Man Overboard – The Official Website of Virtual Sailing for PC & Mac

Man Overboard Add-on

This new add-on from eSail has been developed with Keith Colwell (RYA Sea Survival Handbook) to help you practise your man overboard (MOB) drill. It includes tutorials, challenges and random triggering of MOB during normal sailing.

  • MOB Quick Stop Method (Under Power) tutorial:
    Heaving-to, triggering a DSC alert, deploying the danbuoy & horseshoe lifebuoy and returning to the casualty under power.
  • MOB Quick Stop Method (Under Sail) tutorial:
    As above but making a figure-of-eight turn then recovering the MOB under sail.

Man Overboard

  • Live Sailing mode with randomly trigger man overboard. This is a great way of building your ability to react in the correct way during an emergency.
  • Challenges are provided for man overboard where you can pit your skills against other eSail users. There is a choice of ‘Under Power’ and ‘Under Sail’.

WARNING. eSail Man Overboard is not a replacement for training with a qualified instructor. Man Overboard recovery MUST be practiced on a real boat with a qualified instructor. Never take a sailing boat out unless you are properly trained and qualified. Sailing in the real world can be physically and mentally demanding. These aspects cannot be replicated in a simulator. In addition the physics in any simulator cannot always replicate real life or any particular boat.

IMPORTANT NOTES
The technique used is the Quick Stop/Heaving-to method, followed by a figure-of-eight (when under sail) then picking up the MOB on the leeward side of the boat. For consistency with real world training, the man overboard is represented by a fender and bucket. Recovery is by using a boathook. The training does not cover recovery methods likely to be used to bring a real person back on board as these are very boat specific. The add-on does not in any way replace training and practise on a real boat.

The add-on is intended for eSailors of intermediate or advanced level.

Man Overboard was created in close collaboration with Keith Colwell. Keith trained as a naval architect then after a 22-year career as a staff boating journalist testing boats and equipment, Keith made a career change and joined the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) as a Sea Safety Manager.

During his 15 years with the RNLI, Keith trained and managed RNLI Sea Safety and Community Safety volunteers to give advice to yachtsmen, boat users and the general public on how to stay safe when on or by the water. He became a RYA sea survival, powerboat and marine vhf radio instructor/assessor in 2004, while working for the RNLI, and currently works as a freelance instructor.

He is the author of the internationally-published RYA Sea Survival Handbook and the RYA Boat Safety Handbook and continues to write for PBO magazine as their sea safety correspondent.

Man overboard with danbuoy and horseshoe

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