Last week I posted an article in dock walk about a couple guys out on their boat in the gulf and it started taking on water quickly. The boat sank and they were left floating in the gulf. One survived. I've been thinking about that, and I'm embarrassed to say, if that happened to me, I'm not sure what to do.
Say I was a couple miles off the coast and the boat started taking on water fast. What do I do first? Do I attempt to fix the problem, and if so, at what point do I call it quits and go with plan B? And what is plan B? Here's a list of things I can think of...
- Call for help on the radio. Put out a mayday call. But what channel? 16?
- Grab a cell phone.
- Make sure everyone is wearing life jackets. The kids are always in them. Always. My wife and I are not, but we always have them out and close by within reach.
- The dink is usually with us tied to the swim platform, so I think my next step would be to untie that and get everyone on board in the dink. Should I try to get the engine and gas tank on there? Not sure.
- Go in the cabinet and try to grab some flares and water if available.
- There's a million other things that I can think of, like having sunblock, or pulling sheets off the bed for protection against the sun, but I just don't know if there's time for all that.
Basically, with something similar like this happening to one of our own BOC members last year, and now reading that article, I'm just a little freaked out...and I'm mainly freaked out because I don't know what to do in that situation. And I just want to be as prepared as possible in case something like that happens.
Thanks for listening (reading).
-John
Say I was a couple miles off the coast and the boat started taking on water fast. What do I do first? Do I attempt to fix the problem, and if so, at what point do I call it quits and go with plan B? And what is plan B? Here's a list of things I can think of...
- Call for help on the radio. Put out a mayday call. But what channel? 16?
- Grab a cell phone.
- Make sure everyone is wearing life jackets. The kids are always in them. Always. My wife and I are not, but we always have them out and close by within reach.
- The dink is usually with us tied to the swim platform, so I think my next step would be to untie that and get everyone on board in the dink. Should I try to get the engine and gas tank on there? Not sure.
- Go in the cabinet and try to grab some flares and water if available.
- There's a million other things that I can think of, like having sunblock, or pulling sheets off the bed for protection against the sun, but I just don't know if there's time for all that.
Basically, with something similar like this happening to one of our own BOC members last year, and now reading that article, I'm just a little freaked out...and I'm mainly freaked out because I don't know what to do in that situation. And I just want to be as prepared as possible in case something like that happens.
Thanks for listening (reading).
-John
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