Nautique MayJune Pg12-13D1

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Safety Equipment
On Board Sari Timur
By Mark Blasky
As we are getting ready to bash our way to Palau and Guam, someone asked us to write about the safety equipment we have on board Sari Timur. It could be argued that every piece of equipment on Sari Timur contributes to her safety. But in reality I know what they are asking. What equipment do you buy to help make you safe while cruising? Actually there are several items we classify as part of our safety toolbox. First and foremost for every piece of equipment that goes into the toolbox for safety, is the need for common sense. Each piece is just a tool to help keep the boat and crew safe. One can have every piece of safety equipment available and there is not any one of them except maybe the common sense one that can be solely relied upon. And even with a well equipped toolbox and great common sense sometimes still “stuff happens”! But let’s start out with saying we figure the best way to keep Sari Timur and her crew safe is to stay on board. We have PFD (Personal Floatation Devices) vests equipped with a safety harness. We run jack lines which are two heavy duty flat straps that run fore and aft on both the starboard and port side. When on watch at night or rough weather we are connected to the jacks by our tethers. We also have something that is relatively new to the offshore cruiser and that is a man overboard alert device. This is made by a company called BriarTek and is called an ORCA. And when it becomes wet for a few minutes it activates a signal that triggers the safety alert on our VHF radio which should

Us with PFds are the posers wearing their PFds, orcas and tethered to the jack line

wake the person who is off watch and alert them that someone has fallen overboard. It also starts flashing with a very bright LED and hopefully keeps the victim visible until they are recovered. BriarTek also manufacture a radio direction finder for these but we didn’t purchase it. Before we had the Orcas we had the Sea Marshall unit but this device had electronic problems and needed a separate receiver. Very kindly the agent that sold it to us took it in exchange for the Orcas which we are happy with. Even before we had the Orcas we just had personal light strobes and hoped we made enough racket when we went over to attract attention to the off watch. We still have these and as they are brighter than the Orca so we keep them with our life vests as back up. The best way to stay safe is to stay with the boat. But if the boat sinks we have a 4 man inflatable Avon life raft. We no longer have the survival kit inside the life raft but carry a ditch bag that floats and is filled with some granola bars, a torch, a hand held GPS, some hand fishing gear, some water, a Leatherman all purpose tool, spare batteries, flares, and probably something that goes into its own classification, our Epirb. An Epirb is an Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon. These devices

the orcas and strobe light as well as super loud whistle

Liferaft and inflated ditch bag and a green jack line running to the right of the ditch bag

contents of the ditch bag has most of what goes inside the ePirB, Flares, First aid kit, handheld GPS, Batteries, torchlight, water, etc

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excellent for keeping us off of reefs etc when entering a narrow passage or anchoring. Echoscope was also one of the few companies that offered to repair their product after the lightning strike if we bought new so as to have a spare! They also made a custom transducer as our hull is extra thick where the transducer is mounted. We like this product.
Life ring, with strobe, the picture also shows the emergency jerry can of water, buckets lashed to the rail and the AiS antennas above it.

when triggered emit a radio distress signal that is picked up by satellite and then retransmitted to the respective shore emergency rescue services. It gives time and position every time it transmits so hopefully anyone launching a rescue operation knows where to start looking. We also have our inflatable dinghy ready to launch. When making passage over open ocean we lash this on deck rather than in the davits. But after the life raft the plan is the dinghy would also be launched. All of the stories I have read of long term survival in a life raft have the victims eventually leaving the life raft when it wears out and surviving in the dinghy. We also stow a 30 litre jerry can of fresh water lashed to the lifelines and two 6 litre bottles in the cockpit hopefully for quick grabbing or later retrieval if Sari Timur should sink. We also have the life buoys and life jackets every boat has. Keeping the boat from sinking is a good plan and we have three electric bilge pumps, a manual bilge pump and buckets to get water out. We have emergency bungs for every thru hole fitting. We also have a forward looking sonar by Echoscope to hopefully keep us from running aground. This is also advertised as a way to watch out for float objects such as half submerged containers or in this part of the world FADs (Fish Attractor Devices, which are sometimes huge floating steel drums designed to attract bait fish) but we do not feel the sonar gives us enough warning for this. It is

One of the most likely ways a vessel is to sink is to be run over at sea. We have a radar reflector and Amec AIS B transponder. This is arguably one of the best safety items we have purchased. All large ships are now required to carry an AIS system on board. Theoretically this will alert them that we are there and they can take evasive measures. In reality we find that there are still a large number of ships that ignore the warning. But it also broadcasts the ships MMSI number and often their name. VhF and SSB ham radio as well as If we are on a collision course the pactor modem and off on the right is the AiS receiver with someone and not sure of what action they are taking, or wish us to take, we call them on the radio. We still often find they do not answer. But with their vessel name and MMSI number we can begin calling them specifically. This usually embarrasses them enough to begin a dialog with us immediately. Of course there are still several boats that are bigger than Sari Timur that do not carry AIS or chose not to turn it on and thus the mandatory lookout and Radar are helpful. We have a ham radio which is equipped with the ability to transmit and receive on the SSB frequencies. Though not legal for everyday use on the SSB frequencies it does allow us to transmit in an emergency on the maritime emergency frequencies. It also allows us to transmit our daily progress reports and receive weather grib files and very short text messages via Pactor. This is a very useful device to have when transiting the pieces of ocean we are about to which are so susceptible to typhoons and extreme weather. We are hoping to use a weather routing service to guide us around the tropical storms that build so quickly in this part of the world. They would use the Pactor email address to keep us up to date. There are several other safety items that are available but as of now this is what we have and deem enough to make our journey as safely as possible.

Forward looking Sonar

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