Offshore sailing guru John Kretschmer talks PFDs and life rafts, plus we deploy a Winslow offshore 6-man lift raft in open ocean conditions. Music by Jess Cook (Into the Dark) and Milk Chance (Stoln Dance)
Dude, more power to you, but I have to wonder about your priorities and if you are actually learning the right lessons. You took this class (congrats on that), but you haven’t seemed to internalize how to correctly apply the principles to planning. Specifically, priority number one is keeping the air in the boat and the water out, so you never have to get to the point of needing to deploy the raft. But in your later refitting video, you are more concerned about putting Velcro on the hatch boards so they don’t make noise, but you make no mention of adding a locking mechanism of keeping the hatch boards in place and together, which is WAY more important if you get knocked down in a blow, to keep the boards from flying out and water from pouring in from a flooded cockpit down your companionway and into your saloon.all the fancy electronics in the world won’t help if you don’t have the simple mechanical systems in place to keep your vessel secure. Hope for the best, but plan for the worst.
Peter, you're talking to two people who cut their teeth sailing and racing small sailboats that would absolutely sink in a heartbeat during a knockdown with an open companionway. Our Catalina C-22 was a case example. We understand the risk you speak of and have a hook mechanism that locks the upper washboard down to a cleat at the top of the stairs. Additionally, once the companionway hatch is closed, there's no way to lift the washboards out. We don't make mention of every little thing, but we are out there doing this every day and have put 3082nm on Talisman since we launched her last July (we're at the mouth of the Strait of Masina headed for Greece later this week). Beyond that, you appear to miss the entire gist of our channel, which is that we bought a boat that was designed from the ground up to place stability and safety above speed/performance. The Oyster 485 has a stability rating (AVS) of 136 degrees, which is unheard of in comparison to modern production boats, and Wendy and I can tell you from first-hand experience that she is like a tree trunk in the water when winds crest 40 knots. We have spent untold dollars on every aspect of safety for this boat, from having our life raft recertified to buying a new 406 EPIRB, to installing satellite communications, to installing PLBs in our Spinlock life vests, to replacing all the fire extinguishers to keep the boat up to "coded" spec. There are abundant softwood plugs at every through hull and we have three separate bilge pump systems. The list goes on. Very little that we do is for show (although this is our home), and the point of our channel is to let people see what this life is really about. And finally ... if I had to spend one more night listening to those damn washboards rattle in the wind, I would have had to fly home. Hope you're okay with the rant and thanks for watching.
