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Ghost boat with GPS leads father-son duo to man overboard
- chrisdalke 4y agoAmazing story and the pilot of that boat is lucky to be alive. I think larger center consoles should ship standard with a wireless safety lanyard instead of a wired one, because very few people seem to actually use the wired lanyard because it’s inconvenient. this is the exact situation where that would help.
- blamazon 4y agoWireless lanyard, today I learned! Looks like a complete setup from 'FELL Marine' can be had for less than 300 bucks. That is very little money for peace of mind.
- lazyant 4y ago60% 1 star ratings on Amazon (failing device), still no peace of mind but better than nothing :-(
- blamazon 4y agoI was not able to reproduce this result. Can you link?
- ghaff 4y agoI assume this. https://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/B075MMHYMK/ https://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/B075MMHYMK/ Overall the rating is pretty good but definitely a number of one stars. The challenge with a lot of safety and backup systems is that you might never need them, but if you do need them they absolutely have to work.
- blamazon 4y agoFor what it's worth I flipped through the 1 star, 2 star, and 3 star reviews and found one that indicated a false negative, the rest seemed to indicate false positive. With it being a predominantly self-installed electrical system I question if every reviewer's install was done correctly.
- Aeolun 4y agoAll the failure modes seem to have to do with the engines not starting when someone needs them, which sounds ok to me. Or maybe that’s survivorship bias, and the ones where the engines do not properly cut out are never in a position to review.
- tempestn 4y agoI doubt literal survivorship bias plays much of a role, given the number of people who actually die this way is tiny. Maybe that was a joke though. The XKCD issue would be more common though - people who are happy with it because they've never had to test it.
- lazyant 4y agohttps://www.amazon.ca/product-reviews/B075MMHYMK/ref=acr_dp_hist_1?ie=UTF8&filterByStar=one_star&reviewerType=all_reviews#reviews-filter-bar https://www.amazon.ca/product-reviews/B075MMHYMK/ref=acr_dp_... top result in Canada
- blamazon 4y agoThat listing has two total ratings, one is 5 star and one is 1 star, with no textual reviews. Doesn't feel like useful data to me.
- RockRobotRock 4y agohttps://xkcd.com/937/ https://xkcd.com/937/
- mcv 4y agoThis got me thinking about survivorship bias in ratings for life-saving devices. If the device fails to save your life, you're not going to be able to give it a poor rating.
- bsder 4y agoAnyone who buys a safety system from Amazon is completely out of their gourd.
- culopatin 4y agoWhat difference does it make? Is an iPhone from Amazon worse than one from the Apple Store?
- omeid2 4y agoEven with something so _standard_ the likelihood of getting a knockoff on Amazon is orders of magnitude higher than Apple Store. Buying a device directly from the vendor comes with a degree of responsibility that you can't afford with buying from 3rd parties (seller), on a 3rd party marketplace (amazon).
- lozenge 4y agoAmazon's never sold fake iPhones as they would be easy to spot, however they have sold, say, dangerous eclipse glasses. Most people do not have the equipment or expertise to test eclipse glasses before relying on it to save their sight.
- StianOvrevage 4y agoI installed the Fell Marine Mob+ myself on my 23 foot day cruiser a year ago and it works very well. The only problem I've had is false positive cut-offs when I'm on the dock untying or when I prepare to dock and I use the arm with the wireless FOB on in the rear compartments of the boat. I could probably fix it by angling the antennae so that it was upright instead of pointing out horizontally behind the base unit, but TBH it's such a infrequent issue and only happens at no/low speed anyway that I haven't bothered. On the plus side at least I know that it does cut the engine and probably would in a real situation as well.
- brk 4y agoGo out with a buddy sometime on a day with a light wind. Put your boat at a slow cruise and then jump off (carefully). See if you can actually get back to your boat before you’re exhausted (and need your buddy to pull around and pick you up). In a light wind or current an average boat is still going to be moving faster than most people can swim. The wireless kill switch is good. But pair it with an inflatable PFD.
- blamazon 4y agoIt's a tough engineering challenge but it be cool if there was some kind of collapsible 'foot flippers' (is there a more technical term?) one could pull out of like a tube attached to a PFD. I was watching the video of that boat that rolled at the Columbia river outlet in Oregon and the USCG rescue swimmer was astoundingly fast with the fins on.
- nradov 4y agoThere are folding fins now available for travelling scuba divers. However, they are still rather bulky and not practical for boaters to carry on a PFD. If the boat is moving faster than a couple knots you won't catch it even with fins. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/exotech/folding-fins-a-true-compact-fins-no-compromises https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/exotech/folding-fins-a-...
- StianOvrevage 4y ago
- andrewem 4y agoThe guy who fell in the water talks about that here: “Specifically, he wants people to know there are wireless killswitches available that can attach to passengers as well as the captain.” https://www.wwaytv3.com/i-was-going-to-die-man-goes-overboard-40-miles-off-topsail-beach-saved-by-father-and-son/ https://www.wwaytv3.com/i-was-going-to-die-man-goes-overboar...
- wil421 4y agoThere’s some fishing guys on YouTube I watch and some of them have an app on their phone to shut the motor off. If they fall overboard the motor shuts off when the phone isn’t close enough. Some also wear automatically inflated life jackets but as a kayaker I don’t trust them.
- andrewflnr 4y agoSpecifically for kayak-related reasons?
- Kon-Peki 4y agoMost likely. They are not supposed to trigger when getting wet, even very wet, but are supposed to trigger when you go into the water. You really shouldn’t wear an auto-inflating PFD in a situation where going into the water isn’t 100% a bad thing. Kayaking seems to be one of those activities where you wouldn’t want it. Even dinghy sailing/racing seems like a poor use case. In case anyone is unfamiliar with them, though, they all have a manual pull handle that is supposed to trigger the CO2 canister, and as a 3rd backup they even have a tube you can pull up to your face and a one-way valve so you can blow them up with your mouth.
- malandrew 4y agoIMHO aUrooj inflated life jackets generally make no sense for kayaking. It’s too easy to end up in the drink casually and it’s like $60+ per re-arming kit. Are those fishing kayaks so stable that they have very little expectation of going overboard comparable to being on a powerboat or sail boat? I use touring and whitewater kayaks myself. I kayak and sail so I have life jackets for both use cases (two type V rescue jackets for kayaking and 4 type V inflatables for sailing to accommodate friends and better the much safer European spinlock deckvests, which are not USCG approved, so I keep USCG approved inflatables on board too)
- sitkack 4y ago> an app on their phone to shut the motor off. The failure risk here is the phone doesn't go with you and it keeps chugging along.
- duxup 4y agoThis is one of those things that I always wondered about. The risks are really apparent though for anyone out on a boat and it just doesn't seem to be the standard operating procedure for most folks.
- Aeolun 4y agoThis is not something I ever considered until I played Stormworks, and my boat kept running away from me every other hour.
- analog31 4y agoMoreover, the lanyard should include a panic button that sends out a SOS from the boat's radio.
- curiousgal 4y agoIs it just me or is the title extremely confusing? Why do writers do this?
- renewiltord 4y agoI understood it first time. What was confusing to you? Ghost Boat - Either the craft didn't exist or it has no pilot With Garmin GPS - okay, it's the no pilot case Leads - Okay, they followed it to a waypoint or they discovered it motoring aimlessly Father-Son Duo - these two were the rescuers, cool To Man overboard - okay, pilot fell off the boat Definitely clear to me on first read and enough for me to click through.
- lazyant 4y agoas a non-native English speaker, it initially read as (something boat) causes (father/son) to (go overboard)
- sakopov 4y agoI'm not a native speaker either and I think what threw me off was the "Man Overboard" bit, which is usually used as a "maritime call" so to speak. So in other words, it wasn't clear to me who was overboard, the father-son duo or somebody else. What I think the title should have been is "Ghost Boat with Garmin GPS Leads Father-Son Duo to a Man Overboard", notice "a man overboard" to clearly indicate that they were led to someone who was overboard.
- robocat 4y agoIt’s not your fault: the title is very confusing to me and my mother tongue is English. Perhaps finding it confusing is a sign that your English is very good.
- renewiltord 4y agoFair enough. I can see how you could have reached that conclusion. I suppose it's written for a native speaker. For what it's worth, ChatGPT "comprehends" it correctly so perhaps one day we can have a headline auto-expander.
- dlgeek 4y agoI mean, I get that it's a Garmin press release, but did anyone else find the inserts about the GPS to be tacky?
- sudhirj 4y agoA little bit, but hey, they're not hiding anything. Everyone is allowed to toot their own horn. I'd more pissed if this was some paid PR piece hidden in a newspaper.
- koolba 4y agoTo be fair, if the waypoints weren’t logged in the Garmin they would never have found the overboard man.
- snozolli 4y agoThe waypoints could have been logged in anything. Any GPS, or even a Google location history on a phone they found. The heroes of the story are the two men. It would be like if someone were about to sucker punch a woman and you happened to be standing in the way. You're not a hero, you just happened to be present. It's also a type of scare mongering. "You might fall overboard while peeing, and our product could save your life, just look at this phenomenally unlikely scenario!" The much smarter solution is to use a wireless lanyard or just pee inside the boat, as commented elsewhere here.
- lancefisher 4y agoI usually would, but I actually didn’t find it tacky in this article up until the end where the article mentioned they were so impressed that they upgraded their own boat. That was just a little bit tacky, but not terrible given it was a press release. The rest is how I would talk about it while sailing. I often say “the Garmin” instead of “the chart plotter”.
- eschneider 4y agoNah. Good PR is where you find it.
- 4y ago
- neilv 4y agoThis was a nice story -- of smart and prepared people, dropping what they were doing to do the right thing against the odds, with some luck/divine help, to save someone -- and I think I'm going to stop online stuff on a high note for this Sunday. :)
- andylynch 4y agoThis is a great story and endorsement of both Garmins’s gear and the people involved. The related article referenced at the end is worthwhile too, not least for their theory about how the board turned, a lot of things went right that day.
- hansthehorse 4y agoI remember reading that 70% of the male bodies the coast guard recovers have their zipper down. I frequently fish offshore alone here in SE Florida and when I have to go I pee in an aft corner and wash it down with the raw water hose.
- eschneider 4y agoBuckets are a thing.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- blamazon 4y agoIf you think about it, a boat is basically a bucket.
- pancrufty 4y agoAre you saying I should pee into the boat?
- Laaas 4y agoA bucket can also be a boat.
- selimthegrim 4y agoEven Noah's ark was a waterproof round wicker basket (coracle). Although good point, I never thought about what they did with all the animal waste.
- blamazon 4y agoIn modern times, livestock is regularly shipped en masse from places with surplus arable land, like Australia, to places with a dearth of arable land, like Saudi Arabia, although I don't know what happens to the animal waste. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_export https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_export Interesting tangent from reading that page, the 'Seagoing Cowboys': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seagoing_cowboys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seagoing_cowboys
- raldi 4y agoImagine being stuck overboard like this and then, after two and a half hours, seeing your own boat coming back to pick you up.
- zaroth 4y agoMy first thought is a great safety feature would be a remote engine cutoff you could wear when you are single-handed. Something like what jet skis have but maybe Bluetooth? (downthread: wireless lanyard) Must have been absolutely terrifying watching the boat motor away. What a way to go, taking a piss off the side. I do it all the time, but not 40 miles off shore! If I’m sailing that far offshore the rule is you can’t leave the cockpit without a lifeline, if it’s night and in daytime if someone else isn’t above deck watching you.
- newsclues 4y agoI've been sailing on a lake in a dinghy and a wind shift caused the boom to knock me out of the boat, it was a terrible feeling. Lots of boats you have a safety line to keep you attached, but the problem is that people tend not to use them.
- SnowHill9902 4y agoSo what did you do? Evidently you didn’t drown.
- mynameisvlad 4y agoThey were sailing so the dinghy presumably didn’t promptly drive away like in this story.
- newsclues 4y agoThe main sheet (rope controlling the sail) was cleated and it didn't just keep sailing along.
- malandrew 4y agoMost sailing dinghys should have weather helm and will turn up into the wind, causing the boat to end up in irons (mainsail luffing and depowered)
- newsclues 4y ago
- thrill 4y ago'Jack, a math major at the Naval Academy, has run the numbers again and again, and it just doesn’t make sense. “At some points I think we were within even half a mile of him,” Andrew said, “but it wasn’t until the end that we came onto him.' Come on man ... you quit looking once you found him - that's why it's called 'the end' - no special math required.
- umvi 4y ago"The end" could also be the point where they call it quits regardless of if they found him.
- myself248 4y agoIsn't it weird how things are always in the last place you look?
- squishy47 4y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3NTtagBmKY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3NTtagBmKY
- leeoniya 4y agothe actual saying is "last place you think to look" or "last place you expect" (because it's so obvious / uninteresting). but that doesnt make a joke.
- brookst 4y agoYou can fix this by continuing to look after you’ve found something. “Phew, glad my keys were in the first place I looked, and not the next ten”
- moffkalast 4y agoJust in case you find any extra keys to unlock those bonus rooms, it's just good completionist practice.
- NegativeLatency 4y agoNice story but after the whole hacking thing and my own experiences with their acquisition of delorme I’d steer clear of Garmin if possible. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23926289 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23926289 https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/4/21353842/garmin-ransomware-attack-wearables-wastedlocker-evil-corp https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/4/21353842/garmin-ransomware...
- EB-Barrington 4y ago[dead]
- akiselev 4y agoDo you plan on avoiding airlines your entire life? Cause Garmin makes some of the most important avionics.
- NegativeLatency 4y agoThat’s not exactly consumer level gear though is it, my in reach is not subject to FAA regulations
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- pibechorro 4y agoGreat story, but honestly Garmin is not any better than most other major brands. They buy out their competition, that's their "greatness". Navionics is a better chart plotter (which they bought up) and some of the best features (active captain) where community sourced info they also bought up.
- djmips 4y agoGood job tricking me into reading a Readers Digest -Drama in real life / Garmin advertisement...
- ruph123 4y agoI am no boat person at all but would it not make sense to have keys that only allow you to drive the boat if you are close by like in modern cars? And when you fall off, it just stops a few meters away from you. I know these small boats are probably more simple and the transponders would need to be water proof, etc. but the benefit could be huge.
- bjyule 4y agoBoats small enough to be operated by a single person are required by law (I believe) to be fitted with a kill switch that is supposed to be clipped onto the operator. In the event they go overboard, the engine shuts off. Of course in practice almost nobody actually uses these.
- pancrufty 4y ago> Of course in practice almost nobody actually uses these. The damn government can’t tell me what to do. Sigh, I see plenty of people driving with the seatbelt behind them, which means they make the choice to ignore the advice. Imagine having to take action without being constantly told to. As other comments have mentioned, we’re dumb.
- ryandrake 4y agoSome deliberately do it out of principle, despite knowing it's dumb. I have a family member who refuses to wear his seat belt simply because the government shouldn't tell him what to do. He knows it's safer, and knows that he'll get a ticket if he's pulled over, but won't do it, purely out of this weird, dogmatic anti-authority. In the field of aviation, they study aeronautical decision making (ADM), and hazardous attitudes that prevent good decision making. The FAA identified the so-called 5 Hazardous Attitudes[1], and number one on the list is "Anti-authority". I wouldn't be surprised if this attitude is causal of accidents and negligence in other activities like boating and driving. 1: https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/1999/september/flight-training-magazine/hazardous-attitudes https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/1999/september/...
- philip1209 4y agoThis video about the "algorithm" the Coast Guard uses to search for missing mariners in moving water is pretty fascinating: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoXJfuPaFF8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoXJfuPaFF8
- puterich123 4y agoThe takeaway here is not “Divine intervention” but: A lot of people fall off boats and die while taking a leak.
- ajjenkins 4y agoWhen describing how the boat owner fell off his boat, the author said it could’ve happened to anyone, but it sounds like he was peeing off the side of his boat while the engine was running. I don’t know, but that sounds pretty dumb to me.
- akiselev 4y agoIt’s one of the leading causes of death in boating. The leading causes of death in general aviation are the weather and running out of fuel. Humans are pretty dumb.
- ghaff 4y agoIt's a not unheard of cause of death in the Grand Canyon as well. Someone gets up to take a pee at night (you're supposed to pee in the river), maybe they're a bit drunk, and they fall in and get swept downriver.
- hackernewds 4y agoThey fall from the grand canyon into the river? that's a gigantic fall
- ghaff 4y agoOn river trips when camping at night. Though people have also died pretending to fall from the rim and then they actually do. (You don't normally fall all the way--the walls aren't that shear--but you fall far enough.)
- blackoil 4y agoAnyone who travelled on old Indian railway can tell you one hand to hold the rod and other to hold a rod.
- evan_ 4y ago…And everyone does dumb things once in a while.
- bradfitz 4y ago> The story was simple, really, and one that could happen to almost any boater on any given day. Sascha had gone to the side to relieve himself and simply fell overboard. Almost any boater!
- yafbum 4y agoIt's a great story but kind of gross the way Garmin slides in an ad for its products being supposedly easy to use even for people who haven't used them before
- tobyjsullivan 4y agoIt’s not smooth but not terrible considering this is corporate blog content, not journalism. At least they link to the original article which, after a quick scan, seems much better written. https://www.readersdigest.co.uk/inspire/life/how-a-fishermans-own-boat-rescued-him-from-drowning https://www.readersdigest.co.uk/inspire/life/how-a-fisherman...
- victor9000 4y agoMuch better link, thanks!
- KennyBlanken 4y agoReader's Digest is not "journalism." They take a fairly simple and straightforward event and embellish the hell out of it to make into some grand tale, keeping it at about a 5th grade reading level. Compare and contrast the story to the local TV station writeup: https://www.wistv.com/2021/07/07/father-son-rescue-missing-boater-37-miles-off-wrightsville-beach-coast/ https://www.wistv.com/2021/07/07/father-son-rescue-missing-b... Two fishermen see a boat with nobody piloting it, alert the coast guard, follow the breadcrumb trail on the GPS unit, and find the boat's owner. Owner is OK. This story is why you wear the safety disconnect cord, or purchase a cable-less shutoff system that uses an radio-beacon fob you wear. Or, you don't go deep-water solo...
- tobyjsullivan 4y agoPerhaps journalism wasn’t the word I should have used there. What would you call writing about factual events in a way that makes them interesting to read? That said, I don’t think captivating writing is outside the bounds of true journalism. Some might argue that’s what journalism is supposed to be. I.e., “here’s an interesting event and here’s why it’s interesting.”
- puterich123 4y agoThe takeaway here is not “Divine intervention” it's either: A lot of people fall off boats and die while taking a leak, or there are so many people on the ocean, that if you go in a straight line, you're probably going to meet someone.
- tobyjsullivan 4y agoThat’s not the takeaway if either of those things are true. I’m not sure there’s much evidence supporting either of those statements. The ocean is huge. I’m not a religious person so I’d say this is a happy coincidence. And coincidences involving rescues make great stories.
- almog 4y agoOn a tangent — if you were to find a lost Garmin InReach device, Garmin won't let you notify its owner: https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=gpi2lWn8aE0dPyEfx6wQ78 https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=gpi2lWn8aE0dPyEfx6wQ78 Assuming the device has been lost for a while, it's likely that its subscription is over, thus you cannot use it to contact any of the previous owner contacts, which makes sense from privacy perspective, yet I see no reason why Garmin will deliberately not have any process of notifying the owner once your possession of the device has been established
- californical 4y agoI think that makes sense, many people don’t want their contact info given out to someone who happened to find their lost device. If they wanted that, they could always just add a keychain tag with their name and phone number to the device
- bagels 4y agoSimple solution is for Garmin to accept and reship the device since they already know the owner?
- mlyle 4y agoWhich might be too much of a hassle for them to take on for occasional lost devices. But passing on contact info of the finder doesn't seem too bad.
- almog 4y agoI agree and pointed to the fact that it makes sense they wouldn't let you contact the owner directly and added that one solution could have been to have Garmin notify the owner that someone found their device. When I lost my PLB (an emergency only type device) I contacted NOAA to notify them of it so that in case it accidentally gets activated, COSPAS SARSAT won't send an SAR team to the midi pyrenees. Not only did they respond within minutes but they told me that in case someone will find it and contact them, they can share my details (to which I happily agreed).
- killjoywashere 4y agoThe young rescuer, Jack, is a Math major at the Naval Academy!
- benatkin 4y agoIs the author from the UK? "Pile of weed" sounds like marijuana. I would say "pile of weeds". Like "some weed" vs "some weeds". Plus https://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/another-word-for/relieve_oneself.html https://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/another-word-for/relieve_o...
- chad_strategic 4y agoSay what you will… Since I knew it was coming from garmin, I knew the mess I was getting in. Regardless of the mindless hype, the story is compelling as a short story. Everyone once in a while it’s nice to read a mindless self promotional piece in which humanity is on display. Sure beats a personal insurance plan from some science denier quarterback?
- netsharc 4y agoI didn't notice the domain, it made me check my address bar when I got to the end of the sentence: > The boat had a Garmin GPS marine system, and while Andrew said he hadn’t been familiar with Garmin units prior to that, it was easy to use, allowing him to figure it out quickly.
- beardog 4y ago>“We got done and they were like, ‘OK, roger that, Captain,’ and I was waiting for them to say to go find them, but of course they can’t tell you to do that, so we were just like, ‘OK. We’ll go find him.’” Why can't the coast guard tell the first responder to try to find them? As a layperson I thought civilian ships were often coordinated with to help those in distress.
- Zircom 4y agoAs most weird things along those lines in America, I can almost guarantee it's some sort of liability policy. They don't wanna be held responsible if a civilian gets themselves hurt/lost/killed trying to rescue someone, or does the same to the person they're trying to rescue, having being asked to or "ordered" by someone in a perceived position of authority like a coast guard officer.
- beardog 4y agoI was thinking it was comparable to CPR/first aid instructions from 911 calls however seafaring is inherently more risky...
- netsharc 4y agoMakes me wonder if, in this age of Covid, 911 operators would ask callers to perform CPR. Even a "Do you know how to perform CPR" might be interpreted as an instruction to do so.
- ghaff 4y agoIt makes a lot of sense to me in this case. As you suggest, even a "if you don't mind" from the Coast Guard could very reasonably be taken as a polite order which they may not have the authority to do in this case. >They don't wanna be held responsible if a civilian gets themselves hurt/lost/killed trying to rescue someone, That seems like a not unreasonable concern even if there was probably no material danger in this case.
- nradov 4y ago
- marstall 4y agotight writing, Garmin.com!
- aerodog 4y ago“To me, that’s divine intervention,” Andrew said. https://quran.com/17/67 https://quran.com/17/67 "When you are touched with hardship at sea, you ˹totally˺ forget all ˹the gods˺ you ˹normally˺ invoke, except Him. But when He delivers you ˹safely˺ to shore, you turn away. Humankind is ever ungrateful."
- jollofricepeas 4y agoThis is such a great quote to describe the human condition. Tarantino should have used this for Pulp Fiction instead of Ezekiel 25:17. It would have said so much more about the character of Jules.
- interfixus 4y agoIf ˹He˺ will consider not letting all the grim stuff happen in the first place, I will get cracking on my gratitude project.
- sandworm101 4y ago>> Sascha had gone to the side to relieve himself and simply fell overboard. He’d reached for the railing to grab it on the way down, but he missed. And that was it — his boat sped away without him, nearly 40 miles away from shore. There is an old story told about how most drowning victims are found with their fly open... drunk people peeing into the water slip and fall into that water. I don't know anything about this particular incident, but peeing off a dock or over the edge of a boat is always dangerous. You are doing something very routine at the point where land meets water. Even without alcohol/drugs, overconfidence with a routine task quickly leads to big mistakes. (I saw similar incidents with people who decided pee over the edge of cliffs. Don't do that.)
- mozman 4y ago... where should you pee?
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> where should you pee? The head. If there isn’t one, give a buddy a heads up.
- jacurtis 4y agoIn this case there was no buddy either. Really if you ever need to go the edge of the boat you should be tied in. This is especially true with sailboats since you often work at the edge of the boat doing things like pulling lines or other actions where you can easily lose balance or the boat can quickly shift. If you are sailing in open water like this, miles from shore, especially solo, you should be tying yourself whenever you go to the edge of the boat. This is standard equipment on most boats, a full-body harness (often intergrated with an CO2 inflated life vest and water activated beacon). There is a big industrial caribiner style clip you clip onto the railing or similar with so that if you fall overboard you can pull yourself back. The rig is similar to what you would wear while roofing a house. This applies to all offshore boating, but if you are ever boating solo, even more precaution should be taken to do this.
- 4y ago
- Hendrikto 4y ago> had the Garmin technology been less intuitive for an unfamiliar boater in a stressful situation — this story could’ve ended so much differently. Absolutely shameless…
- JumpCrisscross 4y agoIsn’t this what we want marketing to be? Informative, empirical and helpful?
- pauldprice 4y agoIf I were an SEO manager, Garmin would be the dream job. They get so much excellent content with real, meaningful stories to tell. This article is pure SEO gold.
- kylehotchkiss 4y agoThe inreach rescues always sound like they’d make for good movie plots!
- rossjudson 4y agoThey sure garmined this with their garmins! Makes me wonder if I should be garmining too. I might miss a garmin if I don't.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- willyt 4y agoThis guy was incredibly lucky. Wear a life jacket. Carry a means of calling for help on your person. Ideally a Personal Locator Beacon (>£150), a handheld marine VHF radio (>£75), at least a phone in a waterproof pouch. In water less than 15ºC[0] average life expectancy follows very roughly a rule of threes. Three minutes without a life jacket, 30 mins without suitable warm clothing, 3 hrs without a life raft, 3 days without water and 3 weeks without food. I volunteer for a marine SAR unit and people fall in and die from causes 1 and 2 on that list all the time, at least once a year just in our patch. [0] Eg pretty much all U.K. waters pretty much all the time.
- aqme28 4y agoI didn’t learn until late in life that you’re not dying of hypothermia in that water as I’d always been lead to believe. Your muscles get too cold to respond and you just drown. Horrifying.
- jvanderbot 4y agoDoes regular warm clothing keep you warm in 15c water or are you referring to a wetsuit or equivalent?
- 7hr0w2w2y9988 4y agoProbably a wetsuit or survival suit are the only relevant clothing to help with a prolonged submersion situation
- mb7733 4y agoYour general point is totally valid -- cold water is dangerous. But your survival times for 15C are ridiculously pessimistic. 15C is just not that cold! The table here shows longer expected survival times than that even at 0C: https://seagrant.umn.edu/programs/recreation-and-water-safety-program/hypothermia#graphics https://seagrant.umn.edu/programs/recreation-and-water-safet... Survival even without floatation at 15C is measured in hours.
- willyt 4y ago
- SergeAx 4y agoThere's a joke among sailors that more than a half of male's corpses fished out from the sea has their pants zipper open. This man was extremely lucky, but at the same time quite foolish. There are number of ways to relieve oneself without risking one's life. Less of those on a motorboat where you don't have standing rigging, but still.
- golem14 4y agoWhat a great ad campaign by garmin!
- noisy_boy 4y agoHow about adding sensors to a boat to detect if any passengers are onboard and cut-off engine if there are none? Could be a combination of weight/proximity/motion etc. Disclaimer: I know nothing about boat tech.
- JensRantil 4y agoNot sure it's a very ethical to do marketing based on someone's close-encounter.
- ajani 4y agoSummary of the story: Garmin to the rescue: Buy Garmin, and if ever you fall overboard, Garmin’s intuitive touchscreen interface will ensure that someone will find you. Buy Garmin, save your life !