Classes Can Prepare Boaters for Coast Guard Sea Rescues

If you are a boater in trouble at sea, the noisy reverberation of a Coast Guard helicopter rotor is music to your ears.

Each year in Southern California, the Coast Guard answers nearly 300 distress calls ranging from heart attacks to sinking sailboats to bumps on the head.

If you were to be involved in such an emergency, would you know what to do? Do you know how to get an injured person safely from the deck of your boat into the helicopter hovering overhead? Do you know what the Coast Guard recommends as one of the most important pieces of survival gear for a sailor lost at sea?

Coast Guard rescue procedures are one of seven safety topics that will be covered in classes meeting April 21 and 22 at the Orange Coast College Sailing Center, 1801 W. Coast Highway, Newport Beach. The others are voyage preparation, safety equipment, life rafts, medical care, ocean survival and fires. The same program will be presented each day, and participants may sign up for either. The program is sponsored by Orange Coast College and West Marine Products and is designed for boaters of all levels of experience.

The seminar, identical to one offered to midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy, will be opened by Harold J. Sutphen, a retired Navy captain. Sutphen, who lives in Norfolk, Va., has conducted many segments of U.S. Naval Academy seminars. He will discuss how to prepare yourself and your boat for sea.

Coast Guard Lt. Steve Goddard will close the seminar with a talk about the search and rescue operation and a demonstration of an air rescue, staged aboard a sailboat in Newport Harbor.

“The whole day is a review of all the different programs available, the different types of life rafts and survival suits,” Goddard says. “Our involvement is that we pick up where all the other stuff leaves off. You’ve got your life raft, you’ve got your flares. Now it really happens. What can you do to increase your chances of survival?”

One of the most important pieces of gear you can have aboard your boat, according to Goddard, is a signal mirror. “We can see them for 50 to 75 miles,” Goddard says. “It can make a difference in finding someone or not. And any little mirror will do. It can be a woman’s mirror from a makeup kit.”

Once the Coast Guard finds you, Goddard says, it helps if you know in advance what to do to make the rescue operation easier. For example, if you are in a boat that can be maneuvered at least some, you should head about 30 degrees off the wind, keeping the wind on your port bow. “That’s because helicopters are safer when they are flying into the wind,” Goddard says. “If there is no wind, you should get under way as fast as you can go. When a boat is dead in the water, that is the hardest type of rescue we can do.”

Before the helicopter arrives, you should clear your decks of all loose gear, he advises. “Things can get sucked up into the intake of the helicopter and cause it to crash.” You should also be prepared for the high winds and static electricity the helicopter will generate as it hovers during the rescue.

Just seeing the rescue equipment can help a boater know what to expect in an emergency, Goddard says. That’s the reason for the demonstration. In it, the Coast Guard will take a “victim” off a sailboat and into a hovering aircraft.

In a rescue of someone who is ambulatory, the Coast Guard uses a stainless steel collapsible basket measuring 2 feet by 4 feet that has floats to prevent its sinking should it fall into the water. Someone who is unable to get into the basket will be carried in a seven-foot litter, which is a bit trickier to raise and lower, he said.

In an emergency, the first thing the Coast Guard will need to know is your position. You should be prepared to give them an approximate location, Goddard says. To increase your chances of being found, Goddard advises that boaters file a trip plan with the Coast Guard before departing. “If you don’t file it with the Coast Guard, then file it with friends back home. Tell them, ‘I’m going to call you every two days, and if I don’t call on that day then notify the authorities,’ ” he says.

“Once the weather starts picking up, more experienced sailors will call us ahead of time and say, ‘I’m not in any trouble now, but this is where I am.’ Then we have their location in case the situation gets worse. Or we can set up a communications schedule where they check in with us every hour if it does get worse.

“If you start to get worried,” he says, “the time to call us is during the day. It is a thousand times easier to find someone in the water in the daytime than at night.”

Other seminar speakers will be :

Chuck Hawley, sailor and marine safety expert, who will talk about man-overboard prevention and recovery.

Bruce Brown, a life raft company representative, who will explain how to equip and use a life raft.

Dr. Donald McGillis, a Newport Beach physician and sailor, who will discuss common medical problems at sea.

Neal Walker, Orange Coast College navigation instructor, who will talk about how to stay alive aboard a life raft.

Tom Carden, owner of Marine Fire Protection, who will talk about the common causes of fires aboard boats and show how to use firefighting equipment.

Fees for the seminar are $38.50 in advance and $43.50 at the door. Information is available by calling (714) 645-9412 or (714) 432-5880.

Shearlean Duke is a regular contributor to Orange County Life. On the Waterfront appears each Saturday, covering boating life styles as well as ocean-related activities along the county’s 42-mile coastline.