Person over board!!! - Ocean College

Ship: Johann Smidt
Datum: 23.03.2026
Position: Kurz vor Flores
Nautische Position: 38’09,4 N, 030’08,4 W
Etmal: 105 nm

„Person over board!“ – this is a sentences, we will hopefully never hear. But what if? What if someone is unfocused or looses his balance? Because there is always the possibility that it happens, we have to know what is to do in such a scenario.

We’ve already learned the theory of the man over board manouver at the very beginning of our journey but today we did it in reality.

So this is is how it works:
The second we heard a splash and saw our handmade dummy floating in the water we shouted: „Person over board, starboard abreast!!“ The direction is important for the person standing at the helm.

The next step was to throw the special buoy over board; one that leaves an orange trail of smoke and it has a light to make the position of the victim visible, also at night. Today we only used a smoking signal. Other swimming objects that can help the person or show us the position have to be thrown over board as well.

While that, it’s important to always keep the person in the water in sight. Therefore we pointed with our arms to the dummy.

The job of she helms person was to bear away to beam reach and to pick up pace. After that, the foresail has to be adjusted for tacking smooth and to return to the person in a circle.

Then it got a little tricky: Our dummy, aka a cookie box for the body and three balloons for hands and head, wasn’t able to swim to us. He drifted away from us so it was very hard to catch him. It didn’t even worked with the boathook but with the lifebuoy we eventually were successful. Our poor Mr. Dummy returned to us, but unfortunately he lost his head – I’m very sorry.

All in all, we had very good conditions for the men over board manouver today because the see was calm and we could see our MOB good enough to rescue him. If there are more waves, the chances are much worse to find the lost person again.

So always remember: One hand for yourself and one hand for your ship! Have a nice day!

Grüße:

Ylva: Ahoiii meine Lieben! Wir haben heute gaaaaanz viele Delfine gesehen bei Flaute – richtig schöön :))) morgen kommen wir endlich an und ich kann hoffentlich Post abschicken. Hab‘ euch lieb

Sophie: Holaaa, ich war acht Tage krank… Fuck you Mandelentzündung:) Aber ich bin wieder auf den Beinen und bereit zum Klausuren abfeuern:))))))

Munguru: Hallo liebe Schwester, liebe Lotte, mir geht’s ganz gut so weit, frag‘ mich wie MSA läuft und was ihr so treibt ❤️

Anne: Halöchen an zu Hause! Na, wie geht es euch, steht ihr bald schon auf den Skiern? Ich hoffe, ihr hattet einen schönen Ferienanfang, ich liebe Meeressäuger und Co! Ich hoffe, ihr habt am Handytag Internet, aber könnt ihr Frau Kamlade Bescheid geben? Küsschen, auch an alle anderen!