Just wear the damn life jacket!

 August 1-10, 2022

Twice in two weeks, Twoflower has come upon a search for a missing boater, both with unhappy endings.

The first, on August 1, brought an amazing day sailing to a very somber close.  After a gorgeous high wind day on the lake, winds in the mid to high 20s, gusting to the low 30s, Twoflower sailed into the middle (literally) of a Coast Guard (CG) search.

Huron Point and the mouth of the Clinton River are home to Twoflower (North Star Sail Club, NSSC) and is an area where the CG often do drills.  I'd noticed the Macomb Sheriff boat lights near Metro Beach, but again, on the weekend this is all too common.  We are usually tuned in to channel 16 on the radio, and we hadn't heard anything, so we thought little of either the Sheriff presence or the CG.

At the time, I was at the helm, and it's quite likely that I was driving like a drunken sailor (although we never drink under sail). We actually joked that they were coming to investigate my driving.  When the  CG helicopter buzzed us to give us the once over and one of the CG boats approached us, we took it more seriously.

Unfortunately, we had switched the radio channel earlier in the day and forgot to tune back into 16 (marine emergency radio). Once we switched back, we found we were in the middle of a search for a man overboard (MOB). Literally. All marine vessels were asked to assist, and because we hoped others would do the same if we were the ones in trouble, we joined in the search.

Chuck and I regularly do rescue drills, and we've saved numerous helium balloons from a watery end.  He has often explained to me how easy it is to lose someone in the water, but this really brought it home to me.  In waves and wind, once a person is in the water, if you lose sight of them for even a moment, it becomes a matter of luck, not skill, if you can find them again.  When a person crashes a bike, they stay where they fall.  In the water, the boat is moving, they're moving, you're moving, likely all in different directions and at different speeds.  

We stayed in the search, sailing a pattern with our eyes low to the water, hoping for any sighting until we couldn't see any longer in the low light. We motored to NSSC in quietude and somber reflection. The CG and Sheriff kept up the search, finally locating the body at 12:30 am.

This Sunday, not even a week later, we again heard the whirring blades of the CG helicopter, and watched the emergency lights of the Sheriff boats as crews searched for a man who just jumped in for a swim...off an unanchored boat in high wind and waves. 





I don't like like victim blaming, and both these events are tragedies for the family of those men.  But in both cases, there were weather advisories on the Lake.  Life jackets were available, but unused.  Lk St Clair is BIG WATER.

KNOW YOUR SKILL LEVEL.
KNOW WHAT BOTH YOU AND YOUR BOAT CAN HANDLE.
WEAR THE DAMN LIFE JACKET. 


https://detroit.cbslocal.com/2022/08/02/police-body-of-man-who-drowned-in-lake-st-clair-recovered/

https://www.fox2detroit.com/news/dive-team-finds-body-of-lake-st-clair-swimmer-who-went-underwater-in-anchor-bay

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