Emergencies

Make sure you are wearing your lifejacket or personal flotation device (PFD) before the emergency happens!

• Read more about rescue and distress emergency equipment and how to signal or call for help
• Overboard recovery techniques
• Surviving in cold water
• Reacting to a fire

Overboard recovery techniques

Knowing and practicing the following procedures with your guests will lessen panicked moments in an emergency.

If someone falls overboard, sound the alarm immediately and then:

• Slow down, stop if possible and throw something buoyant to assist the person (this will also mark the spot if the person submerges).
• Assign someone to monitor the person overboard.
• Carefully manoeuvre to recover the person overboard.

Use a buoyant heaving line, or a lifebuoy secured to the vessel with a line, and recover the person from the windward side. A heavy rope, chain or cable secured at both ends and draped over the side (almost touching the water) can provide a makeshift step if necessary. If the freeboard of your boat is more than 0.5 metres (1’8”) you must have a reboarding device.

Sailors and power boaters should be familiar with different overboard recovery techniques and consider how effectively these manoeuvres can be performed, with such things as sea-state and condition of the person overboard in mind.

Could you retrieve a person from water if they could not assist in their own recovery? If you fell overboard, could your guests lift you to safety? When someone’s size or when the freeboard of the vessel makes it difficult to carry out a rescue by hand, equipment such as lifting slings and rigging may be a good idea (if not already mandatory for your size of vessel).

In certain weather conditions, and on some boats, wearing a safety harness with a quick release mechanism and a safety line secured to your boat would be wise. This keeps you from falling overboard unless, of course, your boat capsizes. Knowing and practicing the following procedures with your guests will lessen panicked moments in an emergency.

Surviving in cold water

It is a warm day — you are on your boat and get up to grab something. Suddenly you lose your balance and teeter off the side, falling into water that is less than 15°C.

Your muscles are instantly paralyzed and there is no one around to help you. You are experiencing cold shock. There is no time to figure things out.

Cold water shock likely causes more deaths than hypothermia. Canada’s typically cold waters are especially dangerous if you are unexpectedly immersed in them. For three to five minutes after sudden immersion you will gasp for breath. You could also experience muscle spasms or a rise in your heart rate and blood pressure. Worse yet, you could choke on water or suffer a heart attack or a stroke. Even strong swimmers can succumb to the effects of cold water shock.

Cold water can paralyze your muscles instantly. Trying to get a hold of a device while in the water, let alone putting one on, will be nearly impossible because of the physiological changes your body will be experiencing.

A lifejacket or personal flotation device (PFD) will keep you afloat while you gain control of breathing and prevent drowning from loss of muscle control. Sadly, many people do not understand this danger and how to avoid it.

If you have survived the shock of cold water, hypothermia is the next danger.

Hypothermia is a drop in core body temperature below the normal level that occurs from a prolonged exposure to cold weather, particularly in watersoaked clothing or from direct immersion. At this lower temperature a person’s muscle and mental functions are affected. Someone who is exposed to cold water, and becoming hypothermic, can exhibit progressive signs and symptoms such as:

• Shivering, slurred speech and semi consciousness
• Slow and weak pulse, slow respiration, lack of coordination, irrational, confused and sleepy behaviour
• Weak, irregular or absent pulse or respiration
• Loss of consciousness

If you end up in the water, do everything you can to conserve energy and body heat. Swim only if you can join others or reach a safe haven. Do not swim to keep warm.

Extend your survival time by:

• Wearing a Canadian-approved lifejacket or PFD. Valuable energy will be lost keeping your head above water if you are not wearing one.
• Climbing onto a nearby floating object to get as much of your body out of or above the water as possible.
• If possible, adopt a heat escape lessening position: cross your arms tightly against your chest and draw your knees up close to them.
• Huddle with others and make sure the sides of everyone’s chest are close together, with arms around mid to lower back and legs intertwined.

Protect yourself by wearing a lifejacket or PFD, multiple light layers of dry clothing and a water or wind-proof outer layer. Other equipment that comes in a variety of styles and names, and provides additional protection from hypothermia include:

• Floater or survival suits: a full nose-to-toes PFD
• Anti-exposure worksuits: a PFD with a thermal protection rating
• Dry suits: to be used with a flotation device and a thermal liner
• Wet suits: to be used with a flotation device, traps and heats water against the body
• Immersion suits: to be used in extreme conditions when abandoning a vessel (usually for off-shore use)

Knowing how your safety equipment works, especially in water, is a good idea. Test it in a warm swimming pool or in calm water before you may have to use it in an emergency.

If there is warning your boat may be sinking, put on as much clothing as possible beneath your lifejacket or PFD.

Survival in Cold Waters (2003) - TP 13822
Detailed information on cold shock, swimming failure and hypothermia

Reacting to a fire

If a small fire erupts, activate a fire extinguisher and direct it at the base of the flames. Sweep the discharge nozzle from side to side and continue doing this for a few seconds after the flames are completely extinguished. Otherwise, the fire may re-ignite and you may not have enough extinguishing agent left to put it out again.

If your boat is in motion when a fire starts, position it so the fire is downwind from you and stop the engine if it is safe to do so under the weather conditions.

Make sure everyone is wearing a flotation device, use extinguishers to control the fire and, if safe to do so, shut-off the fuel source.

The Small Vessel Regulations do not address automatic extinguishing systems some pleasure craft may carry. Even if your pleasure craft has this type of system it must carry the portable extinguishers indicated in the Minimum Required Equipment section. More information on the care and maintenance of fire extinguishers is available from ULC or the manufacturer.