Trawler Blogs

Envoy is currently in Lefkas marina, western Greece, while we are home in New Zealand.
We plan to return to Envoy in September.
You’re cruising along the coastline enjoying idyllic conditions and keeping watch as your autopilot does its work. Your boat has a gentle motion in the slight seas and you sniff the aroma from your mug of fresh coffee, ever hopeful of hearing the screaming zing of your trolling line’s reel.
The last thing on your mind is having to suddenly abandon your vessel, but at sea the unexpected can and does occur, especially during night time, and you should always be prepared for dealing with emergencies such as collision with another vessel, hitting a heavy floating or semi-submerged object, striking a rock or reef, going aground, fire, capsize, or taking on water. It’s easy to say these situations couldn’t happen to me, but Coastguard incident records tell a different story, and whether you’re aboard a high speed trailer boat or a 20 metre cruiser a little forethought and preparation will improve your chances of success in dealing with an emergency.
Most emergency situations are either resolved or kept under control until assistance arrives using your own safety equipment:
– Correctly installed and regularly tested bilge pumps of adequate capacity
– Fire fighting equipment including an engine room extinguishing system, strategically located high capacity fire extinguishers and fire blankets
– A comprehensive tool kit including tools to quickly make and secure emergency patches
– A repair kit including a selection of soft wooden plugs to use as bungs, small sheets of plywood and aluminium to make patches, sealant, duct tape, hose repair kit and hose clamps

Abandoning ship is an action taken only after all other options are exhausted – as old salts say – you step up into a life raft not down into one. It’s safer to stay aboard your boat even half-full of water than taking to a dinghy in open waters, and you will be easier to locate and rescue; many vessels have been found floating long after being abandoned.
However situations arise, particularly serious fires and imminent sinking, where there is no option but to leave the vessel. Most vessels over about seven metres in length carry a tender, and as few coastal cruisers carry certified life rafts the tender is the primary means of escape and survival. Most tenders used today are RHIBs and will stay afloat even in very adverse conditions, but if your tender is aluminium or wooden consider installing watertight, foam-filled compartments.
If your tender is being towed or carried on a boarding platform it should be possible to deploy quickly. However towing tenders is unwise in rough or potentially rough conditions as they can overturn or become swamped. Larger tenders requiring a crane to lift them are difficult to launch quickly in the event of fire, sudden sinking, power failure or rough seas, and it’s worth having a second smaller tender available for rapid manual launching in event of an emergency.

Our larger RHIB shown below would be impossible to launch using the crane from Envoy’s boat deck quickly in an emergency, so we also carry a smaller RHIB that can be launched by hand

All boats should have a Grab Bag (or Ditch Bag) in case you have to abandon ship quickly, and these are available from most chandlers. It should be immediately recognisable, and have a line attached to reduce the chance of loss while abandoning ship. Although you are most likely to be rescued within a short time, victims sometimes spend overnight or longer in their RHIB, so Grab Bags typically have the following contents (packed in individual plastic bags to keep them dry):
– Hand-held VHF radio in a waterproof case with spare batteries
– Fully-charged mobile phone in waterproof case, preferably with spare battery
– EPIRB
– Hand bearing compass
– Binoculars
– Orange safety square
– First aid kit
– Fresh water
– Snack food
– Hand held searchlight and waterproof torches with spare batteries
– Strobe light and spare batteries
– Flares kit
– Air horn
– Whistle
– Signaling mirror
– RHIB repair kit
– Sharp knife
– Length of line
– Rescue quoit with floating line
– Sun hats, sunglasses, sun block, lip screen
– Notebook and pencil
– Thermal blankets
– Toilet roll

This list assumes that the crew is already suitably dressed for the conditions, including life jackets and footwear in case of landing on a rocky shore.
Some Grab Bag items such as your mobile phone may be in regular use – so keep these conveniently located to add later if necessary.
When we do passages at night, or in heavy weather or a long distance offshore we keep our Grab Bag, lifejackets, RHIB pump and all other necessary items together in the saloon or cockpit so they’re available immediately if needed.

These comments are related to coastal, not offshore cruising – for which considerably more extensive preparation and equipping is required.
The next posting will be about living aboard your vessel in marinas.