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Old 03-13-2009
NCC320 NCC320 is offline
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I don't sail at sea, so don't have, nor have ever used one. However, when I was in the Navy, we frequently conducted man overboard drills and also from time to time, made personnel transfers between ships using a 26 ft. motorboat. In open sea (not storm conditions), there are frequently significant swells. Sometimes, that motorboat would drop completely out of sight from the second level on the ship as it motored across the water. In the man overboard drills, keeping sight of the man (dummy) was difficult. Add swells or significant waves, and you could loose sight of the man. The man overboard poles have the red/yellow flag suspended above the water, and would, it seems to me, be much easier to spot than a person in the water with only his head sticking above the surface.
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