Sailing Injuries

As an off-shoot to the "Capsize Kills Tourist" thread and Mary wanting to start some kind of incident reporting of near-miss/accidents I am curious............

How many of you have had (or had members of your crew had)serious injuries while sailing?

We've all had split-ring finger and rope burns and banged shins/knees but what about BLOOD and BONES type things? Knocked unconscious maybe? Torn ACLS? Separated Shoulders? Come on tell us the gory details......

Greg

Trey's got a really good (well, bad) one... but I'll obviously defer to him if he wants to share.

Most common injuries seem to result from slipping while on the trapeze, usually as a result of a near pitchpoll, the worst that I know of is a guy in our club who had to have stitches in his butt when he landed very heavily on the corner casting of his Hobie 16.

I have had dents in my shins from similar accidents, usually from being thrown forward then hitting the front beam on the return journey.

The golden rule during one of these trips is be sure that no matter what else happens both feet go the same side of the mast

Another injury that happened to a crew of mine, was when he didn't get out from under the hull when we righted a H16, the hull came down on his head as he was looking up to avoid it, I never realised until then that a black eye can occur almost instantly.

Gareth
www.fourhulls.com

Faulty rigging on a righting pole almost cost me my eye once on my old Nacra 6.0. Rigging broke loose from the underside of the hull and hit me in the eye. There was an adjustable jam cleat (like for an adjustable trap system) and a shackle that actually hit me. It broke all the blood vessels in the front of my eye (hyphema? sp ptp?), and I had to go to an ophthalmologist every day for 7 days straight, then every other day for another 7 days. I couldn't look down at all for those 2 weeks, and had to sleep in a chair where I could only lean back-no laying down. It was terrible...but I didn't lose my eye, and in fact, my vision remained better than 20/20 in that eye-no vision loss whatsoever. Live and learn....

Guys:

One of the reasons I ALWAYS wear a life jacket is I got my bell rung real bad on a accidental jibe on my 17. I was dazed for a good 10 minutes and just lay there on the tramp. ALWAYS wear a jacket, may be uncomfortable in light air, BUT it may also save your life.

Doug Snell
Hobie 17
www.tcdyc.com

Greg,

I think it is a good idea to get this information to increase awareness of what can happen. I would like to keep it in perspective, however. In 20 years of sailing my Hobie 16 neither I nor anyone with me has had any injuries, close calls, or serious problems. I have pitchpoled a couple of times while on the wire, had my crew come unhooked and fall off in 25 or 30 mph wind, turned over while solo and out on the wire, had my mast come down due to a broken bow tang while I was out on the wire, and fallen off a friend's boat when his dogbone rope broke. I did a lot of sailing in that time. I also never witnessed any injuries to any other cat sailors in all that time. The sport is pretty safe but as the other posts indicate bad things do happen.

Howard

When I first got my Hobie 20, I had a young lady show up to crew for me at a regatta. When putting our gear on, I noticed that she put on a pair of field hockey shin guards. That was when I found out the jib turning blocks are pretty notorious for scaring one's shins. Not the fashion accessory a young woman wants to sport around.

I had another gal who crewed for me that went for a sail with another skipper on a Hobie 20 (he was trying to bird dog her away from me). He probably had a good chance since he (and she) were single and I'm an old married guy (with a very understanding wife). Anyway, he goes ripping off, trying to impress her, and runs aground, thereby quickly stopping the boat. In racing, we used to say it wasn't the crashing that hurt you, it was the sudden deceleration. Same problem here. She went flying and tore some tendons in her wrist. That was 2 years ago and she hasn't raced for me or anyone else since. Two surgeries later, she hopes she will get back the use of her wrist/hand. On the positive side, she is getting married this summer to a guy (not the same one) whom she met while crewing for me.

DavidN
H20 781

Sailing injuries on cats that I have witnessed have been mostly during pitch poles. Prindle 19 a crew mate flew out on the wire on a pitch pole and came back to the boat hiting the mast and it broke his neck. He hit the mast hard enough to capsize us and knock the mast off its base. Other pitch poles that resulted injury where bad bruises whenever the person was unluckly enough to hit a part of the boat. I also know that if a crew mate releases the trap wire too early while tension is still on the shock cord, the ring can catch you in the eye resulting in a lot of stitches. Another incident is breaking a trap wire and then being dragged by the main sheet wrapped around your leg. That leaves a good mark too. Of course, this needs balance with the 25 years of going out and nothing happening.

Good topic...You know how the ultra-risk-taking downhill skier never has an accident on the slopes and then twists his ankle on the stairs to the pub...

Just last week went for the first time to the beach and ripped a muscle in my lower back lifting up the boat...Been walking around like a 93 year old hunch back since...

There's muscles you don't use in the winter, and when spring comes and I tend to forget that in my enthusiasm for the first warm sprinkles of sun...

When you consider the speeds, hard surfaces, and precarious trapezing, we probably "should" be wearing helmets--with face masks--but wouldn't that just suck 99.999% of the time? I don't think I can gauge wind with my earlobes covered, lol.



I think I read about that incident in 'Performance Sailor' magazine in the late 90s... happened in Biscayne Bay? Did that poor guy heal up without permanent disabilities?

PS: How does P-19 stack up to Nacra 5.8???

Thomas:

When you are able to move some, go to the gym or use a TotalGym type thing and do seated rows at light weight. If you can't do that just sit on the floor and try to touch your feet. This exercise helped me recover from a bad car wreck a few years ago. I am looking at getting a Mystere 4.3

Hope this helps.

Doug Snell
Hobie 17
www.tcdyc.com

Take two Aleve as often as every 12 hours. Use a heating pad. (You feel 93, you may as well look the part) Trust me on this one. I broke my back 6 years ago in a real 'agony of defeat' moment and then had two back surgeries. I have completely recovered now but I know very well how to deal with back pain.
If you would like to never do that again...lots and lots of core exercises like crunches...but not until you recover from the pull. For now, Take your Aleve and lie flat on your back on a heating pad for a couple of hours. It helps to put a couple of pillows under your knees.
Good luck

I bought a wake board helmet last year and wear it when I'm out on my H16 on "small craft warning" days. I sail alone and need/want to have fun yet be safe.
On my 2nd or 3rd day with the helmet I catch a boom across the head. Whap!!! Just shook it off and spent the rest of the day thinking how glad I was to have purchased and worn the thing.

One crew impaled his knee on the mast rotation spanner which went in behind the knee cap (patela?) when the cat which was riding on hydrofoils dived through a wave instead of going over it and came to a sudden stop .

An 18 foot QB2 skipper fell off trapeze and got dragged for an extended distance with the mainsheet loopeded around his forearm. He had to wear a half cast to support his arm for months before the bones re-knit multiple fractures. On recovery He bought a lazer.

It's not major - but I'm sporting a nasty deep muscle bruise in my left thigh that has yet only resulted in a good bit of swelling and a pronounced limp (I can't wait for it to start making colors). Crewing for a feller on a Hobie Tiger, we got a little overzealous and pitchpoled with me on the wire. I saw it coming (and it looked very unrecoverable), blew the chute, grabbed the shroud and stuck my leg in on the boat right behind the partially raised daggerboard in an attempt to keep my weight back. The skipper had the same instinct to stay to the back of the boat but unknowningly found the back of my knee as a great foot step. With the boat vertically on it's nose for what felt like an eternity, my thigh supported both my weight strung out the side of the boat and skipper-doodle's weight on the other side with the pointy end of the daggerboard. I should have bought the ticket for the trip around the forestay.

I'm sporting a nice chunk of my middle finger dangling by a thread.

Thats about all.

Oh and a sunburn.

I'm not quite sure if this is really a "sailing related injury" but, in the early eighty's when we were building and selling one a day 4.3 Sundance cats (4.3m long, 6'8" beam, standard as sloop rigged, sailed one up on trapeze), a guy in his late fifties walked into our workshop, spent 2 hours telling us about how his wife had just divorced him and taken him to the cleaners and that he would be "better off dead", and went out the door with a new Sundance in tow. I arranged to meet him at a local beach that afternoon and run through the rigging and sailing of the boat with him. This all went well and he had a real blast for about an hour and a half then came to shore with big round glassy eyes and a smile from ear to ear. A half an hour later with his cat packed up and hooked onto his car he dropped dead from a massive heart attack. Shocked the hell out of me but my oldest son who was there with us said "at least he was happy when he went"!!!

My best injury came before I went sailing one day. I had just gotten a new knife - and a new block from the store and proceeded to open the block with the knife. I took the top 1/8 inch of my finger off with the knife while opening the package. My crew that day is a surgeon, so I kept the lump of skin and flesh for him to see (it stayed on the blade). He said it probably needed stiches and I shouldnt get it wet.

We went sailing anyways.

Here's a couple:

1) Wife got severely bruised when she got knocked off her feet on the wire and swung forward, then back into the boat where the rear bracket for the magnum wing (which were removed at the time) stuck out - lots of pain and ugly colors that lasted for awhile.

2) On a keelboat while trimming a jib on that boat for the first time, did not know that the winches were two-speed and expected the handle to freewheel in the backward direction, did something to my shoulder that took many years to go away.

3) Got hit in the head with the clew track/mainsheet block on a 6.0 during a high-wind accidental jibe during the early stages of the first leg of a C-100 - knocked me silly at a bad time and opened up a cut that probably should have had stitches. Once my wits returned I put my hat back on and we ultimately won the race. Hat looked pretty gross when we got to Solomon's, shaved a bit of what's left of my hair and used a wound closure bandage for the next day.

4) During that same race good friend had his eye permanently injured from flying trapeze gear, resulting in a rescue situation. After this race I started to consider helmets in certain conditions, and making sure that eyewear had some impact rating.

The best one was when one of the Fleet's Inter-20s capsized at the start of a Tuesday race, and the crew fell in such a way that he straddled the boom. Broke the boom, and the crew was walking mighty slow for awhile - not sure what was hurt more, his pride or his pride, if you know what I mean... Team shall remain nameless...

I'm sure there are more.

WOW-there are a lot of folks who didn't have or use their "chicken line"! Reduction of trips around the forestay can be reduced like 95% with the Hawaiian-style righting line also used as a chicken line when attached to the rudder gudgeon pin. (Especially critical on pitchpoley things like- but not exclusively- Hobie 16s). USE THEM only if you want to keep your female crew.

I had a Ringy Dingy pin come out of a shroud pin, pulled by the beach wheels tie line. I never noticed it, until tacking before the race, when the Hobie 20 mast came down- with the mast base pin still in! A totally novice crew looked up but he never moved. The mast fell across him, pinning him to the deck, but just allowing him to breath. He- and I were lucky, as there was enough room for him to breath but not get out, and there was no leverage to move anything. Lucky stars on that!
It took 10 minutes for a chase boat to come over to lift the mast tip (Red Lobster Regatta, Florida).

Conclusions- 1. regattas need chase boats.
2. Never leave a mast base pin in,
3. Tape or look at the curl pins before leaving the beach.

This fellow was undamaged but was never seen again. Don't blame him.

Can someone post a link/pic of a proper "chicken line"? Thanks in advance.

After a long hiatus I recently proved that if you've completely lost all your moves and coordination, you CAN pitchpole a P-16... luckily in my flailing about I "surfed" up the shroud a bit such that the crew and I splashed down with good separation. Light bruises, heavy laughter. Coulda been worse. Some fore-aft restraint probably would've prevented the whole scenario... CHICKEN LINE?

How about this?

A friend of mine flipped his Nacra 6.0 and his shin slid part way under the hiking strap as the boat was turning on its side. He fell out into space with his leg trapped in that position and over extended the knee - ripping the tendons badly. Two (or it could be three) years later he appears fully recovered after some expensive surgery and rehabilitation.

The problem was the hiking straps were very well attached to the trampoline. I got into a similar situation on a Hobie Tiger and was delighted when I heard the stitching on the hiking strap rip at the back of the tramp, rather than my tendons. I would advocate manufacturers making a weaker attachment of the straps to prevent this type of injury. Has anyone else experienced a similar injury?

I have also seen two female crews with permanent scars from contacting wire stays during pitch poles. Both are tough individuals who still race. On my boat I fitted slip on shroud covers on the the bottom 3ft of the wires to reduce the chance of this type of injury.

My wife had a near miss hitting the front cross beam with her head while on the wire after I stuffed a Hobie 18 Magnum and she was trapped out on the wings. Helmets may not be such a bad idea. I wouldn't dream of skiing, climbing or mountain biking without one.

Chris.

I would not consider a chicken line a "safety" item. It will help prevent some, perhaps a majority, of capsizes / pitchpoles. However, when you do go in and still are hooked in to the chicken line, your fall from grace can be a bit more trecherous. Looking up as I was sliding down a trampoline (boat going over on it's side after something went wrong - can't remember what) I saw David Mosley go for a flying leap off the transom of the boat only to be caught short by the chicken line leaving him landing head first into the sail. It wasn't perty.

Imagine a pitchpole where the boat endo's and you're restricted by the chicken line. I would rather be thrown clear personally. That being said, the chicken line is indespensable as an energy and near pitch pole saver while distance racing.

I guess "chicken lines" have evolved to something more sophisticated than what I remember from the Hobie 18. As I recall, it used to be that a chicken line was a line that went along under the outside lip of the hull and was bungied somehow at each end (or maybe just the forward end). We never used one ourselves, so I don't know exactly how it was fastened. But when sailing in heavy air, you just pulled the line out when you were on the trapeze and held onto it with one hand to keep from being thrown forward.

I can't even imagine wanting to have something like that actually attached to me.

Now that catamarans don't have "lips" any more where the deck joins the hull, maybe that "old-fashioned" type of chicken line is not feasible any more except on the older boats.

There are countless variations out there. I have used a system that used small carbiners to attach to the trapeze dogbone and that worked well (and didn't attach directly to the sailor). I've also used a system where we tied a short tail with a stopper ball to each side of our trapeze harness. The chicken line had the prusik knots but terminated in a spliced eye. We would simply put the spliced eye around the stopper ball to connect in. It was very easy to undo but it did add another connection point directly to the sailor.

That advantage of the stopper ball system is that there is nothing banging the leward hull but the eye-spliced line.

My first sailing injury is by far my worst.
I was 11 at the time and had just started sailing lessons about 2 weeks ago. There was a REALLY strong wind out and I was with my "sailing buddy". What happened was that I was staring at the view and not paying attention and before I knew it my "buddy" sailed the boat to the right and the boom came at me with full force I was knocked uncouncious and ended up getting stitches .. I practically flew off the boat and needless to say I ALWAYS pay attention now .. and I tend to duck a bit more than necessary when moving around the boom.

I had that on my 18, it was called the "Hawaiian RIghting System" - a thick line with bungee in the forward half that ran around the deck of the boat. I had installed specifically as a "preventer" to be grabbed onto the way you mentioned after seeing it in action on the Hobie video of the 18s playing in the surf.

When my wife took her flyer the winds were light, but there some lumpy waves that just knocked her feet out. Didn't take much to produce a major ouch.

I'm a big proponent of not having chicken lines attach directly to the sailor - in a bad situation I want to be able to blow the trap line off my harness and be free.

I'm toying with the idea of a small cleat on the center portion of the trapeze handle, to which you could quickly tie the chicken line once you're set on the hull. Then, you'd only have one connection to the sailor - the standard trapeze hoop.

Only drawback I see so far is that this cleat could go flying at your face if you are on the trampoline and the thing comes snapping back at you (if your crew drops out of it, for instance).

Oh, and I guess the section of trapeze hoop you connect the cleat to needs to be able to take a lot of shock loading...

Never, never, never hook your chicken line to your harness. Ours attaches to the trapeze handle. It allows you to release out (unhook) as easily as if it were not there.

Jake:
I would argue that it is a safety device:
Racing: You will do anything to get maximum boat speed. That means that the crew will be out downwind in a breeze. They will be hooked to the trapeze to do this. If you stuff the bow the boat will stop or at the very least slow down fast. This will keep your crew from ending up somewhere around the cheese cutter front end of the boat.

Other than racing: If you do not send the crew out on the wire downwind you do not need it.

The Chicken line is only for downwind sailing on my boat.

Mary:
The line you are talking about is a combination of Chicken and Righting line. It will work (kind of) for a boat that does not require a crew to constantly mess with a spinnaker. It is really only in effect when on a reach. If you are going downwind on a non-spinnaker boat both bodies are on-board. It depends on the strength of the crew as the skipper will bang in the crew when the line is needed, then the crew is holding everyones weight.

Later,
Dan

I'll say that's not true. In racing we tend to only go up and downwind. For recreational sailing, a smoking reach is great fun. You'll be on the wire, and having a chicken line is a good idea for those times the boat takes a wave and slows or takes a dive.

PLEASE LISTEN TO MARY!
The chicken line is for the crew's aft hand: also it then allows movement fore and aft to trim the boat so you don't stuff or pitchpole the dumb thing and then go flying forward still on the wire. Also it does not take much hand strength to hold on to the chicken line while the boat is slowing down. Even a thin line (1/4 inch or 8 mm) is ok.

IMHO There is NO reason for a crew to be tied to the boat with a carabiner, or a dogbone to be tied to the chicken line. I think that would be like totally coo-coo!

Now the Worrell 1000- at night- in a half gale is different!

for the distance races we put on the loop/ball system that jake mentioned. It really straps you in well to the boat, so well in fact that if both crew are chickened in the rear, it will save a pitchpole from even happening.

Plus, if you're a crew and you're washed out by a wave, it can keep you from knocking the skipper off the back of the boat.

The loop/ball system is very easy to get in and out of and can be disengaged while under pressure. In fact, if you're not in the trap ring, then the ball isn't going to retain you during a capsize.

Now I'm confused.....
Does the chicken line (hate that name btw -would prefer flying crew preventer) string through the rear beam in that drawing Dan did? If so, doesn't it interfer with the helmsman when it crosses him/her going to the forward trap dogbone? Seems like it would be another thing to watch out for when the helmsman slips off the tramp to go out on the wire. I like the idea of having a line to hang on to for the forward crew to steady themselves with in rough seas or in the event of a .........unplanned deceleration, but not at the expense of yet another thing to get wrapped up in or untangle or trip over.

If it's going through the forward beam I can't see how it would help on the unplanned deceleration situation since the line would, more than likely, be running forward of the crew on the wire.

I know I'm missing something but I just can't picture this...


One last thing..... how do you think it would be if when the family is on the boat (ie not racing) using those foam noodles with a slit all the way length-wise put over the shrouds to protect body parts in the event of a flight forward? I'm even thinking of putting them on the trap wires. It would look stupid but so does wire marks on skin.

Greg

Greg,

The hook in question remains retracted and just barely sticking out of the rear beam. When trapezing with the spinnaker up, the crew first goes out on the wire, then reaches down on the rear beam for the hook, and attaches it to their trapeze dogbone. When getting ready to jibe, they unhook the hook first, allowing it to retract again, before coming in off the wire for the jibe.

Here you can see Trey hooked into the ball and loop system. He must have had some issues getting washed off the back because he's hooked in from the front.
http://www.catsailor.com/bb_files/69929-Pcola-Panama%20Trip%20022.jpg

I know this is heresy, but when things get really bad, I slow down, or go to the beach.

well, it doesn't take that big of a wave for you to get your feet washed out from under you. Chicken Lines aren't used only for "nuclear" conditions.

Like I pointed out in another thread, those pictures didn't do the swells justice that day. Often, we were punching a wave and the water would try to wash me off the back. Aren't those some nice Barz goggles I have? (Thanks Murray's!)
The chicken line system I have gone to on my boat is different from the one Jake posted a pic of. Our new way is much simpler and easier to rig. Thanks to Charlie and Harry from Key Sailing for the setup idea.
The line is tied to a footstrap at the very rear of the hull. It runs forward all the way to the front bridle wires, and then goes through a shackle that I have put in place of a pin where the bridle connects to the hull. It goes through that shackle, and turns back toward the tramp. About halfway between the bridle and the tramp, I have directly connected the line to some 1/4" bungee, which then is tied to a tramp lacing about halfway back the tramp. There is a rope-lock (like used on a trapeze system, the little black "8" looking piece), that is on the line between that shackle and the bungee to allow adjustment for how far out you want the chicken line to go. Works like a charm! If you look on the starboard hull in the attached pic, you can see the where the line runs through the shackle and back to the tramp (including were the bungee connects in).