Overboard Rescue: Parbuckle/Ladder 4

I’ve been asked about the results of my testing. In case you need catch up, here are the links:
Overboard Rescue: A Parbuckle/Ladder
Overboard Rescue: Parbuckle/Ladder 2
Overboard Rescue: Parbuckle/Ladder 3

In October, I had the boat in Lake Washington. The water wasn’t really that much warmer than Puget Sound, so I wore a wetsuit for my testing. I had my kids aboard, and the boat was tied up to the dock. I climbed down into the water and pretended to be in distress.

My older daughter, age 7, was barely able to open up the Lifesling bag and pull the collar out of the bag. She threw it as hard as she could off the boat, which meant that it landed…well…right alongside the boat. I swam over to it and lifted it over my head, getting it under my shoulders. So far, so good.

She was able to deploy the parbuckle/ladder without too much trouble. Because of the way it accordions back and forth in its storage cubby, and it being a net, essentially, it got hung up. But she got it out and flopped it into the water in fairly short order.

I tried to get aboard the boat three different ways. I’ve got to be honest: the parbuckle/ladder was the most difficult of the three! It worked, but it wouldn’t be my first choice. Sorry there aren’t any pictures…I was busy trying to rescue myself. Here’s a summary:

Easiest: use the swim ladder hanging off the transom swim step. It makes sense that this would be easiest, and in calm conditions this is the way to get aboard. I have heard that these swim steps can be dangerous in rough weather, hammering up and down unpredictably near the POB’s head and such. Also, crew will have a more difficult time assisting you without endangering themselves, at least on my boat, because they have to climb partially out of the cockpit into the motor well to reach you.

Second best: Straddle the anti-cavitation wings on the engine and give it a big hug, reaching around to actuate the hydraulic engine lift. Ride the motor up until it stops, then tumble into the boat. This actually works. It isn’t entirely pleasant, but it will lift you out of the water. Getting from the engine into the boat may produce some cuts and bruises, but for self-rescue, especially if you’re too cold or fatigued to climb out, this is the way to go. I’m really glad I tried it out under these conditions. Obligatory bone-headed safety note: Do not approach boat propellers attached to engines that are running. Also, in heavy weather this mode of rescue is at least as hazardous as the swim step. Lots of head-bonking potential here.

Third best: The parbuckle/ladder. It worked, OK? It just needs a little refinement is all. Here’s the problem: any soft ladder wastes some of your lifting energy pushing the ladder AWAY from your center of gravity rather than pushing your center of gravity UP. Make sense? On a shallow-draft boat like the C-Dory, this means you stick your feet into some loops of the net, give a good push, and…you push your feet underneath the boat, and lift your body a tiny little bit out of the water.

Once you figure out how to make a little more upward progress, you run into a secondary problem: With your weight carried by the lower portion of the ladder, the upper portion is pulled taught, flat against the side of the hull. There’s no easy way to get your free foot into a new, higher “rung” of the ladder! This, too, can be overcome, but I’d hate to have to figure it out while in peril for my life…better to practice at the dock on a calm day.

The trick is to place both your feet before you start to climb. Put one foot in the lower portion, put the other foot into a loop up high…much too high for you to actually use it for climbing (yet). Then extend the lower leg, gaining some height, change your hand grip, and use the upper leg to gain some more height. Once you’ve made it this far, your upper foot is holding the net out away from the boat, and you can get a purchase with your free foot. Soon, you’ll get your arms over the gunwale, and you can scramble your way into the boat.

I’m telling you, this is NOT that easy, though.

So what’s next? Well, we didn’t get a chance to test the “parbuckle” function. Need an adult for that. And realistically, that’s a long shot. Still, it’s worth testing. Perhaps next summer.

I could retire the parbuckle/ladder from rescue duty and have George Broom’s Sons install more webbing, making it a super-comfy cockpit hammock. It already gets a lot of use as a hammock. Worth every penny as a hammock alone, in fact.

Or, I could improve it. To really make it work, it would require stand-offs to allow hands and feet to find purchase while climbing. Ideally, it would also be a bit more rigid than it is. But all of a sudden, it’s become something different. It’s become a plain old boarding ladder!

So I think I’ll leave it as-is for now, use it the way I have been, wait for summer to test the parbuckling option, and look at folding boarding ladder options.