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MOB - Throwing Smoke?

3K views 20 replies 7 participants last post by  MarkofSeaLife 
#1 ·
Just watching a TV doco on a UK warship when they had a Man Overboard. They immediately fired a few smoke grenades.

I have never thought about this.

I have floating smoke flares and could easily keep one in the cockpit table locker.

On TV it certainly made it easy to see the location of the MOB.

Thoughts for using it on sailing boats?


Mark
 
#4 ·
Personal AIS/DSC. Smoke and strobes and such belong with hemp and tar and the likes.

Someone goes overboard, the DSC screams in the boat, and the chartplotter shows the AIS target exactly where the person is at all times. Even plots a course back to them. And alerts any other boat in range of the condition.

That last bit might be the only saving of a single hander overboard.

Besides, smoke requires someone to see you go overboard, which is pretty much 90% of the recovery. I'd rather that person immediately stop the boat than spend time digging out a bomb, activating it, and trying to throw it in my direction.

Mark
 
#5 ·
Sounds like a pretty good idea to me. In tall seas, it’s pretty easy to lose sight, even if you watch them go over.

Know a guy that crossed the North Atlantic to Europe and had a bright yellow horseshoe collar blow off the rail. Says they watched it happen. When it went over the first wave set in seconds, they never saw it again. Same color and size as a MOB head and pfd.

We have a MOB marker on the chartplotter, but that’s fixed and not drifting. The newer personal AIS MOB technology is cool, if it works, nobody’s batteries die or fail to communicate, etc. Smoke seems pretty foolproof. It also has the advantage of eyes out of the cockpit, looking for the mob, rather than on a screen.
 
#6 ·
I like the MOB: Hit the MOB button, Scream for crew, throw over anything that floats I can reach, start the engine, roll up the jib, all while trying to keep my eye on that person and begin to turn the boat around.

I don't really care for the MOB: Hmmm.... hurl flaming projectiles, release the Kracken, man the jib pump.

Seriously, I suppose if there are multiple crew members one persons job could be to find, activate and throw smoke producing floaters. For most of us who double or triple hand in reasonable coastal conditions it would be wiser to stick to more important stuff.

Then again, I'm sitting in my kitchen, in by boxers, drinking coffee. WTF do I know?
 
#7 ·
I like the MOB: Hit the MOB button, Scream for crew, throw over anything that floats I can reach, start the engine, roll up the jib, all while trying to keep my eye on that person and begin to turn the boat around.
Yessss

The check-list is getting huge.

And when the mob dies and you're court the judge asks "what about Step 346? Did you raise an orange flag? Why not?" all without taking your eye off the mob.

In the TV show of their MOB they had about 30 people all with their arms out pointing towards the person, many with binoculars. With a crew of 300 you can do more than us.

It was an extraordinary bit of vision. They deployed a rib and it took them an hour to do a crew count and determain it was a foisting tree trunk that the rib crew thought was human till they were 10 meters off.
 
#11 ·
Professional sailors, who are the best equipped to see a person go overboard, and be able to stop the boat fast and get to the person in the water, don't stand around pointing and dropping smoke bombs. They use personal AIS/DSC for a reason. Nobody goes on deck without one.

Fears of batteries dying and devices failing to communicate is unfounded, and no examples exist. Nobody questions their epirb in this manner, and then decides to stick with signaling mirrors and hand flares.

Mark

 
#13 · (Edited)
You might want to do a MOB drill with the CG for a passenger vessel's annual COI before you make such a bold statement about professional sailors.
After the MOB alert has been sounded, one person must be designated to watch and point to the MOB until recovery. Fail to do that and you fail the drill. No cute little electronic device for the USCG.
 
#14 ·
OK, I didn't mean pointing wasn't a good thing to do at all, but a personal AIS/DSC is a far more effective way of knowing someone has gone overboard, keeping track of a person in the water, and getting back to them in the quickest manner. I can't believe this is being argued.

I was referring to professional racing sailors on relatively small boats, not Coast Guard crew on large boats.

Pointing might be fine on a boat full of people, but if I go overboard, I don't want Michele sitting around pointing at me. I don't think we are unusual in being a short handed cruising boat, which is what MarkJ (the OP) is also.

How much pointing gets done when the other person on board is asleep? A DSC alarm with tracking on plotter and phone/tablet makes situational awareness immediate - the crew is notified and has a recovery route before they can even get out of bed.

As for passenger vessels like your crewed charter, how do you get your passengers to comply with procedures (and CG drill rules) they likely know little about, let alone practiced? Does the CG require routine passengers on board for these test drills? If there are just two of you as crew, it seems downright silly to put the only other person who can run the boat on pointing duty.

I'd be surprised if the CG didn't see the value of a personal AIS/DSC over pointing and smoke bombs. However, it wouldn't be the first time they were drug out of old establishments and into better ways.

Feel free to point and throw smoke bombs all you want. Don't be surprised if those are the last things you see when you go over.

Mark
 
#17 ·
A personal PLB or AIS is a very good idea. They aren't foolproof. For starters, whomever is still in the cockpit needs to be practiced on what the signal will look like on the screen of their particular plotter. Then have the kind of situational awareness, with no land features, to return to it. I'd find it easy, I bet my wife would not. Most boaters I know would not. Goodness, the last buddy I asked to read me his gps position over the vhf, game me a position that was 3 miles inland. He must have moved his cursor. He's not a dolt, but I'd claim him as fairly average.

Pesonal AIS are also line of sight, so not sure how constant the signal would be in large waves.

Here's a good article, albeit a couple of years dated:

https://www.panbo.com/testing-ais-mob-beacons-acr-dsc/

Smoke would be an excellent tool to help get the boat visually back to the neighborhood. Obviously, one of the worlds greatest Navies thinks so and, as I read the link to the rail mounted version, it seems certain commercial vessels even require it. It's only on a web forum would it be argued. Smoke does not have to be one's only tool.
 
#18 ·
I have done a couple of MOB recoveries with passengers on board. Actually how I hooked up with my wife.

Any way, focussing on one incident, I was sailing as Mate on a Passenger vessel. Boat listed to starboard and skipper asked me to check out what the comotion was. Went out to Bridge wing and saw several hundred passengers pointing at a person in in the water. Turns out it was a suicide atempt off a passing ferry.

Any way, she was recovered,

Passengers were not given any instruction to point, nor were instructions needed. Seemed like human nature.

My 18 month old daughter can't really speak (eat, way, dog, paw patrol), but she certainly knows how to point to draw my attention to whatever she wants.

I think you would almost have to train passengers not to point at a man over board.
 
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