[C38] Overboard

[Steve Smolinske]

Joe, 

Great idea and it should be easy to develop, a negative buoyancy activated switch, a helium canister and ballon with reflective tape all attached to a lanyard.  Possibly even including a water activated strobe.   (negative buoyancy so that your crew isnt deploying ballons rounding a mark during a heavy rain LOL).  GET A PATENT on the idea, I regularly see inventors come through my door with ideas and non-disclosures, the saddest story was a machinist who came through with a neat idea for keeping the straw attached to his WD-40 can,  really novel inexpensive idea.   Have you seen WD-40s new can with the articulating straw? I shook my head when I saw that on the shelf the first time, poor guy had presented his idea was turned away then the large company set their engineering dept loose on a solution.   No royalties or payout to the inventor.  A patent attorney can help you define the broad definition of the invention and give you protection for variants, then a company like mustang or another safety company could buy your patent and develop the product they could market and manufacture.   Along the same ideas as the inflatable MOB pole system only one step better.   Great Idea!!

Steve
Peregrine #312
Seattle



From: Joseph Launie
Sent: Tue 8/5/2008 7:25 PM
To: Catalina 38 Listserve
Subject: [C38] Overboard


Hi,
    The Santa Barbara King harbor race produced an overboard story that is full of lessons for all of us. I wrote about this subject in the February 2007 Mainsheet.
An Antrim 27 with 4 gals on board rounded up putting 2 of them in the water at twilight in 30 knot winds and big seas. One of them drifted away from the boat with no flotation and was picked up by another boat after being passed  by two boats. the story is attached.
    I have given visibility of overboard crew a lot of thought. A personal strobe light and a whistle (good luck with the noise level of the seas) are easy and obvious. We had a similar incident here in Oxnard where the overboard person during the afternoon was only recovered because they drifted close enough to an oil platform to be spotted. The boats were all looking in the wrong area. Wind and current can be difficult to estimate. 
    I wonder if it would be feasible to develop an orange 18 inch metalicized helium filled balloon on a 6 foot tether to be packed into the collar of your inflatable jacket and automatically deployed. That would give you a chance of being seen. What do you think? Joe Launie, Macavity

I attempted to include the story from the sailing scuttlebutt. Thanks to the gate keeper you will have to find it for yourself
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