Re: [Cal_Boats] Farlonne Islands MOB disaster.

<An additional point not mentioned that a friend of mine related to me. She was wearing an inflatable life vest. In a race going from port rail to starboard rail she overshot and went in the water. The interesting thing is that when her life vest inflated, she was at eye level to the bottom of the keel. > I had the opposite experience. I was racing to the leeward rail to keep from "chumming" from the high side and as I reached the leeward lifeline to release my "technicolor yawn" my inflator strap got hung on something and my life vest inflated so tight around my neck that the remainder of my scrambled eggs got all over my vest giving me a wonderful aroma of stomach acid and eggs that you don't soon forget. I was seasick for 29 hours which makes me laugh at the best description of seasickness I ever heard "the first 4 hours you are afraid you are going to die, after that you're afraid death won't come soon enough" Paul

Yea, about the only thing I have seen that was worse than sea-sickness was sea-sickness combined with sheer terror. I was on the first crew (plank-owner) on a new pre-commissioned destroyer that was at Ingalls shipyard in Mississippi 1979: DD-985. She was getting finished out with a new crew & half of us were out of A-school or bootcamp. That half of the crew (like me) had never even seen a ship. I came from Missouri & had no idea what to expect when hurricane Fredric decided to come in. All the ships that could move, finished or not, crew experience or not scattered to keep from getting badly damaged against the docks. A hurricane was my first experience at sea & got my attention. Luckily we did not lose anyone. Couple years later we had a guy in the Indian Ocean say he was tired of the crap & said he was going home. Jumped over the side & started swimming for home. All hell broke lose as the ship went into a (well practiced) man overboard maneuver. Twenty minutes of looking for the guy did not turn anything up. This is with a ship COVERED with people on the rails with a two story high vantage point over the water. Some were higher & lots of us had binoculars as well. After the helicopter we had on on board searched for about another 45 minutes, they finally found him. Took a helicopter 45 minutes to find the guy on a clear sunny day and flat sea. We lost 2 of the crew to various causes while I was aboard for just two years. After recounting some of these stories to the wife, she quit thinking I was being over cautious about safety gear on the boat & is now happy I am. Does not take a race to the Farallons to claim somebody.... Be safe - Dyer =============================================================================== I had the opposite experience. I was racing to the leeward rail to keep from "chumming" from the high side and as I reached the leeward lifeline to release my "technicolor yawn" my inflator strap got hung on something and my life vest inflated so tight around my neck that the remainder of my scrambled eggs got all over my vest giving me a wonderful aroma of stomach acid and eggs that you don't soon forget. I was seasick for 29 hours which makes me laugh at the best description of seasickness I ever heard "the first 4 hours you are afraid you are going to die, after that you're afraid death won't come soon enough" Paul .

Been there, got the tee shirt. It passes. My Best, Mike From: "pw… [at] aol.com" <pw… [at] aol.com> To: Ca… [at] yahoogroups.com Sent: Friday, April 20, 2012 9:43 AM Subject: Re: [Cal_Boats] Farlonne Islands MOB disaster. <An additional point not mentioned that a friend of mine related to me. She was wearing an inflatable life vest. In a race going from port rail to starboard rail she overshot and went in the water. The interesting thing is that when her life vest inflated, she was at eye level to the bottom of the keel. > I had the opposite experience. I was racing to the leeward rail to keep from "chumming" from the high side and as I reached the leeward lifeline to release my "technicolor yawn" my inflator strap got hung on something and my life vest inflated so tight around my neck that the remainder of my scrambled eggs got all over my vest giving me a wonderful aroma of stomach acid and eggs that you don't soon forget. I was seasick for 29 hours which makes me laugh at the best description of seasickness I ever heard "the first 4 hours you are afraid you are going to die, after that you're afraid death won't come soon enough" Paul