Man Overboard: The First 10 Seconds Decide Everything

The moment someone falls in, three things happen at once — and a good skipper trains the crew so they happen without thinking. Shout "Man overboard!" to alert everyone. Point — one crew member does nothing but keep an arm aimed at the casualty and never looks away, because a head in the water disappears within seconds among the waves. And throw flotation (a horseshoe buoy or danbuoy) immediately, both to help the swimmer and to mark the spot. Hit the MOB button on the GPS/chartplotter if you have one — it drops a marked waypoint you can navigate back to.

Getting back to the casualty differs by propulsion. Under power, you have full control: turn back, approach slowly from downwind with the person on the side away from the propeller, and — critically — put the engine in neutral before they are near the hull. A spinning prop near a person in the water is lethal. Under sail, you can't just reverse; the classic answer is the quick-stop: immediately tack (without touching the headsail) so the boat heaves-to and stays close, then work back to the casualty. An alternative, the figure-of-eight, sails a beam-reach away, tacks, and returns on a close-to-beam reach so you can control speed by luffing the sails.

The hardest part is often the last: recovery. A cold, exhausted, possibly unconscious person cannot climb aboard, and lifting a waterlogged adult over the freeboard is beyond most crews' arm strength. Plan the lift before you need it — a boarding ladder, a halyard on a winch, a rescue sling (Lifesling) rigged to a block and tackle, or in the worst case a recovery net. Keeping the person horizontal during the lift matters medically: hauling a hypothermic casualty vertically can cause the heart to fail ("circum-rescue collapse").