Another take on Safety

[Guest]

From Jihn Vigor's blog

 

http://johnvigor.blogspot.co.nz/2013/07 ... sport.html

 

 

It's really a very safe sport

IT’S INTERESTING TO THINK THAT sailing is one of the safest sports practiced in the U.S.A. In fact, more people die in their baths every year.

 

The sea is actually not as dangerous as you might imagine. Most of the famous singlehanded circumnavigators of the mid-20th century sailed without lifelines around the deck, and without safety tethers.

 

For many sailors, lifelines represented false security. “Better learn to cling like a monkey,” Bernard Moitessier once told me. He has a point. I suspect that if I fell from atop the house of a medium-sized sloop while she was well heeled, I would fall right over the lifelines without touching.

 

and

 

I have reservations about lifejackets, too, especially inflatable ones. I cannot imagine how I’d get back on board most small boats if I were hampered by the bulky inflated bladders. Perhaps that’s why there’s always advice to carry a small knife attached to your lifejacket, along with a flashlight, a whistle, a personal locator beacon, a rescue mirror, a waterproof VHF radio, a rescue mirror, and lord knows what all else. You could stab the bladders, I suppose, before attempting to pull yourself on board. You could also stab yourself accidentally and die from blood loss and shock instead of drowning.

[rigger 47]

Capt Irving Johnson talking about working aloft on the Peking - "safety - never heard of the word, why it would be stupid to let go"