MAN OVERBOARD..............

[skiper]

HELLO GUYS,IM NOT SURE IF IM OFF TOPIC BUT I NEED OPINION FROM
YOU GUYS ABOUT THIS TOPIC...AND IM SURE MOST OF US
KNOW ABOUT THIS.

TO ALL CAPT WHAT IS YOUR PREPAREATION FOR EMENGENCY?
WE ALL KNOW THAT SEA CAN ROUGH AT ANY TIME WITHOUT ANY WARNING,
WHAT KIND OFF THINGS YOU GUYS PREPARE TO AVOID DISASTER?

[hotrodmarlin]

I always give the safety speech before heading out the inlet. I show everyone where the lifejackets, throw ring, ditch bag,liferaft, etc. are.
I make sure everyone knows channel 16 and how to work the VHF
I go over man overboard procedures: Hit MOB on the GPS and someone points at the person in the water and never breaks his stare or drops his finger until we pick him up.
I've had 2 people go over while I was at the helm. The first was in a tropical storm and I almost lost a good friend (scariest moment of my life)but luckily things turned out ok. The other was last year trolling out of Hatteras and the guy on the boat did exactly as I had explained. Once we got my buddy on the boat we laughed our asses off but things were serious for a few minutes.
DONT PANIC! I don't know how to prepare or teach this but in my opinion it is the absolute most important thing. I panicked and almost did some stupid things when my friend fell off in the storm and it took another friend of mine to calm me down and we got through it ok. I think I can handle another emergency better because of it. Hope this helps!