You know, I am always listening and learning and enjoying sharing so many wonderful aspects of our cruising lifestyle. One of the Face Book pages I really like is the “Women Who Sail” page. So many women get to know one another and discuss all kinds of issues being women on sailboats. And, I always learn from them while reading their Posts.
One such Post that I just read today was about Reflective Tape. And you know, that is such a great subject for a quick Pam Says Blog!!! I never would have thought to pass on this kind of information if it had not been for the Women Who Sail FB page. I thank you!
Nothing like being visible at night, is there? I remember that incident that happened during a Sydney-Hobart Race some years ago. A crew member fell overboard, at night, from one of the race boats on its way to Tasmania in Australia. The Bass Straits are a wicked place to sail, and even more dreadful as a large body of disturbed ocean where anyone going overboard is really doomed. This man was lost in the dark. I believe I remember from reading about this MOB that he was in the water over 36 hours and the area was fraught with high wind and seas and it appeared hopeless trying to find him to rescue him.
The foul weather jacket on his hood had reflective tape on it! Can you believe he was found, in the middle of the night in the pitch dark, by a freighter that was scanning the sea at the request of the Coast Guard, trying to see if they could spot the lost man. The ship had a spotlight, scanning the frothy sea, and because of the little square of reflective tape on the top of his hood, they caught the light thrown toward them by that reflective tape. The man was rescued and survived! Wonderful end to a terribly frightening experience.
From that remembrance, Andy and I decided to adorn our boat, our tender, our outboard, our Foul Weather Gear, our life rings, all with reflective tape. If we ever needed or wanted to been seen at night, we wanted to look like a glow worm!!! We even thought, as the dozens of masthead anchor lights twinkled all around KANDARIK, that we would put a very distinctive design on our masthead so we would know which anchor light was attached the mast of KANDARIK! We even thought it would be a safety measure especially when sailing at night in shipping lanes, to have a ring of reflective tape around each of our stantions. I mean if a search light on a ship or another yacht was scanning for anything it might hit or rescue, we wanted to be seen!!!!!
This blog is written because of a Post on the Women Who Sail Face Book Page!!! You see, we all learn from one another, always!
Comments are closed.