As a boat owner, have you ever thought of what you, or your crew, would do if one of you went over the side? Do you wear buoyancy aids of some kind? Do you know how to retrieve a person in the water and have you practised the manoeuvres involved? Could you rescue your crew if one of them fell in? Well perhaps you could. However, if YOU were to fall overboard could your crew rescue YOU?

The man overboard exercise is an important part of any RYA level 2 course. Perhaps you should get your crew to take the course for your own safety! We all tend to forget our own mortality and think that the nasty things at sea always happen to someone else. BUT remember - to the rest of us, YOU ARE someone else!

People fall into the water through all sorts of accidents. At anchor, or when tied up alongside, they may lean on something that simply is not there! The old saying of "one hand for the boat (to do the job) and one for yourself (to hold on with)" is worth remembering. In RIBs the accidental man overboard incidents I have seen have all happened to crew members sat on the sponsons. In every case, a high speed turn with the helmsman happily secure on his saddle seat has seen his less secure crew flung outboard by centrifugal force.

Under way in a high speed boat, the helmsman' s failure to inform his crew of intended changes in direction may well see them parting company with the boat. If the helmsman himself should go over the side the results can be catastrophic, particularly if he is not wearing the kill cord. We need to look back only a few years to see the possible consequences, consider incidents such as when 3 divers fell from their speeding RIB and spent 18 hours or so in the North Sea, or the two young men who fell from their sports RIB which subsequently made a course of ever decreasing circles resulting in fatal injuries to both men caused by the propellers.

If the helm is wearing the kill cord the boat will stop and the crew can go back and pick him up - or can they?

Many kill cord systems provided with modern engines are such that the engine can be run without the cord itself in place. Whilst this does have a down side, in that many boats now run all the time without a kill cord, it does have the bonus that the switch can be flicked back on and the engine started even when the helmsman has selfishly taken the cord with him.

In my own boat, however, the kill cord must be in place for the boat engine to run. If this is the same as your system then you need a spare cord onboard, and it needs to be where everyone knows where it is: If not, a man overboard situation involving the helmsman will see the boat drifting helplessly away from him with the crew totally unable to restart the motor because the kill cord is still attached to the man they are trying to rescue!

Imagine you are thrashing along in a fast RIB and someone goes overboard. How should you react? Well, any crew member who has seen the incident must shout "man overboard!" at the top of his voice and point to the casualty. He must keep pointing to him throughout the recovery attempt. The reason is quite simply, so that you know where the casualty is all the time. It sounds silly I know, and during man overboard training you can feel a real prat stood there with arm outstretched pointing at a 5 gallon drum - particularly if the helm makes a mess of it and you have to go round a few times before you have a successful pick up. The reason is simply that if you do not point you will not be actually watching the casualty all the time and a dark head is soon lost in a dark sea. You may think you know where he is but one moment's inattention and he can be lost from sight - possibly forever!

Point and the crew knows where he is, and so does the helm without continually having -to ask.

The helmsman should react by turning TOWARDS the side that the casualty fell in from in order to kick the stern, and those spinning propeller blades, away from him! In a slow displacement craft this is of paramount importance. In small high speed craft such as ours it is still a precaution which we must take if at all possible, but I would expect that your man is often well behind the boat before your brain registers the emergency and has time to react.

We are talking here of a true accident, and not a pre-planned exercise. If, at only 20 knots, you take only one second to react to your M.O.B. then he is already 10 metres behind you. If your emergency happened because someone fell in from the bow then you really will have to kick that back end away from him - and then someone ought to kick you for being such a pillock as to let anyone ride up there anyway.

I teach up on Windermere from time to time and we see them come past regularly. Fools driving high powered craft with kids sitting up front, legs dangling over the side and not a life jacket to be seen. I enjoy boats, I enjoy speed, and I enjoy Windermere - but, is it really any faster sat up there? Of course it's ' not and you only need to see one set of propeller injuries to realise that those spinning blades have no compassion for youth or beauty.

The man overboard exercise is an important part of any boat handling course and I have seen it taught in a manner which was all high speed tums followed by charging up to the casualty (perhaps I should say victim) at a tremendous rate of knots. I have also seen an instructor fling the dummy M.O.B. over the side only to join it in the water himself, as his student threw the wheel hard over and pitched him head over heels over the top of the outboard.

I have much more regard for instructors who maintain that all this speed stuff is a waste of time if it means you run the risk of losing even more crew over the side, and that a fast approach to a casualty is of no use at all if you miss and have to go around again, or even worse if you hit him with the hull or, heaven forbid, the propeller.

Far better to go round at a safe pace and approach the M.O.B. at tick-over speed. Approaching anyone in the water with a powerboat is potentially dangerous. If the casualty is conscious, then it is far better to throw him a line, reach with a paddle or boat hook, or tow a rope (your ski rope if you have one) around him in an arc so that he can grab it and pull himself in. If you have to approach him directly then remember that whilst the tide is affecting both the boat and the casualty in the same way, only the boat will be wind affected.

When I first undertook any formal training, after years of learning by trial and error, I was taught that the only way to approach a casualty in the water was from downwind, creeping up to him at very slow speed. A slight angle to the wind being preferable so that when you took the boat out of gear you knew which way it was going to go as it inevitably 'fell off' sideways to the breeze. The controls had to be in neutral when you grabbed the casualty and the motor had to be killed as soon as contact was made, just in case the lever was accidentally knocked

Well time marches on and my school teaches at venues all over the country, and in all sorts of boats. The original method still works but other methods can work better, and be less hit and miss in some circumstances. The wind is still the important factor, but we can use it to our advantage. By going upwind of our casualty, say four boat lengths, and then shifting to neutral we can drift sideways down onto him whilst using the gears if necessary to shunt backwards or forwards to keep on line. A couple of lengths off the casualty the engine can be cut. Our man overboard soon becomes man inboard with no risk of being hit by the boat whilst under power or being chopped by the prop. Beware of using this method in heavy seas though, and particularly with a big boat. The risk is that the boat may lift on the swells and come down on top of your casualty, and that is not going to help him one little bit.

So much for the theory. But none of it is of any use without practise. Use a nearly full 5 gallon drum, or an old trailer tyre tied to a fender, to simulate the casualty and practise until the drill becomes second nature. Whatever you use make sure that it floats in such a way as to simulate a proper casualty, that is so that it is affected by the tide and not the wind.

If you are unfortunate enough to be the victim of a real life man overboard incident then there are things you can do to ensure your survival. Whatever you do remember the prop. If you fall over the side of a speeding boat you would be better served trying to fling yourself well away from the boat than trying to hang on to it. If you grab a handhold but do not save yourself from entering the water you will be pulled along with your feet being dragged under the hull towards spinning blades.

It needs little encouragement to shout, or scream, at the helmsman as you go over, and it could well save your life by drawing attention to your plight.

Meanwhile, I would remember that all helmsman, .at least, take a course which includes training to handle a MOB situation, and ensure that all crew members are familiar with the procedure and know exactly what to do if the unfortunate event ever happens: