Avoiding disaster
This topic is deserving of its own lesson. Understanding how to avoid trouble, or preventing a bad situation from becoming much worse, will go a very long way towards avoiding ruining a good day and possibly preventing boat damage or personal injury.
Always look over your should before tacking to ensure you aren’t tacking into oncoming traffic.
When tacking, you will release the active jib sheet and you bring the jib through the other side. Not releasing the jib sheet from the cleat or allowing it to get recleated during the tack can cause the wind to push the boat over hard, which can lead to capsize. If you are sitting on the centerboard cap, you should be able to easily manage both jib sheets during a tack without this happening. If you notice it happening, make it a priority to figure out how to prevent that from happening again on future tacks.
Point out any obstructions or boats that you feel the skipper needs to be aware of by fully extending your arm and pointing and firmly say “BOAT”, “MARK”, etc. In these circumstances, do not limit your communication to verbal communication as it can be difficult to hear or interpret.
Target fixation results when you focus on something other than sailing the boat fast. It is common when you get near other boats or try to round the mark. When we get into a high pressure situation, keep it dialed in and don’t lose focus on sailing fast. Target fixation often prevents sailors from making adjustments and compounds your problems instead of avoiding them.
When ducking a boat, we put our bow down which powers up the boat. If we steer down without easing our sails, our sail are overtrimmed and this heels the boat to leeward, which helps drive the boat up. One of the most common damage-causing collisions is when a boat tries to duck another boat and forgets (or doesn’t know) to ease its sails during the duck, which causes the boat to round up and t-bone the boat they are trying to duck. When ducking, ease your sails.
If the boat gets “knocked” over unexpectedly, people lose their balance and either forget or are unable to uncleat their sheets to level the boat. If you are afraid you are going over, first uncleat your sheets and then uncleat all other sheets (main, spinnaker) to help prevent the boat from going all the way over.
If capsize is imminent, fall into the water and don’t remain in the boat or fall onto the sail to avoid getting wet. Failure to fall into the water means your body weight is pushing the top of the mast down and helping it to turtle. Do not get back into the boat or try to climb over the side of the boat onto the centerboard until someone is holding the mast to prevent the boat from turtling.
If you capsize and prevent the boat from turtling, do not right the boat until the spinnaker is secure and all sheets are uncleated.
If the boat does turtle with the center board down, the centerboard will fall and likely cause damage to the centerboard cap. This is unavoidable once the centerboard starts to fall. What you absolutely need to avoid is getting onto the bottom of the hull, or allowing someone else from your boat to get onto the bottom of the hull, while the centerboard is still down (or up in this case). If the centerboard falls on your arm or leg, it would certainly cause a life-changing injury.
If the boat turtles and nobody is there to help you, it is possible to right a turtled Flying Scot. Watch this video to see two lightweights right a turtled Scot.
If you are the one tasked with having to step off the boat and catch it at the dock, make it a policy to never step off the boat unless you can comfortably step off the boat and catch it without risking any injury.
If you have to bail out at the dock, get back into the cockpit as quickly as possible and grap each jib sheet with both hands and be prepared to backwind the jib or trim in hard to help the boat steer down and avoid going into irons.