondering.....
Greg

Darryl,
I had the exact same thing happen to me! I was sailing with an inexperienced crew, she was hiking, I went to hike out and missed the hook. I went overboard, the mainsheet wrapped TIGHT aroung my ankle (I thought I had broken my ankle), I was dragged underwater and the boat sped up while my crew dutifully hiked out on the trap. I thought I was going to drown. I always carry a knife when I sail....it was no use in this situation. Eventually for some unknown reason, the boat luffed up enough to release me....and then it took off at full speed with my crew. She eventually beached the boat but had no idea where I was. A passing powerboat picked me up and took me back to my cat. The point is, it can happen FAST, with no warning and even the best prepared skippers can be caught by surprise.

Greg, I expect none who frequent this forum to pass away becouse of sailing catamarans. Fatalities are not very common, and I suppose most people on this forum are conscious about potenial problems. I would rate sailing catamarans as a very low risk sport. It's a technical sport, so one needs to take care of equipment and understand the working environment (wind and water), but I definately view this sport as safe.
Some do press the limits, like going on offshore trips on small cats. Those guys usually know what they are doing and take every precaution possible.
I know of only three fatal accidents from sailing cats over the last years. Johannes Haupl, Sven Schang and now this 11 year old girl. There has probably been many close calls, but we have no system for collecting those. Perhaps we should make an online database to collect those? In rock climbing, where death rate is rather high if you goof up, we have a system for collecting information about all accidents and potential accidents.

I think that is all correct Rolf. I agree 100%. Here is where I am going with this.......
I am trying to tie into an earlier thread of how to promote the sport to others and I think it could be said that this IS a very safe sport when compared to the "activities/sports" here in the States that are stealing away our potential future sailors like JETSKI'S and maybe even ocean kayaking. I hear of one or two deaths or serious injuries every week during the summer months from those activites. I never hear of sailing deaths or serious injuries (around here at least). In my business, we have a statistic we toss around quite often that 80% of leisure activity decisions for the family are determined by the female. Couple that stat with womens # 1 and # 2 concerns of SAFETY and CLEANLINESS (guess why Disney is so popular) and maybe catamaraning should be promoted to WOMEN as a clean, safe sport and then slip in the spitfire video to the kids and dads to promote the speed!

Just my 2 cents worth....

That would contradict your first statement, which I agree. I don´t think it is necessary be alarmist to do something about the potential risk that has been identified on this discussion, but it is a real risk, as it has sadly been proved, so it is worth to do something. For example emphasizing the use of the knife to make it part of the standard gear. It is nothing new, there are some specific ones on the market and some classes has incporporated it on their rules, as mentioned before, but it appears that the sport need to evolve a little bit to incorporate it as one more piece of standard equipment.

Andinista, I was think about getting some statistics not only about fatalites, but close calls like Darryns and other accidents.

What is that system/how does it work?

It's a web based system. You enter all relevant information into a webpage and submit it, wether you was involved in the accident or just an witness is not important. What's important is getting the data. Information is then reviewed and entered into that years statistics.

Typical fields/questions are:
Contact information:
Time and place for the incident
Weather conditions
Terrain type
Traction/friction (snow, rain etc..)
Name/age/experience level of persons involved
Description of injuries
Main purpose of the trip undertaken (climbing, hiking, rapell, glacier walk)
Organized event
Activity when the accident happened (climbing, descending, free-climbing etc.)
Type of incident (fall, rockfall, glissade etc)
Short (terse) description of the incident
Why did the accident happen (multiple choice and free text)
Safety equipment in use
What could have been done to avoid the incident
Rescue, What, when, how, who, experiences from the recue
Other comments

All this information except contact information and names are then made available to the public, and at the years end a report is put together and the statistics updated. Out of these reports, it has been shown that inexperienced climbers are the most prone to accidents (no surprise there), and that experienced climbers mostly have accidents while returning from a trip. It has been quite useful.

The web form is available here (in norwegian): http://www.klatring.no/sikkerhet/pages/formUlykke.asp

How do you get people to submit information to the website?

In the case of sailing, I would think that would be the most difficult thing. Just in the United States, how would you even let all the sailors, both cruising and racing, know about the website?

And lots of people who have close calls of one sort or another don't think much about it, or else they are embarrassed to talk about it.

When people have really bad incidents, some of them don't want to talk about it at all.

Class associations don't like bad incidents publicized for fear it will reflect badly on their type of boat.

As a result, we only really hear about incidents that end in death or in court or in US Sailing's rescue awards program.

I have been told that Marine Patrol down here in South Florida rescues people in catamarans about once a month, but we never hear about any of those and we don't know what happened.

So, how can that kind of information about accidents and incidents involving beach cats be collected and compiled?

Most of the accidents involving catamarans for the past few years have involved collisions with powerboats or PWCs. But those are the ones that get the publicity.

This all still begs the question of how to get sailors to report all the incidents that only they know about (assuming there would be a place to make their reports and that every sailor knows about that place).

Mary,

The problem with gathering statistics is that there are so many ways to interpret the information. How many fatalities, in how many hours of catamaran sailing, compared to how many other sailboats, power boats, water skiers, surfers, divers, and so on. You could make the numbers say whatever you wanted. I don't think life insurance companies increase their fees or deny coverage to sailors but they do for SCUBA divers and small plane pilots. They are the ones who make their living on knowing what is dangerous and what is not.

I have owned my Hobie 16 for 21 years and can't recall anyone around me or that I read about who was in serious jeopardy or injured other than one boat that capsized and was drifting for hours before the men were picked up in the ocean. I have never had an experience that I thought was life threatening or where I was in serious danger.

I looked at rental boats at different places and saw that most of the time they didn't have trapeze wires. That is a good thing. It is possible that the 11 year old girl would not have drowned if the boat didn't have trapeze capability.

I feel much more in danger driving to the lake or ocean than I do out on the water.

Howard

Howard,
What you are talking about is how to assess the statistics.

What I am talking about is how do you get people to give you the information in the first place. You can't interpret what you don't have.

Why not Mary, the government do it all the time for anything that they want to show in their favour?

Mary,

US Sailing have already started something similar (found the link on Sailinganarchy):
https://live.datstat.com/RDR-Collector/Survey.ashx?Name=sailing10

It's not as userfriendly and well tought out as the "climbing" report, but usable.

I think that as long as the anonymous version of the reports are available for reading for everybody, beachcat sailors will submit what they experience or witness. It is pretty interesting reading..
Marketing of the initative would have to be done via class associations, forums like this and magazines.

It's just an idea, and something that has worked well within the climbing community over here. Not something I have tought much about or felt missing within catsailing.


Now, Darryl and Howard. One of the points behind this is to make the full reports sans names available on the web. Sailors can then read and interpret the results for them selves. As the reports are pretty standard, you quickly see the pattern behind what kind of accidents/close calls happen.
I think the US Sailing initative will not be very successful, unless the reports submitted are made available on the web somewhere (I did not see any link to results).

I didn't see any link to results either but there is a contact us email address. I would like to see the results of the survey limited though it is.

What other questions would you put on "our" survey?

I'd like to know:
1) what type of boat you received the injury on.
2) whether you thought the injury was from faulty equipment, faulty judgement, or flat-out bad luck.

Any others?
Greg

I had the line-wrap thing happen to me during a pitchpole on my Hobie-18. I was driving from the rear corner doing the wildthing when the boat dove in a gust. I slid down the tramp in the initial stuff and as the boat was going over and I was trying to climb back I found I had been snagged around the ankle by the jibsheet. I was able to free myself before the boat went fully over but it was close. I wonder if I would have had the presence of mind to cut the tramp with my knife to breath instead of continuing to struggle with my caught foot. Even with a sharp knife I wonder if I could have cut the line easily.

Most of the places we sail the regularly the mast will hit the bottom before the boat fully turtles. But out in the middle of the Bay....

Maybe you guys should tidy your boats up more ?

Wouter

Funny how things seem tidy until the boat becomes a submarine!

That was tempting fate a little WOUTER,
Quote:


Maybe you guys should tidy your boats up more ?

Wouter

My trampolines are as neat and "spartan" as it is possible to make a tramp, and as long as there are "sheet lines" on a boat, you can get caught up in them. I just hope we don't read about "the late Wouter, tangled in a sheet line and drowned"
Haven't you heard of Murphy's law Wouter?

He might have heard of Murphy's Law, but I'm hoping he's never heard of karma :P