Browsing: man overboard

Cruising Life
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Man Overboard from World’s Largest Cruise Ship

A 19-year-old college student, on vacation with a group of friends, somehow fell off the world’s largest cruise ship off the Coast of Cuba last week and has not been found. Sigmund Ropich is from Texas but he was attending college in Washington State. He fell off the Wonder of the Seas about 9 at night on the second day of a seven-day cruise from Port Canaveral in Florida. The ship measures 1,188 feet long and was carrying 5,606 passengers and 2,300 crew on its 18 decks. Royal Caribbean International, which owns the ship, said, “The ship’s crew immediately launched…

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MOB from Cruise Liner Rescued after 15 Hours

A 28-year-old man spent about 15 hours in the Gulf of Mexico after he fell off the Carnival Valor cruise ship before he was rescued. A passing container ship spotted him in the water, waving a sock over his head, and a Coast Guard helicopter lifted him to safety. The Coast Guard rescue swimmer said that the man, James Grimes, was at the end of his rope and probably had just minutes left to live. Grimes was on board the Carnival Valor with his parents and his sister for a Thanksgiving holiday cruise from New Orleans to Cozumel, Mexico. The Carnival…

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Anatomy of a Man Overboard Fatality

Here’s a MARS report case study about the death of a man who fell overboard while rigging the pilot ladder on a commercial ship. MARS is the Mariners’ Alerting and Reporting Scheme, a confidential reporting system run by The Nautical Institute to allow full reporting of accidents without fear of identification or litigation. As a result, there are no names or details. But the report, printed in Marine Insight, is eye-opening for anyone going offshore: A bulk carrier in ballast was making way at 7 knots in a traffic separation scheme (TSS). The pilot ladder was being prepared on the…

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Captain Falls Overboard, Rescued After 4 Hours

The captain of a commercial fishing boat who fell overboard at night without a life jacket was rescued four hours later by a good Samaritan boat about 12 miles off Panama City, Florida. The people who rescued him said he didn’t even seem to be out of breath. The drama started at 3:47 a.m. Sunday when a crewman on the fishing boat Fiona Leone woke up and realized that the captain was not at the wheel, or anywhere else on the boat. He had fallen overboard, and the boat was on autopilot. The crewman issued a Mayday call on Channel…

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New Compact ThrowRaft PFD: Easy To Store, Easy To Use

Here’s something that you might want to get for your boat, or even for your ditch bag: The new ThrowRaft compact, throwable Personal Flotation Device that inflates into a life-saving “raft” in seconds. It’s approved by the Coast Guard as a Type IV PFD, meaning it must be immediately accessible on the boat and can be thrown to a person in the water to keep him or her afloat until rescued. One appealing feature of the ThrowRaft is its compact size. It’s much smaller than the traditional Type IV PFDs – buoy rings or seat cushions. Since it’s small, measuring…

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Six of the Best Personal Survival Devices for Your Boat. Make Sure You Have One

There are few choices you make about your boat that are potentially more important than finding the right survival device, the personal locator beacon or MOB equipment that could save your life, or the life of anyone else on board. And there’s no reason to postpone getting one or more of these; they generally are the least costly piece of electronics on board, by a long shot. But what to buy? Here’s some advice from Marine Electronics Journal, which asked manufacturers to submit what they consider the best and brightest in their product line. The Journal published a review of…

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Man Overboard: How a 60-Year-Old Fisherman Survived 20 Hours in the Gulf of Mexico Without a Life Jacket

Here’s a great story from Prevention about how one man survived 20 hours at sea after he fell overboard from his fishing boat, 25 miles from shore in the Gulf of Mexico, without a life jacket, by treading water and using his old Navy training: Bill Durden was on a roll. He’d just caught two good-sized groupers and tossed his line back into the water when he felt it snag on the bottom of his boat. The engine, he realized, wasn’t in neutral. Durden gave the rod a good tug. It yanked him right back, pulling him out of his…

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British Woman Survives 10 Hours at Night in Adriatic After Falling Off Cruise Ship

A 46-year-old British woman sang songs and kept herself awake for ten hours after she fell off a cruise liner in the Adriatic Sea before she was rescued by the Croatian Coast Guard. The woman, Kay Longstaff, who lives in Spain, said she fell off the back of the Norwegian Star, a 965-foot-long cruise liner that holds 2,348 passengers. She did not give any other details, but she told CNN, “I’m very lucky to be alive.” The Croatian Coast Guard says she fell off the ship at 11:45 p.m. The ship’s captain alerted the Coast Guard of the situation and…

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Woman Taking Selfie Falls 15 Decks off a Cruise Ship at Night off the Bahamas. Crew Rescues Her. See Video

A woman taking a selfie fell 15 decks off her cruise ship balcony into the water near the Bahamas at night, but quick action by the captain and crew of the Norwegian Epic liner saved her life. Passengers said they could hear her screaming as she fell. It was about nine at night, with many passengers still eating dinner, when the announcement “Code Oscar portside” came three times over the intercom. The ship, which had been at cruise speed, came to a stop, turned around and launched a tender. Passengers watched as the boat searched in the darkness, using searchlights,…

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After Falling Overboard in the Middle of the Night Off Sumatra, Brett Archibald is Found Fading, but Alive, 28 Hours Later

If you fall overboard in the middle of the night, in the middle of the ocean, and nobody knows you’re missing, what are you chances of surviving?  Not good. But that’s what happened to Brett Archibald, a South African businessman, and he lived to tell the tale (and write a book), but only after he was nudged by a shark, dive-bombed by gulls, almost nibbled to death by tiny blood-thirsty fish and starting to lose his mind before he was rescued after 28 hours in the Indian Ocean. Archibald, then 50, was starting a surfing and vacation cruise with nine…

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