Snowballs and sailing SAFETY

I am not a cold weather sailor. Frostbiting has never been my thing. I've sailed a big boat in the snow just once and I see no reason to repeat the experience. While I try to avoid the snow, I definitely focus on avoiding snowBALLS. Snowballs are little tiny problems that somehow create slightly larger problems, which cause other problems to grow and multiply, and suddenly you and your crew are in real peril.

There is an old proverb that has many variations, but it goes something like this: "For want of a nail the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe the horse was lost. For want of a horse the rider was lost. For want of the rider a kingdom was lost. And all for the want of a nail." For sailboats. substitute "For lack of a cotter pin the rig was lost." Details matter, and the farther offshore you go, the more those details matter. After all, if you don't have a aprt or a tool while you're out there, you ain't gonna get it. Amazon delivery drones don't go that far. Yet.

When I coached the SUNY Maritime College Offshore team, I learned a phrase from the cadets: "Error Chain Recognition". In other fields, some call it Root Cause Analysis. The concept is used in maritime disaster analysis. Sometimes a disaster stems from a series of decisions made decades before. Then later decisions or actions and inactions (in hindsight) compound the error until something tragic occurs.

In a recent report about a sinking during the Newport-Bermuda Race, a series of actions and inactions by previous owners left the yacht (unbeknownst to the current owner, and possibly the previous owner) structurally vulnerable. The boat started leaking at the hull-keel joint. The crew was able to keep up with the leak by running the engine to keep the batteries charged so the bilge pumps could hold the water level down. The rough seas (which were fairly typical conditions for that race), however, stirred up a bunch of "gunk" in the fuel tank and eventually the engine stopped working. Shortly thereafter, the decision was made to abandon the boat. Fortunately the crew, but not the yacht, survived. In my view, the snowball effect could have been stopped had the fuel tanks been cleaned and the fuel properly "polished" (A term for running the fuel through an external filter several times to remove impurities that cause just the kind of thing that happened in this case). For lack of a polish the engine was lost. For lack of an engine the yacht was lost.

When I teach offshore safety at the Storm Trysail Club Hands-On Adult Safety at Sea (something I've been doing for over a decade), I always talk about "Stopping the snowball." A classic example I use is a Man Overboard situation. Nothing induces panic and "snowball growth" like crew in the water. "All hands on deck!" is called, and everyone rushes topside to help but they aren't wearing shoes or their PFD's and then someone gashes their foot and falls overboard and now there are TWO people in the water, along with a shark's "dinner bell". That's a vivid example of a snowball effect.

As an aside, I always preach that boat shoes are the cheapest and best safety equipment you can buy. I advise that sailors buy a new pair every year and ONLY wear them on the boat. Not the marina parking lot, or the beach. ONLY ON THE BOAT. And no barefoot sailors allowed EVER.

Pay attention to the little things before they become big things. "STOP. THINK. THEN ACT" when things start going wrong. Don't let the snowball gain momentum.