Safety Lessons

Safety is an important cultural element amongst the crew of any Volvo Open 70. Take us, for example:

I am just jumping back into my nav station after spending a rotation on deck of trimming, grinding, and driving. In these conditions, everyone on deck is clipped in, and our harness doubles a manual inflating life jacket that holds a personal EPERB and strobe light. (We convert our life jackets from automatic inflation to manual because these boats are so wet.) Just like a rock climber is frequently saved by her harness, her rope, and her belayer, we use our harnesses to keep us onboard.

Each position on deck requires a different technique for surviving a wave that’s washing over the deck. The trimmer sets his tether up so that it’s short and tight so that he can keep both hands on the sheet. When a wave hits, we lean against the tether and ready ourselves to give the sheet an ease as the boat slows down and the apparent wind angle moves aft. The collision with the wave is intense and the pull on the chest harness practically squeezes the wind out of you sometimes.

When we’re grinding, we clip into a jack line that runs down the middle of the cockpit floor, but there is plenty slack in the six-foot tether. If a wave were to sweep you off of your feet, you’d be washed to the back of the cockpit before the tether pulls tight. When a wave reaches the cockpit, I find that squatting a bit and bear hugging the pedestal with my arms and legs keeps me in-situ.

The wheel has an attachment point (a “synthetic” padeye that’s usually made of Spectra or Dyneema) for the harness at its hub. Driving is an incredibly physical job in tough conditions such as these and my arms are aching from my 45-minute helm session. Trust me, it’s a full bodywork out.

Beyond the basics of clipping in and holding on, the Volvo Ocean Race requires all sailors to attend a safety course in Northern England. This two-day course gave us a compressive demonstration of all our onboard safety equipment and first-aid tools. We shot flares, extinguished fires and practiced CPR. The most eye-opening part of the series of drills included the liferaft, MOB, and abandon-ship training. Their intention was clearly to scare the crap out of everyone. We then suited up in our dry suits and harness/life jackets at a “special pool”. The first exercise was simple; swim around the pool. Jokes were told in a relaxed manner as we flopped around while floating on our backs. Meanwhile the pool started to produce rolling, one-meter waves. “This is a pretty cool pool. I like swimming here.” The jokes kept coming.

After our swimming lesson, we climbed out of the pool and were taught how to deploy our life raft. We then deployed our back flips, cannon balls, and belly-flop skills as we all were instructed back into the pool. Our instructor was not amused with our shenanigans and commanded us to start swimming attached to each other as a group. Then, the waves were turned back on but this time they were twice the size as before. A couple laps later howling wind fans were turned on. It was becoming difficult to swim. After another lap, the valve to the rain jets was opened, and our jokes were replaced by the sound of 11 guys choking and gagging on water. Next, the thunderstorm was activated as the pool lights dimmed and strobe lights and thunder took over. We could no longer even see the sides of the pool! Over a loud speaker we could hear the command, “Get in our life raft.” We searched the pool for the raft, still swimming attached as a group. After a couple minutes of searching we found the raft, got in one by one and pulled the canopy down over our heads to protect us from the rain.

It was pitch black inside. With the sound of the thunder echoing outside and the wind and the rain lashing the canopy, we had to scream to communicate with each other. Amongst the chaos we quickly realized that our raft was flooding. As we learned in the classroom that morning, all life rafts have a hole in the floor so that if the raft is inflated upside down it won’t suck itself to the water as it inflates. We were all crawling over each other to find the valve, as the storm kept raging and our life raft rocked and rolled with the swell.

Finally, we managed to close the vent and congratulated ourselves for completing the drill. We then sat in the raft for 5 minutes before somebody mumbled, ”When do you think that they’ll let us out of here?” Five more minutes transpired. “I don’t think that the drill is over yet,” crooned a cynical observer. Another five minutes passed, and we started to lose track of time. Finally, the drill ended as the lights were turned on, the waves subsided, the water jets were extinguished, and the thunder and strobe lights were turned off.

At the end of the drill our life raft was full of 11 guys that were scared straight.

Because of this, our number-one mission of this race is to stay on the boat and to never, ever get into that life raft.