In the interest of full disclosure, I'm posting this long (sorry!) missive of my recent overboarding incident. For fairness, I've redacted the marina's name. And thanks to all for their responses to date. All good stuff!
CAUTION-CAUTION-CAUTION
This missive is provided to remind ALL of us (not just us wrinkles, but you young un’s too) of the stuff that can happen around the docks, even on a nice sunny summers day.
So, it’s Sunday morning and I’m preparing to get underway from XXXX for the next leg of our cruise. I was the outermost boat of four, moored bow-out in one of the marina’s several ~100’long, ~40’ wide floating guest docks. I was moored ahead of another boat, port-side to, with two additional boats moored on the opposite side, starboard-side to. Designed for monster boats, in this slip the floating dock is something like three feet above the water’s edge. I proceeded to move my dinghy, moored about 100’ away, back to my boat to secure it for sea. As it’s pretty tight quarters, between the moored boats, I decided to moor my dinghy temporarily on the end of the dock, so I could rig my towline. As I’ve previously boarded and departed my dinghy from this end of the dock, I was very aware of the high dock, and the difficulty in getting in and out of the dinghy from here. I’m no duffer, and pride myself on my seamanship and common sense. Well, no more!
After tying my dingy alongside of the end of the dock, I proceed to stand on the gunwale of my RIB and hoist my leg over the dock edge, as I’d done many times in the past. And yup, you guessed it-my dinghy promptly departed the dock, and there I was at 10,000 feet, upside down, out of gas, and on fire. Or rather, there I was hanging by my fingertips to a dock something like three feet above my head, and submerged from the waist down. Well doh, you dummy, what’d you expect?
So now, what’s next? To XXXX Marina’s discredit, there is NO, I repeat NO safety ladder at the end of this guest dock. Nor any in the immediate vicinity that I can see. No sweat, says I, I’ll simply climb over the dock floats and scramble back aboard. Nope, that’s a non-starter, as the floats are barnacle encrusted, slippery, and too high to reach with my foot. OK, I’ll simply swim to my swim step boarding ladder and climb back that way. Well…maybe. It’s over 50’ away, I have no floatation aide except my waistline blubber, I’ve got some breathing issues to deal with, I haven’t swum for a while, I’m fully clothed, and the water’s sorta cold. So, maybe I can climb back aboard my dinghy, which is still tethered to the dock, and merrily swinging at the end of its bow line several feet away. To do so, I have to commit to letting go of the dock, and hoping I can grab something on the gunwale of the dinghy, and then hope I can hump myself aboard. An equally poor option, in my now somewhat concerned opinion. Well, poop.
As no one apparently saw my abrupt departure into the drink, fortunately I was able to hail one of my friends on the dock, and ask her to please alert my strapping, millennial son-in-law aboard my boat for assistance. While this wonderful and generous lady was happy to oblige, it took some time for her to figure out who in the heck was calling her name, and where in the heck was he, for gosh sakes, and why was he swimming way down there anyway????
The first brute force attempt by my son-in-law to get my lard ass over the dock edge by grasping my arms and pulling resulted in numerous lacerations to my legs from the barnacles, followed by a prompt fail and a return to the water to re-group. Finally, after piling into the dingy and hoisting mightily from there, my son-in-law was able to land me aboard like a giant carp, and thence back aboard the dock.
A couple of take-aways from this all:
a. IT HAPPENED IN A FLASH! From warm and cozy to in a pickle took less time that saying “Oh sugar”.
b. With more summers behind me than in front, I don’t swim well anymore. A true water baby in my youth, I’d of laughed at this incident, even a few years ago. NO MORE! This got my attention in a big way.
c. I DON’T FLOAT WORTH A DAMN! The combination of cool water, my personal breathing issues, no supplemental floatation, clothing, and the surprise of falling overboard made me realize that remaining afloat until rescue could arrive might not happen. While no panic ensued, this was NOT a fun place to be. Wearing of a Personal Floatation Device when appropriate is obviously indicated here.
d. Staying dry is an equally obvious mitigation. STAY ABOARD (the boat, the dock, the dinghy, etc.) is WAY better than trying to figure out how to re-board in the moment.
e. In my opinion, XXXX Marina has a responsibility to its paying guests (and visitors, and staff, and…) to provide reasonable safety features on its docks. This includes such things as National Electrical Code-compliant power boxes (a topic unto itself), adequate fire protection capabilities (ditto), and in this example, adequate man overboard safety equipment. Again in my opinion, XXXX Marina is grossly negligent by not providing adequate re-boarding capabilities on ALL of its docks. To my knowledge, all marinas I have visited in the recent past in the Puget Sound area are equipped, WITHOUT EXCEPTION, with boarding ladders at multiple locations throughout the marinas. I can personally attest that this guest dock DOES NOT HAVE SUCH A LADDER, or reasonable access to same.
Should this incident have occurred at night or during the winter with fewer persons around, the outcome could well have been fatal. I lost a close friend from just such an incident many years ago, and it’s apparent-IT COULD’A BEEN ME. Something to think about.
Ps-this missive was submitted to the Harbormaster at XXXX for comment. No response to date.
