The quick turn is the traditional response to a man overboard emergency on a sailboat. Despite many new approaches, it is still a robust strategy and often the best method. Certainly when the crew is short handed, or when the vessel is in heavy weather, the quick turn method has a lot of merit because it avoids a jibe.
As is shown in the drawing, the quick turn is essentially a figure eight. On a sailboat it consists of the following steps:
- Change course to a beam reach and hold for 15 seconds
- Head into the wind and tack, leave the jib fluttering
- Veer off until the boat is at a broad reach
- Turn upwind until the vessel is pointing at the victim; at this point the vessel should be on a close reach.
- Slacken the mainsail until the vessel comes to a stop with the victim in the lee side of the boat
No comment on this
Read more about this topic: Man Overboard Rescue Turn
Famous quotes containing the words quick and/or turn:
“Bunched upside down, they sleep in air.
Their sharp ears, their sharp teeth, their quick sharp faces
Are dull and slow and mild.
All the bright day, as the mother sleeps,
She folds her wings about her sleeping child.”
—Randall Jarrell (1914–1965)
“Your hand
skilled to yield death-blows, might break
With the slightest turn no ill will meant
my own lesser, yet still somewhat fine-wrought,
fiery-tempered, delicate, over-passionate steel.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)