Deck Safety

As for on deck safety, I always wear my inflatable safety harness with two tethers while in bad weather. One tether is 6 feet long, the other is coiled and is about 2 feet long until stretched to it's max of 6 feet.

I hook in at the helm in nasty weather only, but I always hook in when leaving the cockpit. If I have to go around a stay or other obstacle, I will first clip in the short tether before releasing the long one.

I have a safety jack line (webbing) from the bow back to the cockpit on each side of the boat that I can use when moving fore or aft from the cockpit. There is something I don't like about this standard system of running the safety jack lines.

That is, if you are not kept on board the boat by the safety jack line, but instead go overboard, you are hanging off the side of the boat and beating yourself, kept there by your own safety line hung up on a stay. There is no way to get yourself back aboard and, when single-handing, nobody to help or even slow the boat down.

For myself, I have added another safety webbing from the bow pulpit back to my stern arch outside the stanchions along the OUTSIDE edge of the boat.

I will also clip into this webbing when going up along the edge of the boat with my second tether. That way, if I fall overboard and I am caught half way back on the side of the boat beating myself to death, I can cut away the inside tether and slide back to the stern swim platform along the OUTSIDE safety webbing.

I tried this once while someone else was driving the boat at 4 knots and I was able to pull myself back aboard the stern swim step and into the cockpit. I have never seen this before and it was NOT mentioned in the 'Safety-at-Sea' course I took, but I feel much more confident using this method.

I hope this sheds some light on my personal choice of keeping myself safe while cruising Around-the-World.