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Position: 37°02’27.7″N 8°53’37.7″W
Sometime remakes are better than the original. Sometimes things should be left just as they were. Our early misadventure with Nell’s towline on the Great Bahama Bank seven-and-a-half years ago (seems like yesterday, doesn’t it? – ed.) was, we hoped, a once in a lifetime experience. Sadly, new technology can induce complacency. Complacency can lead to things you don’t want to discuss in public, but nonetheless make for a good story.
Bygones
Having left Nell in the capable hands of Roland in Büdelsdorf, we replaced her with Axey in St. Vaast-la-Hogue. Along the way, we replaced our MOB[1] sling and saved its floating yellow polypropylene line for our new dinghy.
Sling It
Since we’re on the subject, the procedure for rescuing someone that carelessly falls off your boat is a lot like the one that causes you to run over your own towline. Briefly, if and when you notice someone has parted company with your boat, you toss anything that floats into the water, including your handy lifesaving sling.
The sling is a horseshoe shaped piece of closed cell foam wrapped in PVC with a ring attached to a long length of floaty rope that you fling overboard. Then you round up and start sailing in a wide circle so your victim can grab the line and wriggle into the sling and you can haul them in.
If they’re conscious, you can encourage them to climb up the stepladder. If they’re unconscious, then you need to get creative with halyards and winches. Of course, if they’re unconscious, you’ll have to go overboard and put the sling around them and, well, it’s all a bit of a faff which is why our rule on Aleta is: MISNEACH! Stay with the boat!
Last Time
The last time we ran over our towline we used good old sinky polyester line. Warm in the bosom of a high-tech floaty polypropylene line the idea that Axey’s painter could foul the propellor never occurred to the helms(hu)man. Aleta’s captain, cynic that he is, figured anything can happen at sea and usually does. So, when heading into an anchorage, one should shorten the painter no matter what the hell it’s made of.
This Time
Eighteen hours out of Porto with Starlink humming dodgy weather forecasts, and with no hope of a berth in Lisbon, we decided to continue south towards the safer waters of the Algarve. That meant another 24 hours at sea. A fair distance and, from experience, a length of time when we aren’t always at our sharpest when we arrive.
Knowing this, we slow down our decision-making and do our best to ratchet down our procedural checklists for safety’s sake. The good news is nothing happens very quickly on a sailboat and there is plenty of time for planning.
Of course, the inevitable happened and we ran over the towline. The captain, as you would expect, admonished the helms(hu)man. But secretly he kicked himself for not bringing in the towline in anticipation of just this eventuality.
Man OverBoard
Perhaps the most challenging part of the remediation was squeezing the captain into his wetsuit. Having harboured ambitions of a full IronMan triathlon, he purchased a custom-fitted 3mm ProMotion wetsuit. Then he bought a motorcycle and turned into a fatter, lazier petrolhead. With some effort the neoprene stretched far enough that the zip sealed him in. Over the side he went, knife in hand. With over 100’ of polypropylene line, removing the frayed, melted remnants still left plenty of scope for Axey’s further adventures.
Video
Here are the captain’s extemporaneous comments to the helms(hu)man. You can almost imagine you are there…
[1] In 2025 MOB stands for (hu)Man Over Board.
