When I was in the Navy, we once did a man overboard dead reckoning drill. The drill was simple. We took a big bright orange floating box (I don’t recall exactly the size, but it was at least a 3ft cube) and threw it overboard. Everyone was on deck and watching it as it drifted away. By the time the box was only a half a nautical mile away, we could barely find it visually. Keep in mind these things: 1. The horizon at sea level is 12 nautical miles away; 2. The box was much bigger and brighter than a human head (which is all that will be above water if you fall in); 3. The drill was conducted during daylight hours; 4., Everyone was topside looking for the box; 5. We already knew exactly where the box was supposed to be in relation to the ship. Despite all of this, we STILL had difficulty keeping visual track of the box! Moral of the story: Stay on the damn boat, because if you fall overboard at sea, you are pretty much boned (especially at night)!
Which navy were you in? I was in the RCN and we used a rather heavy man sized and shaped dummy in an orange life perserver.....and yeah, you could quickly lose sight of the bugger if you didn't keep an eye on it.
It's pitch black on the ocean at night. I can't imagine the horror of being alone in that unending blackness as the only source of light and life, your ship, keeps sailing away.
@@eagandereagander6471 I mean if the water is too cold sharks will most likely not be present. There doesn't have to be any creatures present. The simple fact that you're in the middle of the ocean with no shore insight is terrifying on its own.
@@eagandereagander6471 Sharks would probably be a mercy. At least that's over quickly. Otherwise you're dead anyway but drags out over an excruciatingly long time.
As an ocean sea kayaker and dingy sailer who has on occasion taken a few "swims" offshore I cannot imagine your average cruiser passenger surviving any overboarding, especially after a multi-storey fall. Being in open seas in waves over your head is pretty intimidating even in an immersion suit and wearing a flotation device, and knowing how to self-rescue. Most people without a swim aid cannot stay afloat long enough for hypothermia to set in. I do recall an East German merchant sea man who trod water for nearly 24 hours before rescue. The thought of watching your ship steaming into the night completely oblivious that you are overboard would sap most people's determination to survive that long.
I've deliberately swam with PFD through the wave-train at the entry to a rapid. Being dunked three times was bad enough, then there were the rocks at the exit. I was working as a bus-driver for a rafting company at the time, and not being a total fool waited for the trip to show up before starting my swim.
Well said sir! Tis for this very reason I never board any seafaring vessel without a belt harness, two and a quarter miles of triple braided nylon rope and my inflatable, high vis orange arm floaties!! I just need to learn to tie a better tri-loop anchor monkey fist clinch knot.
Uh I didn't realise it was so hard to float in the ocean, I've don't it a few times at the beach and it seems way easier than in a pool. Tho I've never tried to float in a wavey area that probably makes the difference lol. Being dunked can be fun if you remember to breathe but being dunked in like a coat or a dress sounds like hell.
Just think, if Jack hadn't stopped Rose "falling" overboard, the Titanic would have had to turn around for a search, in the delay it would have missed the iceberg, 1,500 lives would have been saved, and our Friend, Mike Brady wouldn't have had a TH-cam channel!
Except a) There were other icebergs in the area, and b) it was in the movie, but we don’t have any evidence that anyone on the titanic in real life almost jumped overboard.
Hmm, another helpful option comes to my mind ... modern drones do not cost very much in relation to potentially saving a life, so when a man over board is detected, the liner could launce a drone to keep track of the position of the victim and as a marker where to head back to. This way, even if tide etc. drift the victim away from the accident position, the drone could follow and keep the contact. This might be worth a consideration.
Infrared cameras have become very affordable as well. An IR-equipped drone, if launched quickly enough might be able to pick out a warm body against the cold sea.
Sounds like an good idea, helicopters already uses IR cameras to look for people in the sea. Now main reason because people overboard on passenger ships is balancing on the rail while drunk so its fair to bill the cost to you but you are alive even if having to sell your house. On the lighter side they tried to track polar bears using patrol and rescue helicopter IR cameras and could not find any until they saw polar bears visually but only the nose showed up in IR.
My dad and uncle worked on ice breakers and they were told that if they fell off while not wearing survival suits they would be dead by the time the ship turned around to rescue them
I was standing at the railing, alone in the dark, enjoying the sensation of sailing over the waves. And then, it hit me like a ton of bricks - if I fell overboard, no one would know, or hear me, or see. I was nearly paralyzed with fear & practically had to crawl on hands & knees to get off the deck!!! I can assure you, that I will not ever do that again!
I fully get where you’re coming from, what you said happened to me on a ferry. I was just watching the ocean and that exact thought came into my head and I froze up and couldn’t move, then i bent down and wouldn’t let go of the railing till someone walked past and I had to ask them to can they grab me and help me off the deck, I went into the cinema and didn’t move from there until the ferry docked. To my credit I was only 14, first time on a ship and leaving the country without family so I kinda had a mini panic attack.
I was on a boat to Oslo with my GF and I kept getting haunting visions of her falling overboard and left behind in the cold water. We never sat foot on the deck because it was like -20 but still I kept seeing this horrible vision. 10 years and two girlfriends later I still get those visions. I also haven't been on board a boat since.
As a 20 year mariner, first in the US Navy and then merchant marine, I was connected to several man overboard situations. Two men were washed overboard during very high seas, and we managed to get them back aboard. The successful recovery of two other separate incidences resulting from men jumping overboard followed. I was once washed off the raised forecastle of a ship by a rogue wave, only to be deposited on the well deck by that same wave - a very painful but fortunate experience. Lastly, I flew to Las Palmas, Gran Canaria to join a ship, to find the man I was relieving had jumped off the stern the night before as the ship sailed toward port. He had undressed and folded his clothes, stacking them at the stern. Later, as a ship's officer, I masted the Williamson Turn, a maneuver that returns the ship on its same path in the opposite direction, and can work even if the time of the MOB was unknown. Fortunately, I never had to use it except in practice.
I fall overboard. I pull out my (waterproof) phone. I can't call because of no Signal. As the Ship sails off into the sunset - I'll just watch a video, nstead... Ah, it's my good Friend, Mike Brady!
I was on a Carnival cruise in the early 2000's that was based out of New Orleans in the Gulf of Mexico. While disembarking from the ship in New Orleans, there was a woman in a wheelchair being pushed in line right behind me. She seemed to be barely awake. I wasn't sure if she was still drunk or what. After several minutes in line the story finally came through about what happened to her. She was on a honeymoon cruise and the night before we docked her new husband was showing her how he could do pull-up on the railing of their stateroom balcony. Unfortunately the pull-up involved him hanging over the ocean side of the railing at 1:30 AM while intoxicated. Sadly, he slipped off the railing and was lost at sea. The woman was so distraught that they had to sedate her. A few weeks after the cruise I found a news story that said his body was found washed ashore on one of the uninhabited barrier islands of the Mississippi delta.
As someone who has been on several cruises with another one booked for October of this year I'll say you don't "accidentally" fall overboard. It's not like stubbing your toe at 3 am going to the bathroom or getting a paper cut. You literally have to be doing something stupid like sitting on a handrail to go overboard. Even after drinking 17 drinks all day I never had the idea to get up on a handrail. You literally have to be trying to go overboard or doing something stupid
In the video with such a topic must be mentioned the Soviet scientist, oceanographer Stanislav Kurilov. To escape from the USSR he deliberately jumped out from the board of cruise ship in the Pacific ocean. He had a snorkeling mask and fins but he jumped to the ocean in stormy weather. He hasn't been noticed by the crew and he spent 3 days in the water before reaching Phillipines
This guys channel is one of the best around. I love TH-cam and subscribe to many different creators on differing subjects from video games to history to engineering/city planning, movies/music etc and the quality of his work is up there among all of them
Saddest instance was a suicide by Colonel Charles White Whittlesey, Medal of Honor winner from the Lost Battalion saga..who suffered PTSD afterwards..this was a overlooked syndrome back then..on a cruise to Cuba he wrote several goodbye notes to loved ones and business parter and disappeared early morning hours...
Soldiers aren't just killed on the battlefield. They die from alcohol poisoning, addiction, depression, and when they're overwhelmed, where do they go. It makes me furious to see our vets living and dying in our streets...we fail them, every day. Men who sacrificed so much...we owe them. They deserve better. 🌹
@@miapdx503 Absolutely! It’s a saddening fact and one that often goes overlooked by the general public. We need to do more to help the brave men and women that serve, so that we not only equip them for when they go off to war but, also provide them with the necessary resources for when they return home.
My early work experience starting in 1970 had me working with WW2 veterans on the railroad, an occupation consistent with the military need to move lot's of big stuff fast. It's as if PTSD was part of that culture with the widespread abuse of alcohol and the abusive language toward co-workers being normal. It wasn't until later that I realized that wasn't normal. These men and women who suffered the deprivation of the Great Depression and the sacrifices demanded from a nation at war certainly deserved the secure life enabled by union jobs, the GI Bill, New Deal and Great Society.
When I was very young, like five or six or so, part of the education was how to survive if in deep water. At 6, anything deeper than 5' is deep, and children were drowning in backyard and municipal pools then proliferating in urban and suburban areas. We were taught the "dead man's float." The human head is not buoyant, lungs filled with air are the most buoyant part of the human body. Give a kick up, grab a breath, then stop kicking, submerge face in water relax and float for a few seconds, then repeat the process. In calmer waters a back-float might work, and I have found that swimming on my back the least energy intensive way of moving through the water. Alternating the two float strategies can widen that window of rescue opportunity
@@stevenschnepp576 Well, if the waters are temperate or tropical you could eventually enjoy the curiosity of sharks, as they ponder about what you are. If they bite through you; - muscle, fat, bone and sinew, just to see what's what, at least they'll often (but not always) spit you out... But then you'll not like the look in the eyes of all those excited seagulls coming at you, for all those, now exposed, waggling chunks. Anyway, what's that octopus doing here now, near the surface? They're supposed to be harmless aren't they..? Shoo! SHOO!! SH...Arghhhh !!!!
@@stevenschnepp576 If you are in tropical waters, hypothermia is far away (sharks are probably closer). People are known to thread water for 12+ hours in 68 F water. Mental issues often come earlier.
This has always been one of my nightmare scenarios - to fall overboard and be treading water while the ship sails away (assuming I wasn't sucked into the propellers). When I was a kid traveling on a transatlantic oceanliner with my family in the 1960s, my older brother was 'playing' and lifted me up half over the rail; a deckhand rushed up and pulled us back and yelled at my brother. If memory serves, this was also at dusk or at night, so little chance I would have been found.
I won't ask how you get on with your brother now. My mother crossed the atlantic twice in the late fifties/early sixties, and she loved it. Just sitting on a deck chair, reading, watching the horizon, watching the children. Luckily they were girls, so maybe not as roughhousey? Also, the evil one was younger, so that was better.
@@thecryptofishist9565 We did get along - It was really a matter of kids (well, my brother) doing something foolish that nearly went too far. Like your mother, we also loved the ships. It felt like an unusual experience, and in that era, for instance, you dressed formally for dinner, so there was a definite element of glamour that wasn't lost even on kids.
Hell even though I've never been on a cruise that's my intrusive thought. "hey what if I just....FELL overboard?" only sometimes it's not fall it's JUMP
And sometimes it's a push. And often people get away with. The ship is registered to Panama or a Caribbean Island and they have jurisdictions for crimes committed aboard in open waters, so by the time the ship even gets to port the evidence is often gone (famous case of an Australian young woman that was assaulted, killed and thrown overboard. Cruise line cleaned up the cabin and all evidence was "lost" and the suspected perpetrators disappeared.). These cases can drag on for decades while the family pays a bunch of money for overseas lawyers that are a 50/50 chance between actually doing their jobs or just taking your money and sending regular "progress reports" that amount to "nothing yet, but we're real close, send another 5 grand...".
Had this working on tall buildings I look over the edge and think what would happen if I jumped then the legs go jelly and your stomach turns and you wonder no more as you back away,I think it's a fight or flight reaction I cant imagine what someone who is just about to jump on purpose feels must be mad body and brain reactions
I've been working at sea for 36 years and know a bit about MOB , mainly that it is extremely rare and that I have only once had direct experience of it and that was when a deck engineer friend of mine went OB from a dredger in the Thames Estuary back in the mid 1990's, he had been working under a conveyor belt that ran almost the full length of the starboard side in an area where only a flimsy chain acted as a railing, the crew knew what job he was doing and from the position of his tools they surmised that he had stood up and caught his head on the steelwork and keeled straight over the side stunned, he was probably conscious and must have suffered having to watch the ship sail away from him oblivious of his distress. They found his body a few days later washed up on the Essex shore. That aside Mike, could you address the mysteries surrounding the roughly 400 people who have simply disappeared on board cruise ships over the last 20 or so years? Is there a dark side to cruising? PS ,you won't find me on a cruise ship for 3 reasons: 1/ I work at sea and it'd be a bit of a bus-mans holiday. 2/ The thought of being cooped up in a floating shopping centre fills me with horror. 3/ It's just a matter of time before something tragic happens to one of them.
Don't get me wrong, a cruise holiday is not for everybody that is for sure, but #3 is a bit silly I think. By that standard you would also avoid airplanes, if only because tragic things happening to planes are a LOT more common, and many other holidays face similar risks (just think about the fires in Greece last year). I suspect chances for tragedy are higher if you go on a road trip. It is just that there it affects only a handful of people at the same time and never reaches the news.
I do wonder how many people have got rid of partners they’ve grown tired of by booking a cruise. All a bit easy I imagine. I am the same trapped in with strangers for days on end wound be my idea of hell. I have a knack of attracting weirdo’s that can’t be shaken off. 😂
@@pietersleijpen3662 Not really, there are hundreds of thousands of commercial passenger flights per day from Europe alone but granted, if one of them goes down it is of various newsworthiness according to the amount of resultant dead people. Let me try to put it this way; Every year a few Merchant Navy bulk carriers sink taking their crews down with them but there's only maybe 20 dead guys per sinking and because of that and it being no real surprise it is not newsworthy, the families of the dead receive a meagre compensation and the shipowner actually makes money from the tragedy. Now think on this scenario: It's the middle of the night and a cruise ship carrying 6000 passengers and 1500 crew for a total of 8000 is passing through the Mediterranean and an LPG tanker collides with it 200 miles south east of Italy. The LPG tanker will produce in effect a tactical nuclear sized explosion. Not everyone would die but most surely would because frankly there's nobody equipped to save such a vast amount of people 200 miles out at sea. Unlikely isn't it given the sophistication of modern navigation aids, almost impossible really one would think? But what if that LPG tanker had been hijacked by a certain type of very very religiously motivated people and was driven into the side of the cruise ship quite deliberately? The type of people who would fly airliners into skyscrapers? In my opinion a similar event to this is just a matter of time.
Goodness Mike . I am crossing the Atlantic on the QM2 next year and my cabin is on deck 12. It would be a 12 storey fall to water below . I will be very careful not to fall overboard . Thanks for another professional informative presentation, Mike . Well done 👏
It's impossible to "fall" off a modern passenger ship. You need to climb over and jump or do something stupid like climb on things you are not supposed to.
Ahh. It's our pal Mike Brady. A truly friendly chap indeed. With fresh cocktail in hand we tip our glass to your having had a marvelous vacation.👍😊🤗 Sincerely the FOMBS😂
Not an overboard situation, but I fell off my skis when water skiing. My friend was my lookout, and she screamed at my then-husband to turn around and get me. It took them nearly a half hour to find me. I was wearing a bright orange flotation device, it was in a lake, weather was clear, and they still had trouble finding me. (Jan Griffiths).
Organised waterskiing has protocols for that. The skier needs to put their hand in the air. The crew member quietly tells the driver that they fell off and notes where they are, points to them continuously if it's going to be an issue.
I recently was on a Japanese overnight ferry from Sapporo to Tokyo, and while I thankfully did *not* fall overboard, I was keenly aware while on deck that only a single metal bar separated me from the churning sea below. It's not surprising to me to hear that falling overboard is, even in modern times with modern equipment, quite likely a death sentence.
I served on the flight deck of aircraft carriers in my 20s. It wasn’t uncommon to have sailors blown overboard by jet exhaust. Most were never recovered in spite of immediate and extensive air searches.
@@TheRibottoStudios Things used to be a lot more lax on carrier decks, you should see what carrier decks looked like during and immediately after WW2. Safety wasn't taken nearly as seriously as it is today.
@@TheRibottoStudios there can be up to a dozen aircraft moving around the flight deck at one time lining up and launching from 4 catapults. The exhaust blast can come from anywhere as aircraft turn. Add to that pitching decks and slicks from oil and it’s easy to find yourself sliding.
@@TheRibottoStudios To add to what others have said here don't forget we also expect sailors to launch planes in (almost) any weather and most sea states - after all, the nations need defending in all weathers. That can make decks slippery, icy, pitching, tossing, rolling etc etc etc. And you not only have to keep your feet but perform sometimes complex tasks which require steady balance.
Every time I go on a boat, this is the exact thought that goes through my head. What will it feel like? How cold will the water be? How long before I'm noticed missing? A grim situation, indeed....
I took a scuba cruise on a smaller ship. We were warned that going overboard was a serious matter and chances of being recovered alive was not good. At night, he went on, the chances are zero.
When I was aboard the aircraft carrier USS Independence CV-62 in the Indian Ocean, near the equator, a friend of mine who, through a mixture of his mistake and someone else’s mistake of turning the jet blast of either an F-14 or F/A-18 into him got blown off the flight deck. He fell about 90 feet. He said sitting in that bath water warm ocean waiting to hear the ship blast horn three times to let him know they were looking for him was the loneliest feeling he expects he will ever feel. Fortunately someone saw him and they had him back aboard in less than an hour. I bet that helped him through some breakups. “Do I feel lonely? Hmm yeah, but not really THAT lonely”
@@Archeantusableumm obviously, you know he is, maybe you guys should hang out and argue about which one of you likes him more, and which one of you will blow him harder
I've been cruising for over 20 years and passengers just don't "Fall" overboard. They are doing something stupid, simply jump or there is foul play involved.
Precisely. Watch the classic carrying-the-VCR episode of The Forensic Files to learn why tall-enough railings virtually rule out accidents, unless you're 8' tall or something.
@@dkh1020 I’ve wondered about that. Unless there’s a freak wave/gust of wind or you’re on deck in heavy swell, it would be hard to simply fall off it with the railings in the way
Exactly! I get that alcohol is a thing, but you need to be REALLY determined to get up high enough before you get seen and stopped to end up going overboard.
@@abigaillilac1370 _If that happened, there would be news articles about it._ Maybe and maybe not. Big businesses don't like negative publicity and are often very willing to pay money to shut people up and keep things out of the news and out of the courts. Sometimes even very respectable businesses (Boeing) will cause people/witnesses to off themselves when there is no apparent reason for them to do so. Usually under mysterious circumstances just before they are about to testify in court when there's big money at stake.
Things not mentioned: Wiliamson Turn, bridge wing life buoy with light and smoke markers, sea painter rigged on forward most lifeboat. You might notice the forward most boat swung out with sea painter already run forward in old photos of ocean liners. This boat can be lowered quickly even with some way on as you approach the overboard person after Williamson Turn maneuver.
We sailed a sloop in the Pacific when I was a teen. We performed MOB drills a few times a year. When in a small boat you are only a few feet above the surface of the sea and the swells are usually 5-12 feet. You can lose sight of a person in the water in a second. So the person who sees the overboard quickly calls out to the rest of the crew the OB and direction the person is now from the boat while climbing to a height to keep an eye on the person until the boat can come about and make it back to the person in the water.
Roald Dahl once wrote a short story of a man on a cruise ship that puts all his money on betting to guess the "run" for the day. When he realises that he is going to lose everything due to his information about the speed of the vessel, he gets it into his head that he can win the "sweep" and a lot of money by jumping overboard and be observed doing this so that the ship will be forced into turning about and the ship would be delayed enough to fall within the range of his "run ticket" for the day. He goes out on deck, snd looks for a witness. He finds a lone person standing on deck and staring out at the horizon. He makes his way to stand to the side of the "witness" and climbs the railing, jumping into the water. The witness is left alone. Then his "escort" appears, saying, "There you are! We've been looking for you!" The "Witness" tells his "handler" about the man that has jumped. But, as a psychiatric patient, he is simply not believed.
@@markvwood2007 It's a fairly common therapy practice today, based on the dramatic turn-around Bob Wiley experienced sailing on Lake Winnipesaukee, taking 'Baby Steps' as a patient of Dr. Leo.
I remember it was an elderly lady who was a bit senile. She tells her carer about the lovely man who jumped overboard, and the carer just goes, "oh ok, let's get you back inside"
I've only ever been on one cruise. During that time, I was so paranoid about accidently falling overboard that if whenever I drank any alcohol, I would always keep myself inside and away from the potentially hazardous, external railings.
Tbh It would be murders or suicides that I would be worried about in terms of MOB. Like you have to be trying to go over the railings on a cruise ship.
oh thank god. this whole time i was thinking about how someone WOULD WANT to fall off a ship. this video cleared it right up. i was so confused. thanks guys. youre doing gods work
Great subject Mike! What I learned in the RAN has stuck with me all my life. Biggest tip: someone always needs to keep pointing a raised arm at the last sighted position. Typically smaller boats use a figure 8 type pattern to retrieve anyone.
I was a passenger on QM2 sailing to the Caribbean for a Christmas trip. They alerted the us in the middle of the night that a woman was missing and believed to be overboard. They made a thorough search of the ship, cameras and alerted the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard boarded the ship and they continued the search . She was never found. RIP, lost lady🌹
Went on a Coasta cruise out of Ft. Lauderdale back in 2010. We were supposed to ship out around 6PM but the time came and went. We were told that some Italian passengers were late in due to flight delays so we ended up having dinner next to the pier. While we were eating police and medical units appeared on the dock next to the ship. We eventually left around 9PM. We learned later from our waitress that a member of the crew had fallen from the 9th deck into the water and died. They never did say if he jumped or was pushed.
I was on a cruise last month on the Carnival Celebration. My wife and I were relaxing in the pool area on deck 8 aft. We were sitting at the edge of the pool with our backs against the glass railing at the stern. It occurred to me that the only thing between us and the ocean eight decks below was that glass. Yeah, we moved into a couple deck chairs.
I was shocked to find out Mike Brady is like only 28 or 29 years old. He comes across as a man that time traveled from 1912 or 1932, even sometimes almost Victorian Era like 1885 or something. He doesn't seem like a younger Millennial, borderline Gen Z kid with tats everywhere and a gouged out ear and "yeah brah, what's goin' on dude, where's the new PS5 game bro".
When I was in the Navy, a Sailor who worked for me on a carrier fell overboard while throwing bags of trash in the ocean (this was common practice long ago). The ship rolled as he tossed the bags, and he went right along with them. Since he had failed to cut the required holes in the plastic bags they functioned as flotation devices. He was seen going overboard, and a helicopter was in the air. The Sailor was back on board in just several minutes.
I was in the RAN and in 2000 I was involved in a MOB. It's the scariest thing that has ever happened. You DO get sucked under and towards the propeller - I had my eyes open and I was less than 10ft from them as the ship went past.
I've read that in the 1970s a privileged few Soviet citizens earned a vacation cruise to Cuba and that often the ship came within sight of the Florida Keys. Some were reported to have jumped overboard in an attempt to reach free territory. How much of the story is true is hard to say, but the ships used were later equipped with an eight-foot tall grille in place of the handrail.
Sounds a bit daft tbh if they were privileged enough to get a cruise in Soviet Russia they'd likely have had much better life there than as a US citizen
@@pierzing.glint1sh76 Not entirely. Privileged people today in a country like North Korea still occasionally choose to defect when being sent to other countries. Being privileged in other countries doesn't automatically mean those people are exactly having a great time. In fact, a family of moderately privileged musicians in the USSR in 1988 chose to hijack a whole plane just to defect. Look it up. It didn't go well for them, but the fact that they even felt the need to do something so drastic, even in the 80's, says a lot.
This happened on the cruise I was on. Carnival's Elation sailing the Eastern Caribbean with ports to Progresso, Belize and Cozumel. Around June 21, 2005. We were at a show when the announcements came. A late middle aged white female, traveling with her husband, had checked in from port earlier that day but disappeared. Her face was on every TV, and the shipped turned around hard. I will never forget how the pool water tipped out starboard. The Mexican coast guard came and they searched and searched. Still, they never found her. They looked for a long time, but this elaborate search started late in the day.
@@nian60 ESPECIALLY don't go on a cruise with your spouse if you know that they raised the coverage on you for insurance. It may also be a hint if they bring their yoga, ballroom dance, or pickleball instructor on vacation with you all! 🤔😏
My middle school science teacher got drunk on a cruise, tried to get in a life boat. And instead of allowing security to detain him, he jumped over board. He survived but he was so embarrassed he left our school.
@@52BLUE no you misunderstand, that happened before he came to work for our school. Just one of the students stumbled across a Washington post article about what happened, then that article started circulating around the school.
This is actually fascinating from a ship design perspective. I wish there were more statistics. Older ships may have lacked much of the safety considerations we include, and even legally mandate today, but they still might be safer for someone falling overboard overall, if they were smaller and more maneuverable, or had more crew specifically watching for threats from or related to the water. It would be good to tease out what really are the influential factors here. What role does alcohol play? How often is crowding an issue that can cause this on vessels? What kind of advertising or messaging is most effective in deterring reckless behavior and drinking? is there design and messaging that can effectively discourage the desperate and mentally unstable from seeing a big boat as a means for suicide? What can demographic data tell us about who is most likely to fall overboard that might explain the why? Is it a lack of design planning for children or the elderly, or is there some other human state design can better serve, or is the main problem recklessness and the question one of how to put checks on that state of mind in people? I think we'd also get a better idea of how likely this is to happen to someone on a cruise by comparing it to other possible ways death could happen on that cruise, how does the likelihood compare to that of heart attack or choking, or death from a less dramatic accidental fall on the ship, of the same type that could happen on land? It's really sad that we can't analyze this all better and discover some subtle insights that can add up to significantly more safety.
These are all great questions, that will never be systematically studied until either the government mandates it or all of a sudden cruise lines start losing money because of MOB issues. Neither seem likely.
Did MOB training as part of a sailing yacht course many years ago. This was on a lake, little wind, no waves, no drift, the MOB had a life jacket on and there was a rescue launch 20 metres away from him. We sailed the yacht, he jumped off and we had to recover him. Bloody difficult with no engine. We got the yacht to turn within a hundred metres, but you then have to circle him till your down wind of him. Sail up to him at perfect angle and estimate the perfect time to turn into the wind to stop beside him. To late or wrong angle you hit him and may hurt him, to early or wrong angle you stop short of him and have to repeat..... Falling from a modern big ship is bad because of the turning distance, but in the age of sail, you were relying on the rescuers have extremely good sailing skills.
It is not that difficult to turn the sailing yacht and return in light wind and good visibility, people master it in couple of weekends. What is difficult, and often not trained (but you did, that's great), is to get the person back on board.
The thumbnail reminds me of a scene in Master and Commander, where an able seaman named Warley is thrown overboard in a storm, and the crew has no choice but to cut off the mizzen dragging the ship down, instead of using it to get Warley out of the water and back into the ship.
That was a gut wrenching scene in the books and movie., I was a rescue diver til injured, a few other who commented are right, being aboard a SMALL dive boat that capsized in a storm was terrible, but we were all divers, in BCD's etc, we were lucky, to fall overboard, see that ship sail away, and be alone, with no flotation, possibly drunk, after a multi story fall, damn.
That scene always gets me in the heart. That scene and the one where (I forget character's name) jumps overboard with a cannonball in his grasp in order to relieve the ship of a "curse."
Reminds me of an episode of a 1970s British show called Warship, which was the dramatised life of a Leander-class frigate in the Royal Navy. In one of the episodes (S02 e09 "Away Seaboat's Crew") a sailor falls overboard whilst trying to tie down a flapping cover on a boat at night and he's not noticed as missing until the morning. The storyline has it that he may have been pushed overboard due to an earlier fight with a disrated cabin mate however he treads water for 30-something hours (he was a diver IIRC) and is rescued after an intensive search.
I remember being on the tailfan of a ship during the night in rough sea's and looking down at the churning waves below. The thought crossed my mind of losing my balance and going over. I decided to go inside after that...
My grandad was in the merchant navy for 10 years. He told me they lost a man overboard one day but the seas were calm and it was grey, overcast day without much waves. He said they searched and never found him.
My parents were on a liner from Southampton to Capetown when a passenger jumped overboard, and despite the ship reversing course, and searching for twenty-four hours he was never found.
Here's an idea, I'm not sure if anyone's thought of something like it already. What if passengers were given special wristbands (like the kind you get at festivals and events for drinks or admission, that can also serve as a wearable room key) whenever they board a ship with GPS locators inside of them? They can alert the bridge if they break a certain barrier around the ship (like an ankle bracelet for parolees) and be used to locate them in the water by rescue crews.
@@eightcoins4401 They wouldn't have to keep it activated all the time. Only when it broke the perimeter. And I would argue that the ability to quickly locate and save someone's life that fell off a ship would be WELL worth the investment. It might help encourage people that are afraid to go on ships because they're afraid of falling overboard to feel more comfortable to go ahead and take that cruise they've always wanted to go on.
@@ibanezmaestro5630It would have to be activated all the time anyway to be able to tell when it broke the perimeter, unless it was activated by getting wet (but then you would have to remove it in the pool etc). Plus even if it was small and the battery lasted indefinitely, lots of people would balk at wearing it, seeing it as an invasion of privacy - though they probably would think it was a great idea for their kids. I do agree it could encourage people who are scared of falling overboard to try a cruise, but I’m not sure there are enough of them to make something like this worthwhile.
Princess cruise lines issue a medallion attached to a lanyard at embarkation. They sell accessories to convert it to a watch or pendant too. It tracks you all around the ship, acting as your room key (as you approach your cabin door, the lock opens and lights turn on). You can find other people on the ship via the app. Essentially all the components are already in place.
Olympic and Titanic's sister Britannic had motor launches which were instrumental in helping pick up survivors in the water on the day she struck a mine.
Hey Mike, that’s got to be one of the scariest things to happen considering you’d have the best chances with a ship being right there, even then people are rarely recovered and none alive. Great video man, stay safe on the seas people 😅
In the 1960s I was a small child on a Russian passenger ship (Krupskaya) travelling from Tilbury docks to Leningrad on the North Sea. I had my hand on the railing and was bumping myself along the solid side as a sort of game. Then I bumped against a panel that was hinged at the top but not fastened at the bottom. I got a good glimpse of the sea but was lucky enough to recover my balance. If I had gone through then game over as I doubt anyone would have seen me. I am not sure 'blame the passenger' would have been the correct verdict.
Having done my GWO Sea survival course that involved jumping in the dark with simulated wind and rain from two stories up I can imagine that falling from higher on a ship into cold water would be something that I wouldn’t survive. Even with a life jacket you go down a long way and if you aren’t careful then the life jacket can strike your chin causing injuries. It’s truly very unpleasant even in simulation.
On my US Navy ship in the early 1980s, we once had our only "man overboard" event. Luckily we were tied up to a pier, and carrying out ship's maintenance. A shipmate was sitting on the deck, legs dangling over the side as he was chipping rust near a closed watertight door. Someone opened that door suddenly and actually knocked him overboard! 😮 We sent the "man overboard" word, and a rope ladder was lowered. He climbed aboard, looking soaked and bedraggled. All was well. 😅
It's very hard to fall off of a cruise ship. The most common ways are: 1) Suicide; 2) Murder; 3) Climbing on the rails; 4) Being drunk (see 3). It's extremely hard to just slip over while standing on the deck or your balcony, even in a storm.
"Oscar" for "overboard" seems like an American invention, or at least, an abbreviation that is not SOLAS standard. During my "basic safety training" for my time working on a cruise ship, we were taught to literaly shout "man overboard" and use that phrase also in radio communication (while keeping your eyes and one arm always pointed at the person overboard).
In the late 90's or early 2000's a us navy sailor fellow overboard in the pacific and used his pants as a life vest and was picked up like a week later
They teach this strategy in Red Cross swimming lessons if you make it far enough in the program. They also show you how to do the same with a long sleeve shirt. You need to disrobe anyway since your wet clothes are very heavy and trying to stay afloat while wearing them tires you out much faster than if you disrobe. (You can worry about the problem of exposure after you solve the immediate problem of drowning under the weight of your clothing.)
In case anyone is wondering, you tie a knot at the end of each of the legs and then flip them upside down to get air into the legs. You put each leg under your armpits. The wet fabric will hold air for a while but you will need to constantly catch more air.
A week later is pretty much impossible. There are definitely regions of the planet where the water is warm enough that you can theoretically last a couple of days without dying of hypothermia, but a week of floating in the ocean? Yeah don't think so. He'd be dead from dehydration in 3 to 4 days tops.
Thank you for sharing! I'm going on a cruise with my family next year. The primary threat from an MOB type situation on our cruise will be from hypothermia as we will be sailing in cold waters around the British Isles. Here are some precautions we will be taking. 1) Not using our room's balcony after dark. 2) Using the buddy system when frequenting the ship's deck or our room's balcony. 3) Only using populated outside common areas, especially after dark. 4) Avoiding ship railings, especially after dark.
After I saw that short that went viral of the raft that was found by the cruise ship, and how hard it was to see that big old bright orange raft floating out there, much less a person without one….. oh now I understand why people used to be afraid to get into lifeboats and get lowered down there.
I was crewman on a sail training ship once. If you fell from the top of the mast, it was about 100 ft to the ocean or the deck and your chances were slim. But if you hit the ocean and survived and were conscious and somebody saw you fall, maybe you could get lucky. The only broken bone we had on the ship on that cruise was a guy that fell against a dining room pillar in rough seas and broke a rib.
I did a contract on the Carnival Miracle in back in 2014 as the audio tech. One night in my cabin, we heard the code for "man overboard" (which I don't believe I am able to disclose). The ship came to a dead stop, and I did not know the ship's exterior can be illuminated so much. It turns out the guest was safe inside somewhere. It was believed to be a cry for help, which I hope that person got. It's no small operation. Not only must the vessel stop and search, but all vessels within a certain distance are required to assist in the search as well.
It's incredible that it is still possible to quite easily fall overboard . Also that ships don't have some form of rescue craft that can be catapulted into the water for this exact purpose
I was recently reading about a U-boat crewman who fell overboard in mid-Atlantic, fortunately while wearing a lifejacket. The sub. never saw him again and he was presumed lost until, by a fluke, another U-boat surfaced fifty yards from him and fished him out of the drink.
Great vid my friend! The comments, too, are interesting. Shocking stats on the chances of being recovered. One more thing to note, swallowing sea (salt) water can kill you slowly. That may explain the last incident with the initial announcement the rescue was a success, only to later disvover he did not survive.
Remember when I was in High School and we went to one of the isles in Scotland, remember no real safety measures cause everyone was looking over the side watching I think a few dolphins. Makes you wonder why they don't add an extra rail/bar so people can't lean over and sit on something on the edge.
That moment in the movie of Cast Away when Tom Hanks clinging to a life raft in the middle of strong rain storm at night is absolute horror thought for me.
I used to live by a calm lake with a popular "booze cruise" . They'd average 1-2 MOB incidents every year. Most were young men climbing on railings or jumping off deliberately, and few were successfully rescued
Ronald Dahl (author of Charlie and the chocolate factory and many other books and stories) wrote a short story in the 1950s called ‘Dip in the Pool’. About a man travelling across the Atlantic who has placed a huge bet on when the ship would arrive. And because the ship is well ahead of schedule he is going to be financially ruined. So the man plans to go overboard so that the ship has to stop to recover him. Like most of Dahl short stories it has a wonderful twist at the end. It is a fun read.
@@MaiAolei Slowing the ship down so it takes longer for the ship to arrive so he wouldn't lose the bet and be in a financial ruin since the ship was arriving early at the destination. Pretty smart thing to do but he could have died Money isn't everything though Also... he could have falsely said someone was overboard even though nobody was and had the ship turn around and look which would also have wasted more time instead of actually putting his life at risk
When I lived down in the Florida keys I made friends with an “old salt” who had many tales of personal danger on the high seas. I was appalled to find out that he couldn’t swim at all. I couldn’t understand this until he explained that if you’re overboard, or your ship goes down in the middle of the ocean, being a strong swimmer only delays the inevitable for a few hours at best! The ocean is vast and if not spotted immediately there is a near zero chance of rescue. A very sobering thought.
He seems like the kind of guy who says he won’t wear a seatbelt because what if it traps him if the car’s in the water or on fire? Sure it might be a bad idea in unusual cases, but overall it’s a very good idea. Knowing how to swim seems like overall a very good idea too.
In the 1990s there was a man going home to Galiano Island by ferry from Vancouver, British Columbia but missed it so got on a ferry going to Victoria. As Galiano Island neared he jumped off and swam to shore. Somebody aboard saw him ‘fall off’ thus the ferry was stopped and a search was launched via the zodiacs but didn’t find him that night and the ferry was late arriving. Within a week the man was found a charged.
I went on a Bahamas cruise in 1994. One night, in full dark, I was going down the stairs on the outermost port side of the ship. It occurred to me that the "hand" rail was down at my *knees* and it struck me just how easily I could have fallen overboard, and I was sure no one would have known...
You didn’t mention the Williamson turn. It was used by the Capt’n of the training ship Bay State back in the 1980s when an idiot trainee decided to go body surfing alongside the ship mid-Atlantic. He threw a line out his cabin port shimmied down and to the hoots of his cabin mate surfed along in the ship’s wake. That lasted about 2 mins until he lost his grip. His cabin mate alerted the bridge and the Capt’n slowed the ship and executed a Williamson turn. Against all odds they found the idiot student. Masterful seamanship.
Back in the mid 80’s my Brother was standing on the bow of the families ‘Hatteras 46ft’ game fishing boat, that was steaming from Pittwater/Hawkesbury River to Sydney Harbour, after repairs and a service at a marina in Pittwater. While holding the bow rail in a medium swell, the bow rail broke and my Brother went overboard. Dad and Uncle where in the cabin with the boat on auto pilot. (5nm off the coast…standard run track, radar alarm on). My Brother popped up 20m behind the boat in a 3-4m swell. Luckily our Uncle had to get something from the stern side locker and saw him. It was later established that the bow rail gave way, as there were 2 x bolts missing on the the rail fittings. My brother happened to work at the marina in Pittwater, as a 2nd year shipwright apprentice. He also happened to do some work on our boat…repair and refit that bow rail section. Love your dedication to the sea mate, been watching since your channel since it started.
![[LIVE] : ONE ลุมพินี 84 วันนี้!! คู่เอก "ก้องศึก vs เมืองไทย"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/3kuzsAIDf1c/mqdefault.jpg)
When I was in the Navy, we once did a man overboard dead reckoning drill. The drill was simple. We took a big bright orange floating box (I don’t recall exactly the size, but it was at least a 3ft cube) and threw it overboard. Everyone was on deck and watching it as it drifted away. By the time the box was only a half a nautical mile away, we could barely find it visually.
Keep in mind these things: 1. The horizon at sea level is 12 nautical miles away; 2. The box was much bigger and brighter than a human head (which is all that will be above water if you fall in); 3. The drill was conducted during daylight hours; 4., Everyone was topside looking for the box; 5. We already knew exactly where the box was supposed to be in relation to the ship.
Despite all of this, we STILL had difficulty keeping visual track of the box! Moral of the story: Stay on the damn boat, because if you fall overboard at sea, you are pretty much boned (especially at night)!
Point of order, the horizon is 12 nautical miles away at an elevation of 38 metres above sea level.
Do you not use a gps with MOB function? Even so I bet it is very challenging.
You have a lovely way with words.
Which navy were you in? I was in the RCN and we used a rather heavy man sized and shaped dummy in an orange life perserver.....and yeah, you could quickly lose sight of the bugger if you didn't keep an eye on it.
imagine falling overboard during the sailing age or even steamp ship age.
It's pitch black on the ocean at night. I can't imagine the horror of being alone in that unending blackness as the only source of light and life, your ship, keeps sailing away.
And thinking did any sharks hear me hit the water and come investigating!!!!
@@eagandereagander6471 I mean if the water is too cold sharks will most likely not be present. There doesn't have to be any creatures present. The simple fact that you're in the middle of the ocean with no shore insight is terrifying on its own.
@@unclefester831 If the water is too cold for sharks then a person won't live long in it.
@@eagandereagander6471 Sharks would probably be a mercy. At least that's over quickly.
Otherwise you're dead anyway but drags out over an excruciatingly long time.
@@minerran Exactly! The cold alone is deadly enough.
As an ocean sea kayaker and dingy sailer who has on occasion taken a few "swims" offshore I cannot imagine your average cruiser passenger surviving any overboarding, especially after a multi-storey fall. Being in open seas in waves over your head is pretty intimidating even in an immersion suit and wearing a flotation device, and knowing how to self-rescue.
Most people without a swim aid cannot stay afloat long enough for hypothermia to set in. I do recall an East German merchant sea man who trod water for nearly 24 hours before rescue. The thought of watching your ship steaming into the night completely oblivious that you are overboard would sap most people's determination to survive that long.
I've deliberately swam with PFD through the wave-train at the entry to a rapid. Being dunked three times was bad enough, then there were the rocks at the exit.
I was working as a bus-driver for a rafting company at the time, and not being a total fool waited for the trip to show up before starting my swim.
We ❤ you and your TH-cam channel. Both excellent.
Well said sir! Tis for this very reason I never board any seafaring vessel without a belt harness, two and a quarter miles of triple braided nylon rope and my inflatable, high vis orange arm floaties!! I just need to learn to tie a better tri-loop anchor monkey fist clinch knot.
@@BeholdAPaleHorsey Two and a quarter MILES of nylon rope ?? You don't say..
Uh I didn't realise it was so hard to float in the ocean, I've don't it a few times at the beach and it seems way easier than in a pool. Tho I've never tried to float in a wavey area that probably makes the difference lol. Being dunked can be fun if you remember to breathe but being dunked in like a coat or a dress sounds like hell.
Just think, if Jack hadn't stopped Rose "falling" overboard, the Titanic would have had to turn around for a search, in the delay it would have missed the iceberg, 1,500 lives would have been saved, and our Friend, Mike Brady wouldn't have had a TH-cam channel!
And that’s why you don’t chase after women 😅
Except a) There were other icebergs in the area, and b) it was in the movie, but we don’t have any evidence that anyone on the titanic in real life almost jumped overboard.
😅
@@Sashazur People jumped when Titanic was sinking, thinking they could survive in that cold water. (Jan Griffiths).
Film theorists covered this.
Hmm, another helpful option comes to my mind ... modern drones do not cost very much in relation to potentially saving a life, so when a man over board is detected, the liner could launce a drone to keep track of the position of the victim and as a marker where to head back to. This way, even if tide etc. drift the victim away from the accident position, the drone could follow and keep the contact. This might be worth a consideration.
Yes! Great idea!
Infrared cameras have become very affordable as well. An IR-equipped drone, if launched quickly enough might be able to pick out a warm body against the cold sea.
I like the way you think. I’ve seen drones used to track shark activity for the safety of beachgoers. I think this is a brilliant idea.
Sounds like an good idea, helicopters already uses IR cameras to look for people in the sea.
Now main reason because people overboard on passenger ships is balancing on the rail while drunk so its fair to bill the cost to you but you are alive even if having to sell your house.
On the lighter side they tried to track polar bears using patrol and rescue helicopter IR cameras and could not find any until they saw polar bears visually but only the nose showed up in IR.
It could also carry some sort of flotation device and drop it to the person.
My dad and uncle worked on ice breakers and they were told that if they fell off while not wearing survival suits they would be dead by the time the ship turned around to rescue them
Coast Guard icebreakers?
@@waveranger4974 I believe so
I was standing at the railing, alone in the dark, enjoying the sensation of sailing over the waves. And then, it hit me like a ton of bricks - if I fell overboard, no one would know, or hear me, or see. I was nearly paralyzed with fear & practically had to crawl on hands & knees to get off the deck!!! I can assure you, that I will not ever do that again!
Damn you wigged yourself out big time… I feel you though
Imagine if someone didn't want u around and tossed u over
I fully get where you’re coming from, what you said happened to me on a ferry.
I was just watching the ocean and that exact thought came into my head and I froze up and couldn’t move, then i bent down and wouldn’t let go of the railing till someone walked past and I had to ask them to can they grab me and help me off the deck, I went into the cinema and didn’t move from there until the ferry docked.
To my credit I was only 14, first time on a ship and leaving the country without family so I kinda had a mini panic attack.
reality smacked u in the face XD
I was on a boat to Oslo with my GF and I kept getting haunting visions of her falling overboard and left behind in the cold water. We never sat foot on the deck because it was like -20 but still I kept seeing this horrible vision. 10 years and two girlfriends later I still get those visions. I also haven't been on board a boat since.
As a 20 year mariner, first in the US Navy and then merchant marine, I was connected to several man overboard situations. Two men were washed overboard during very high seas, and we managed to get them back aboard. The successful recovery of two other separate incidences resulting from men jumping overboard followed. I was once washed off the raised forecastle of a ship by a rogue wave, only to be deposited on the well deck by that same wave - a very painful but fortunate experience.
Lastly, I flew to Las Palmas, Gran Canaria to join a ship, to find the man I was relieving had jumped off the stern the night before as the ship sailed toward port. He had undressed and folded his clothes, stacking them at the stern.
Later, as a ship's officer, I masted the Williamson Turn, a maneuver that returns the ship on its same path in the opposite direction, and can work even if the time of the MOB was unknown. Fortunately, I never had to use it except in practice.
Dmn to suicide by jumping on the open ocean is a bad way of doing an already bad decision.
The darkness and cold in the environment is terrifying.
Washed off the ship, then washed back on. Wow!
I fall overboard. I pull out my (waterproof) phone. I can't call because of no Signal. As the Ship sails off into the sunset - I'll just watch a video, nstead... Ah, it's my good Friend, Mike Brady!
*has no signal*
*watches our friend Mike Brady*
🤔
@@Thealmightysanchez You'd argue about cork in the Lifebelt while the Titanic sinks...
@@Thealmightysanchezit’s obvious he downloaded the video so he would know what to do when he fell overboard, duh!
@Thealmightysanchez You don't download a few episodes? You have three days to watch before they get deleted.
@@the_lost_navigator at least I don’t fall overboard for any reason less than the whole ship sinking
I was on a Carnival cruise in the early 2000's that was based out of New Orleans in the Gulf of Mexico. While disembarking from the ship in New Orleans, there was a woman in a wheelchair being pushed in line right behind me. She seemed to be barely awake. I wasn't sure if she was still drunk or what. After several minutes in line the story finally came through about what happened to her. She was on a honeymoon cruise and the night before we docked her new husband was showing her how he could do pull-up on the railing of their stateroom balcony. Unfortunately the pull-up involved him hanging over the ocean side of the railing at 1:30 AM while intoxicated. Sadly, he slipped off the railing and was lost at sea. The woman was so distraught that they had to sedate her. A few weeks after the cruise I found a news story that said his body was found washed ashore on one of the uninhabited barrier islands of the Mississippi delta.
Jesus, that’s awful
You goofy ninjas!
I don't plan on ever going on a ship.I feel like that's an excellent way to prevent yourself falling overboard.
Yeah after learning about the poop cruise awhile back, I’ve lost interest
Its a good start, better if you move to higher ground... You never know when these ships will sneak up and snatch those near the water.
@@nitrousoxide69 You could get Shang-hai surprise, ha ha.
I think so 😅
As someone who has been on several cruises with another one booked for October of this year I'll say you don't "accidentally" fall overboard. It's not like stubbing your toe at 3 am going to the bathroom or getting a paper cut. You literally have to be doing something stupid like sitting on a handrail to go overboard. Even after drinking 17 drinks all day I never had the idea to get up on a handrail. You literally have to be trying to go overboard or doing something stupid
In the video with such a topic must be mentioned the Soviet scientist, oceanographer Stanislav Kurilov. To escape from the USSR he deliberately jumped out from the board of cruise ship in the Pacific ocean. He had a snorkeling mask and fins but he jumped to the ocean in stormy weather. He hasn't been noticed by the crew and he spent 3 days in the water before reaching Phillipines
What a swimmer!
Bro wth that mans a beast
I have read his book.
This guys channel is one of the best around. I love TH-cam and subscribe to many different creators on differing subjects from video games to history to engineering/city planning, movies/music etc and the quality of his work is up there among all of them
Saddest instance was a suicide by Colonel Charles White Whittlesey, Medal of Honor winner from the Lost Battalion saga..who suffered PTSD afterwards..this was a overlooked syndrome back then..on a cruise to Cuba he wrote several goodbye notes to loved ones and business parter and disappeared early morning hours...
Soldiers aren't just killed on the battlefield. They die from alcohol poisoning, addiction, depression, and when they're overwhelmed, where do they go. It makes me furious to see our vets living and dying in our streets...we fail them, every day. Men who sacrificed so much...we owe them. They deserve better. 🌹
@@miapdx503 Absolutely! It’s a saddening fact and one that often goes overlooked by the general public. We need to do more to help the brave men and women that serve, so that we not only equip them for when they go off to war but, also provide them with the necessary resources for when they return home.
My early work experience starting in 1970 had me working with WW2 veterans on the railroad, an occupation consistent with the military need to move lot's of big stuff fast. It's as if PTSD was part of that culture with the widespread abuse of alcohol and the abusive language toward co-workers being normal. It wasn't until later that I realized that wasn't normal.
These men and women who suffered the deprivation of the Great Depression and the sacrifices demanded from a nation at war certainly deserved the secure life enabled by union jobs, the GI Bill, New Deal and Great Society.
@@andywomack3414Democrat bs
Big Old Boats JUST did a video about him definitely a sad story.
When I was very young, like five or six or so, part of the education was how to survive if in deep water. At 6, anything deeper than 5' is deep, and children were drowning in backyard and municipal pools then proliferating in urban and suburban areas.
We were taught the "dead man's float."
The human head is not buoyant, lungs filled with air are the most buoyant part of the human body.
Give a kick up, grab a breath, then stop kicking, submerge face in water relax and float for a few seconds, then repeat the process.
In calmer waters a back-float might work, and I have found that swimming on my back the least energy intensive way of moving through the water.
Alternating the two float strategies can widen that window of rescue opportunity
That's how you live long enough to die of hypothermia, yeah.
@@stevenschnepp576 Well, if the waters are temperate or tropical you could eventually enjoy the curiosity of sharks, as they ponder about what you are.
If they bite through you;
- muscle, fat, bone and sinew, just to see what's what, at least they'll often (but not always) spit you out...
But then you'll not like the look in the eyes of all those excited seagulls coming at you, for all those, now exposed, waggling chunks.
Anyway, what's that octopus doing here now, near the surface?
They're supposed to be harmless aren't they..?
Shoo!
SHOO!!
SH...Arghhhh !!!!
@@TheChurlishBoor You paint a colourful mental picture.
That is no longer taught, thanks to political correctness and "woke"
@@stevenschnepp576 If you are in tropical waters, hypothermia is far away (sharks are probably closer). People are known to thread water for 12+ hours in 68 F water. Mental issues often come earlier.
This has always been one of my nightmare scenarios - to fall overboard and be treading water while the ship sails away (assuming I wasn't sucked into the propellers). When I was a kid traveling on a transatlantic oceanliner with my family in the 1960s, my older brother was 'playing' and lifted me up half over the rail; a deckhand rushed up and pulled us back and yelled at my brother. If memory serves, this was also at dusk or at night, so little chance I would have been found.
I won't ask how you get on with your brother now.
My mother crossed the atlantic twice in the late fifties/early sixties, and she loved it. Just sitting on a deck chair, reading, watching the horizon, watching the children. Luckily they were girls, so maybe not as roughhousey? Also, the evil one was younger, so that was better.
@@thecryptofishist9565 We did get along - It was really a matter of kids (well, my brother) doing something foolish that nearly went too far. Like your mother, we also loved the ships. It felt like an unusual experience, and in that era, for instance, you dressed formally for dinner, so there was a definite element of glamour that wasn't lost even on kids.
How good do those propellers suck btw?
@@needlepark212 250 RPM so I'd say pretty well.
@@tappajaav😭
Every time I’m on a cruise ship, this is my intrusive thought. And it was a great example about teaching my son about intrusive thoughts.
Hell even though I've never been on a cruise that's my intrusive thought. "hey what if I just....FELL overboard?" only sometimes it's not fall it's JUMP
And sometimes it's a push. And often people get away with. The ship is registered to Panama or a Caribbean Island and they have jurisdictions for crimes committed aboard in open waters, so by the time the ship even gets to port the evidence is often gone (famous case of an Australian young woman that was assaulted, killed and thrown overboard. Cruise line cleaned up the cabin and all evidence was "lost" and the suspected perpetrators disappeared.).
These cases can drag on for decades while the family pays a bunch of money for overseas lawyers that are a 50/50 chance between actually doing their jobs or just taking your money and sending regular "progress reports" that amount to "nothing yet, but we're real close, send another 5 grand...".
Brought up next to the sea, my thoughts exactly on boats and ships. We use ferries to France a lot on The South Coast of England.
Had this working on tall buildings I look over the edge and think what would happen if I jumped then the legs go jelly and your stomach turns and you wonder no more as you back away,I think it's a fight or flight reaction I cant imagine what someone who is just about to jump on purpose feels must be mad body and brain reactions
I wonder if the intrusive thought thing is the brain making sure you DON'T do something.
I've been working at sea for 36 years and know a bit about MOB , mainly that it is extremely rare and that I have only once had direct experience of it and that was when a deck engineer friend of mine went OB from a dredger in the Thames Estuary back in the mid 1990's, he had been working under a conveyor belt that ran almost the full length of the starboard side in an area where only a flimsy chain acted as a railing, the crew knew what job he was doing and from the position of his tools they surmised that he had stood up and caught his head on the steelwork and keeled straight over the side stunned, he was probably conscious and must have suffered having to watch the ship sail away from him oblivious of his distress.
They found his body a few days later washed up on the Essex shore.
That aside Mike, could you address the mysteries surrounding the roughly 400 people who have simply disappeared on board cruise ships over the last 20 or so years?
Is there a dark side to cruising?
PS ,you won't find me on a cruise ship for 3 reasons:
1/ I work at sea and it'd be a bit of a bus-mans holiday.
2/ The thought of being cooped up in a floating shopping centre fills me with horror.
3/ It's just a matter of time before something tragic happens to one of them.
Don't get me wrong, a cruise holiday is not for everybody that is for sure, but #3 is a bit silly I think. By that standard you would also avoid airplanes, if only because tragic things happening to planes are a LOT more common, and many other holidays face similar risks (just think about the fires in Greece last year). I suspect chances for tragedy are higher if you go on a road trip. It is just that there it affects only a handful of people at the same time and never reaches the news.
You could argue the regular outbreaks of disease and illness aboard (especially during COVID) already started point 3 off.
@@pietersleijpen3662 Cruise ships are a lot less safe per passenger-kilometer than planes are..
I do wonder how many people have got rid of partners they’ve grown tired of by booking a cruise. All a bit easy I imagine.
I am the same trapped in with strangers for days on end wound be my idea of hell. I have a knack of attracting weirdo’s that can’t be shaken off. 😂
@@pietersleijpen3662 Not really, there are hundreds of thousands of commercial passenger flights per day from Europe alone but granted, if one of them goes down it is of various newsworthiness according to the amount of resultant dead people.
Let me try to put it this way; Every year a few Merchant Navy bulk carriers sink taking their crews down with them but there's only maybe 20 dead guys per sinking and because of that and it being no real surprise it is not newsworthy, the families of the dead receive a meagre compensation and the shipowner actually makes money from the tragedy.
Now think on this scenario:
It's the middle of the night and a cruise ship carrying 6000 passengers and 1500 crew for a total of 8000 is passing through the Mediterranean and an LPG tanker collides with it 200 miles south east of Italy.
The LPG tanker will produce in effect a tactical nuclear sized explosion.
Not everyone would die but most surely would because frankly there's nobody equipped to save such a vast amount of people 200 miles out at sea.
Unlikely isn't it given the sophistication of modern navigation aids, almost impossible really one would think?
But what if that LPG tanker had been hijacked by a certain type of very very religiously motivated people and was driven into the side of the cruise ship quite deliberately?
The type of people who would fly airliners into skyscrapers?
In my opinion a similar event to this is just a matter of time.
Goodness Mike . I am crossing the Atlantic on the QM2 next year and my cabin is on deck 12. It would be a 12 storey fall to water below . I will be very careful not to fall overboard . Thanks for another professional informative presentation, Mike . Well done 👏
It's impossible to "fall" off a modern passenger ship. You need to climb over and jump or do something stupid like climb on things you are not supposed to.
Ahh. It's our pal Mike Brady. A truly friendly chap indeed. With fresh cocktail in hand we tip our glass to your having had a marvelous vacation.👍😊🤗 Sincerely the FOMBS😂
I've only recently discovered this channel and I'm truly blessed to have a new friend, Mike Brady.
thanks for finally clearing up the persistent misconception that falling off a ship and drowning in the ocean is a good thing actually
Not an overboard situation, but I fell off my skis when water skiing. My friend was my lookout, and she screamed at my then-husband to turn around and get me. It took them nearly a half hour to find me. I was wearing a bright orange flotation device, it was in a lake, weather was clear, and they still had trouble finding me. (Jan Griffiths).
Organised waterskiing has protocols for that. The skier needs to put their hand in the air. The crew member quietly tells the driver that they fell off and notes where they are, points to them continuously if it's going to be an issue.
I recently was on a Japanese overnight ferry from Sapporo to Tokyo, and while I thankfully did *not* fall overboard, I was keenly aware while on deck that only a single metal bar separated me from the churning sea below. It's not surprising to me to hear that falling overboard is, even in modern times with modern equipment, quite likely a death sentence.
I served on the flight deck of aircraft carriers in my 20s. It wasn’t uncommon to have sailors blown overboard by jet exhaust. Most were never recovered in spite of immediate and extensive air searches.
I'm a bit confused; why would someone stand near or behind those things as they shoot off the craft?
@@TheRibottoStudios Things used to be a lot more lax on carrier decks, you should see what carrier decks looked like during and immediately after WW2. Safety wasn't taken nearly as seriously as it is today.
@@TheRibottoStudios there can be up to a dozen aircraft moving around the flight deck at one time lining up and launching from 4 catapults. The exhaust blast can come from anywhere as aircraft turn. Add to that pitching decks and slicks from oil and it’s easy to find yourself sliding.
@@TheRibottoStudios To add to what others have said here don't forget we also expect sailors to launch planes in (almost) any weather and most sea states - after all, the nations need defending in all weathers.
That can make decks slippery, icy, pitching, tossing, rolling etc etc etc. And you not only have to keep your feet but perform sometimes complex tasks which require steady balance.
You say it wasn’t uncommon, but how common was it? Cuz that’s scary to think about
Every time I go on a boat, this is the exact thought that goes through my head. What will it feel like? How cold will the water be? How long before I'm noticed missing? A grim situation, indeed....
I took a scuba cruise on a smaller ship. We were warned that going overboard was a serious matter and chances of being recovered alive was not good. At night, he went on, the chances are zero.
When I was aboard the aircraft carrier USS Independence CV-62 in the Indian Ocean, near the equator, a friend of mine who, through a mixture of his mistake and someone else’s mistake of turning the jet blast of either an F-14 or F/A-18 into him got blown off the flight deck. He fell about 90 feet. He said sitting in that bath water warm ocean waiting to hear the ship blast horn three times to let him know they were looking for him was the loneliest feeling he expects he will ever feel. Fortunately someone saw him and they had him back aboard in less than an hour.
I bet that helped him through some breakups. “Do I feel lonely? Hmm yeah, but not really THAT lonely”
lol!
A whole deck crew had his back! How lonely could he be after that?
Do carriers have horns ?
@@12345fowler sure! All ships have horns. You can’t assume small boats in busy but foggy waterways have the equipment to see you in that fog or dark
Ahhh it’s my friend again.
Surely you're talking about our friend Mike Brady from Oceanliner Designs
@@Archeantusableumm obviously, you know he is, maybe you guys should hang out and argue about which one of you likes him more, and which one of you will blow him harder
@@OriginalCoalRollers you don't deserve to be friends with Mike Brady from Oceanliner Designs
@@OriginalCoalRollersDefinitely the worst friend of Mike Brady from Oceanliner designs
Just thinking the exact same thing!!❤
I've been cruising for over 20 years and passengers just don't "Fall" overboard. They are doing something stupid, simply jump or there is foul play involved.
Precisely. Watch the classic carrying-the-VCR episode of The Forensic Files to learn why tall-enough railings virtually rule out accidents, unless you're 8' tall or something.
Unless grampa slides the window and screen open while 'playing' with Jr. on the windowsill - remember that?
@@dkh1020 I’ve wondered about that. Unless there’s a freak wave/gust of wind or you’re on deck in heavy swell, it would be hard to simply fall off it with the railings in the way
Exactly! I get that alcohol is a thing, but you need to be REALLY determined to get up high enough before you get seen and stopped to end up going overboard.
I remember a few years ago, a girl who was in the year below me at my school disappeared aboard a Disney ship and was unfortunately never found
She must have fallen overboard.
She probably met a singing crab
If that happened, there would be news articles about it.
@@abigaillilac1370 There are. Search Rebecca Coriam
@@abigaillilac1370 _If that happened, there would be news articles about it._
Maybe and maybe not.
Big businesses don't like negative publicity and are often very willing to pay money to shut people up and keep things out of the news and out of the courts.
Sometimes even very respectable businesses (Boeing) will cause people/witnesses to off themselves when there is no apparent reason for them to do so. Usually under mysterious circumstances just before they are about to testify in court when there's big money at stake.
Things not mentioned: Wiliamson Turn, bridge wing life buoy with light and smoke markers, sea painter rigged on forward most lifeboat. You might notice the forward most boat swung out with sea painter already run forward in old photos of ocean liners. This boat can be lowered quickly even with some way on as you approach the overboard person after Williamson Turn maneuver.
We sailed a sloop in the Pacific when I was a teen. We performed MOB drills a few times a year. When in a small boat you are only a few feet above the surface of the sea and the swells are usually 5-12 feet. You can lose sight of a person in the water in a second. So the person who sees the overboard quickly calls out to the rest of the crew the OB and direction the person is now from the boat while climbing to a height to keep an eye on the person until the boat can come about and make it back to the person in the water.
As a fellow sailor: absolutely agree. Fair winds and following seas :)
Roald Dahl once wrote a short story of a man on a cruise ship that puts all his money on betting to guess the "run" for the day.
When he realises that he is going to lose everything due to his information about the speed of the vessel, he gets it into his head that he can win the "sweep" and a lot of money by jumping overboard and be observed doing this so that the ship will be forced into turning about and the ship would be delayed enough to fall within the range of his "run ticket" for the day.
He goes out on deck, snd looks for a witness.
He finds a lone person standing on deck and staring out at the horizon.
He makes his way to stand to the side of the "witness" and climbs the railing, jumping into the water.
The witness is left alone. Then his "escort" appears, saying, "There you are! We've been looking for you!"
The "Witness" tells his "handler" about the man that has jumped.
But, as a psychiatric patient, he is simply not believed.
Sounds like something a child would write honestly
So a psychiatric patient is on a cruise ship? And he as a "handler". Right.
No it's a great story, just not told we'll here
@@markvwood2007 It's a fairly common therapy practice today, based on the dramatic turn-around Bob Wiley experienced sailing on Lake Winnipesaukee, taking 'Baby Steps' as a patient of Dr. Leo.
I remember it was an elderly lady who was a bit senile. She tells her carer about the lovely man who jumped overboard, and the carer just goes, "oh ok, let's get you back inside"
I've only ever been on one cruise. During that time, I was so paranoid about accidently falling overboard that if whenever I drank any alcohol, I would always keep myself inside and away from the potentially hazardous, external railings.
i been on two and i did and think like you,i would not drink i stayed away from rails i was bit paranoid
I'd be paranoid as well, and would limit my alcohol consumption. Especially at night. (Jan Griffiths).
Tbh It would be murders or suicides that I would be worried about in terms of MOB. Like you have to be trying to go over the railings on a cruise ship.
Alcohol and boat rails dont mix well. (Hugh Janus)@@douglasgriffiths3534
Im paranoid about accidentaly falling overboad right now and im sat on my couch
oh thank god. this whole time i was thinking about how someone WOULD WANT to fall off a ship. this video cleared it right up. i was so confused. thanks guys. youre doing gods work
Great subject Mike! What I learned in the RAN has stuck with me all my life.
Biggest tip: someone always needs to keep pointing a raised arm at the last sighted position. Typically smaller boats use a figure 8 type pattern to retrieve anyone.
I was a passenger on QM2 sailing to the Caribbean for a Christmas trip. They alerted the us in the middle of the night that a woman was missing and believed to be overboard. They made a thorough search of the ship, cameras and alerted the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard boarded the ship and they continued the search . She was never found. RIP, lost lady🌹
Went on a Coasta cruise out of Ft. Lauderdale back in 2010. We were supposed to ship out around 6PM but the time came and went. We were told that some Italian passengers were late in due to flight delays so we ended up having dinner next to the pier. While we were eating police and medical units appeared on the dock next to the ship. We eventually left around 9PM. We learned later from our waitress that a member of the crew had fallen from the 9th deck into the water and died. They never did say if he jumped or was pushed.
I was on a cruise last month on the Carnival Celebration. My wife and I were relaxing in the pool area on deck 8 aft. We were sitting at the edge of the pool with our backs against the glass railing at the stern. It occurred to me that the only thing between us and the ocean eight decks below was that glass. Yeah, we moved into a couple deck chairs.
Smart move. (Jan Griffiths).
I stay far away from the railing on cruises
Guys think. One day when all the older ship experts are gone on shows.
Mike Brady will be the face of new titanic videos and ship documentary’s
he already is lmao
I was shocked to find out Mike Brady is like only 28 or 29 years old. He comes across as a man that time traveled from 1912 or 1932, even sometimes almost Victorian Era like 1885 or something. He doesn't seem like a younger Millennial, borderline Gen Z kid with tats everywhere and a gouged out ear and "yeah brah, what's goin' on dude, where's the new PS5 game bro".
When I was in the Navy, a Sailor who worked for me on a carrier fell overboard while throwing bags of trash in the ocean (this was common practice long ago). The ship rolled as he tossed the bags, and he went right along with them. Since he had failed to cut the required holes in the plastic bags they functioned as flotation devices. He was seen going overboard, and a helicopter was in the air. The Sailor was back on board in just several minutes.
Good thing he wasn't dumping 55 gallon drums of sludge.
Throwing bags of trash in the ocean? Is that common practice?
Sounds like terrible environmental pollution.
@@senoner90 This was in the mid-80s. No longer done.
@@ltcterry2006 good to know :)
Thank you for sharing 😮
I was in the RAN and in 2000 I was involved in a MOB. It's the scariest thing that has ever happened.
You DO get sucked under and towards the propeller - I had my eyes open and I was less than 10ft from them as the ship went past.
Falling overboard makes me sad
But you know what doesn't make me sad? My friend Mike Brady from OceanLiner Designs
So you have fallen overboard sometimes?
Cool.
I would be sad too
I've read that in the 1970s a privileged few Soviet citizens earned a vacation cruise to Cuba and that often the ship came within sight of the Florida Keys. Some were reported to have jumped overboard in an attempt to reach free territory. How much of the story is true is hard to say, but the ships used were later equipped with an eight-foot tall grille in place of the handrail.
Sounds a bit daft tbh if they were privileged enough to get a cruise in Soviet Russia they'd likely have had much better life there than as a US citizen
@@pierzing.glint1sh76 Not entirely. Privileged people today in a country like North Korea still occasionally choose to defect when being sent to other countries. Being privileged in other countries doesn't automatically mean those people are exactly having a great time. In fact, a family of moderately privileged musicians in the USSR in 1988 chose to hijack a whole plane just to defect. Look it up. It didn't go well for them, but the fact that they even felt the need to do something so drastic, even in the 80's, says a lot.
This happened on the cruise I was on. Carnival's Elation sailing the Eastern Caribbean with ports to Progresso, Belize and Cozumel. Around June 21, 2005. We were at a show when the announcements came. A late middle aged white female, traveling with her husband, had checked in from port earlier that day but disappeared. Her face was on every TV, and the shipped turned around hard. I will never forget how the pool water tipped out starboard. The Mexican coast guard came and they searched and searched. Still, they never found her. They looked for a long time, but this elaborate search started late in the day.
I bet the husband threw her overboard. Never go on a cruise with your spouse if you're married, is my takeaway.
@@nian60 ESPECIALLY don't go on a cruise with your spouse if you know that they raised the coverage on you for insurance. It may also be a hint if they bring their yoga, ballroom dance, or pickleball instructor on vacation with you all! 🤔😏
@@nian60what about going on a cruise with your spouse if you’re not married?
@@Vingulwhat spouse?
@@ninjavibez4696 Exactly,
omg i love this. total nightmare fuel. please do more videos like this, on the perilous aspects of the sea.
My middle school science teacher got drunk on a cruise, tried to get in a life boat. And instead of allowing security to detain him, he jumped over board. He survived but he was so embarrassed he left our school.
@@52BLUE no you misunderstand, that happened before he came to work for our school. Just one of the students stumbled across a Washington post article about what happened, then that article started circulating around the school.
Great job Mike, this video made a splash!!
That's it. I'm not going on a boat without Mr. Brady ever again.
This is actually fascinating from a ship design perspective. I wish there were more statistics. Older ships may have lacked much of the safety considerations we include, and even legally mandate today, but they still might be safer for someone falling overboard overall, if they were smaller and more maneuverable, or had more crew specifically watching for threats from or related to the water. It would be good to tease out what really are the influential factors here. What role does alcohol play? How often is crowding an issue that can cause this on vessels? What kind of advertising or messaging is most effective in deterring reckless behavior and drinking? is there design and messaging that can effectively discourage the desperate and mentally unstable from seeing a big boat as a means for suicide? What can demographic data tell us about who is most likely to fall overboard that might explain the why? Is it a lack of design planning for children or the elderly, or is there some other human state design can better serve, or is the main problem recklessness and the question one of how to put checks on that state of mind in people? I think we'd also get a better idea of how likely this is to happen to someone on a cruise by comparing it to other possible ways death could happen on that cruise, how does the likelihood compare to that of heart attack or choking, or death from a less dramatic accidental fall on the ship, of the same type that could happen on land? It's really sad that we can't analyze this all better and discover some subtle insights that can add up to significantly more safety.
These are all great questions, that will never be systematically studied until either the government mandates it or all of a sudden cruise lines start losing money because of MOB issues. Neither seem likely.
Did MOB training as part of a sailing yacht course many years ago. This was on a lake, little wind, no waves, no drift, the MOB had a life jacket on and there was a rescue launch 20 metres away from him. We sailed the yacht, he jumped off and we had to recover him. Bloody difficult with no engine. We got the yacht to turn within a hundred metres, but you then have to circle him till your down wind of him. Sail up to him at perfect angle and estimate the perfect time to turn into the wind to stop beside him. To late or wrong angle you hit him and may hurt him, to early or wrong angle you stop short of him and have to repeat..... Falling from a modern big ship is bad because of the turning distance, but in the age of sail, you were relying on the rescuers have extremely good sailing skills.
It is not that difficult to turn the sailing yacht and return in light wind and good visibility, people master it in couple of weekends. What is difficult, and often not trained (but you did, that's great), is to get the person back on board.
The thumbnail reminds me of a scene in Master and Commander, where an able seaman named Warley is thrown overboard in a storm, and the crew has no choice but to cut off the mizzen dragging the ship down, instead of using it to get Warley out of the water and back into the ship.
That was a gut wrenching scene in the books and movie., I was a rescue diver til injured, a few other who commented are right, being aboard a SMALL dive boat that capsized in a storm was terrible, but we were all divers, in BCD's etc, we were lucky, to fall overboard, see that ship sail away, and be alone, with no flotation, possibly drunk, after a multi story fall, damn.
That scene always gets me in the heart. That scene and the one where (I forget character's name) jumps overboard with a cannonball in his grasp in order to relieve the ship of a "curse."
@@skyden24195what an amazing movie its one of my favorites of all time
@@skyden24195 It was Midshipman Hollum/Hollom (not sure of the spelling)
Reminds me of an episode of a 1970s British show called Warship, which was the dramatised life of a Leander-class frigate in the Royal Navy. In one of the episodes (S02 e09 "Away Seaboat's Crew") a sailor falls overboard whilst trying to tie down a flapping cover on a boat at night and he's not noticed as missing until the morning. The storyline has it that he may have been pushed overboard due to an earlier fight with a disrated cabin mate however he treads water for 30-something hours (he was a diver IIRC) and is rescued after an intensive search.
Ayy it's my friend Mike Brady from ocean liner designs. Keep up the work mike!
I remember being on the tailfan of a ship during the night in rough sea's and looking down at the churning waves below. The thought crossed my mind of losing my balance and going over. I decided to go inside after that...
My grandad was in the merchant navy for 10 years. He told me they lost a man overboard one day but the seas were calm and it was grey, overcast day without much waves. He said they searched and never found him.
My parents were on a liner from Southampton to Capetown when a passenger jumped overboard, and despite the ship reversing course, and searching for twenty-four hours he was never found.
Here's an idea, I'm not sure if anyone's thought of something like it already. What if passengers were given special wristbands (like the kind you get at festivals and events for drinks or admission, that can also serve as a wearable room key) whenever they board a ship with GPS locators inside of them? They can alert the bridge if they break a certain barrier around the ship (like an ankle bracelet for parolees) and be used to locate them in the water by rescue crews.
Sounds good ..in vent one x
Giving every passenger on a huge cruise a gps device would be very expensive with no real financial incentive to do so
@@eightcoins4401 They wouldn't have to keep it activated all the time. Only when it broke the perimeter. And I would argue that the ability to quickly locate and save someone's life that fell off a ship would be WELL worth the investment. It might help encourage people that are afraid to go on ships because they're afraid of falling overboard to feel more comfortable to go ahead and take that cruise they've always wanted to go on.
@@ibanezmaestro5630It would have to be activated all the time anyway to be able to tell when it broke the perimeter, unless it was activated by getting wet (but then you would have to remove it in the pool etc). Plus even if it was small and the battery lasted indefinitely, lots of people would balk at wearing it, seeing it as an invasion of privacy - though they probably would think it was a great idea for their kids. I do agree it could encourage people who are scared of falling overboard to try a cruise, but I’m not sure there are enough of them to make something like this worthwhile.
Princess cruise lines issue a medallion attached to a lanyard at embarkation. They sell accessories to convert it to a watch or pendant too. It tracks you all around the ship, acting as your room key (as you approach your cabin door, the lock opens and lights turn on). You can find other people on the ship via the app. Essentially all the components are already in place.
Olympic and Titanic's sister Britannic had motor launches which were instrumental in helping pick up survivors in the water on the day she struck a mine.
Hey Mike, that’s got to be one of the scariest things to happen considering you’d have the best chances with a ship being right there, even then people are rarely recovered and none alive. Great video man, stay safe on the seas people 😅
Youre the best friend ever, Mike from Oceanliner Designs.
In the 1960s I was a small child on a Russian passenger ship (Krupskaya) travelling from Tilbury docks to Leningrad on the North Sea. I had my hand on the railing and was bumping myself along the solid side as a sort of game. Then I bumped against a panel that was hinged at the top but not fastened at the bottom. I got a good glimpse of the sea but was lucky enough to recover my balance. If I had gone through then game over as I doubt anyone would have seen me. I am not sure 'blame the passenger' would have been the correct verdict.
When you said "Oscar oscar oscar" I literally got chills. Sometimes I wonder why I love this channel but fear ever getting on a ship :)
I know … Wilde Wilde Wilde !
thanks my friend mike brady, loved the video!
One of the first things that I learnt whilst doing my Survival At Sea training when serving in the RAN was that you NEVER lean against a Guard Rail!!!
Having done my GWO Sea survival course that involved jumping in the dark with simulated wind and rain from two stories up I can imagine that falling from higher on a ship into cold water would be something that I wouldn’t survive.
Even with a life jacket you go down a long way and if you aren’t careful then the life jacket can strike your chin causing injuries. It’s truly very unpleasant even in simulation.
On my US Navy ship in the early 1980s, we once had our only "man overboard" event. Luckily we were tied up to a pier, and carrying out ship's maintenance. A shipmate was sitting on the deck, legs dangling over the side as he was chipping rust near a closed watertight door. Someone opened that door suddenly and actually knocked him overboard! 😮
We sent the "man overboard" word, and a rope ladder was lowered. He climbed aboard, looking soaked and bedraggled. All was well. 😅
It's very hard to fall off of a cruise ship. The most common ways are: 1) Suicide; 2) Murder; 3) Climbing on the rails; 4) Being drunk (see 3). It's extremely hard to just slip over while standing on the deck or your balcony, even in a storm.
"Oscar" for "overboard" seems like an American invention, or at least, an abbreviation that is not SOLAS standard. During my "basic safety training" for my time working on a cruise ship, we were taught to literaly shout "man overboard" and use that phrase also in radio communication (while keeping your eyes and one arm always pointed at the person overboard).
I've worked on many cruise ships and it was always Mr Mob please report to, wherever. Never heard of Oscar
Possibly a new intro?! I’m so happy this question of mine has been answered. Thanks Brady 🚢❤
Nicely coordinated with the latest video from Big Old Boats, on four mysterious disappearances at sea.
I love how cheerfully pitch black dark this is. Unfortunately your screams won't be heard as you slowly drown in the choppy waters. Thanks Mike!
Jeeezus! That's chilling!
It’s called a Williamson Turn. You can easily recognize it if you know what to look for, even from inside. It’s a chilling recognition.
In the late 90's or early 2000's a us navy sailor fellow overboard in the pacific and used his pants as a life vest and was picked up like a week later
They teach this strategy in Red Cross swimming lessons if you make it far enough in the program. They also show you how to do the same with a long sleeve shirt. You need to disrobe anyway since your wet clothes are very heavy and trying to stay afloat while wearing them tires you out much faster than if you disrobe. (You can worry about the problem of exposure after you solve the immediate problem of drowning under the weight of your clothing.)
In case anyone is wondering, you tie a knot at the end of each of the legs and then flip them upside down to get air into the legs. You put each leg under your armpits. The wet fabric will hold air for a while but you will need to constantly catch more air.
A week later is pretty much impossible. There are definitely regions of the planet where the water is warm enough that you can theoretically last a couple of days without dying of hypothermia, but a week of floating in the ocean? Yeah don't think so. He'd be dead from dehydration in 3 to 4 days tops.
Thank you, friend Mike...a very interesting and informative episode
Friend?
I already have an immense fear of the ocean and this just helps solidify it! I like seeing things that back my claims! (or fears...)
My friend Mike Brady came back for me...thank you 🙂
Thank you for sharing!
I'm going on a cruise with my family next year. The primary threat from an MOB type situation on our cruise will be from hypothermia as we will be sailing in cold waters around the British Isles. Here are some precautions we will be taking.
1) Not using our room's balcony after dark.
2) Using the buddy system when frequenting the ship's deck or our room's balcony.
3) Only using populated outside common areas, especially after dark.
4) Avoiding ship railings, especially after dark.
After I saw that short that went viral of the raft that was found by the cruise ship, and how hard it was to see that big old bright orange raft floating out there, much less a person without one….. oh now I understand why people used to be afraid to get into lifeboats and get lowered down there.
I was crewman on a sail training ship once. If you fell from the top of the mast, it was about 100 ft to the ocean or the deck and your chances were slim. But if you hit the ocean and survived and were conscious and somebody saw you fall, maybe you could get lucky. The only broken bone we had on the ship on that cruise was a guy that fell against a dining room pillar in rough seas and broke a rib.
Or a lifeboat 🫣
I did a contract on the Carnival Miracle in back in 2014 as the audio tech. One night in my cabin, we heard the code for "man overboard" (which I don't believe I am able to disclose). The ship came to a dead stop, and I did not know the ship's exterior can be illuminated so much. It turns out the guest was safe inside somewhere. It was believed to be a cry for help, which I hope that person got. It's no small operation. Not only must the vessel stop and search, but all vessels within a certain distance are required to assist in the search as well.
It's incredible that it is still possible to quite easily fall overboard . Also that ships don't have some form of rescue craft that can be catapulted into the water for this exact purpose
I was recently reading about a U-boat crewman who fell overboard in mid-Atlantic, fortunately while wearing a lifejacket. The sub. never saw him again and he was presumed lost until, by a fluke, another U-boat surfaced fifty yards from him and fished him out of the drink.
Great vid my friend! The comments, too, are interesting. Shocking stats on the chances of being recovered. One more thing to note, swallowing sea (salt) water can kill you slowly. That may explain the last incident with the initial announcement the rescue was a success, only to later disvover he did not survive.
Remember when I was in High School and we went to one of the isles in Scotland, remember no real safety measures cause everyone was looking over the side watching I think a few dolphins. Makes you wonder why they don't add an extra rail/bar so people can't lean over and sit on something on the edge.
Our great friend Mike Brady with another banger.
That moment in the movie of Cast Away when Tom Hanks clinging to a life raft in the middle of strong rain storm at night is absolute horror thought for me.
..And what about the scene when he sees his FedEx plane is about to be engulfed by the black stormy ocean ?
So glad you reported this - cruise liners are very quick to suggest that there may have been depression and suicidal tendencies
After spending about 30 years sailing if you go overboard you are basically fish food , a person in the water is not easily seen
Yeah imagine running into a giant grouper the size of a small car , no chance of survival
I used to live by a calm lake with a popular "booze cruise" . They'd average 1-2 MOB incidents every year. Most were young men climbing on railings or jumping off deliberately, and few were successfully rescued
Ronald Dahl (author of Charlie and the chocolate factory and many other books and stories) wrote a short story in the 1950s called ‘Dip in the Pool’. About a man travelling across the Atlantic who has placed a huge bet on when the ship would arrive. And because the ship is well ahead of schedule he is going to be financially ruined. So the man plans to go overboard so that the ship has to stop to recover him. Like most of Dahl short stories it has a wonderful twist at the end. It is a fun read.
Roald.
'Ronald' Dahl 😂
Does the man jump overboard with the intention of slowing the ship down or because he wants to take his life?
@@MaiAolei
Slowing the ship down so it takes longer for the ship to arrive so he wouldn't lose the bet and be in a financial ruin since the ship was arriving early at the destination.
Pretty smart thing to do but he could have died
Money isn't everything though
Also... he could have falsely said someone was overboard even though nobody was and had the ship turn around and look which would also have wasted more time instead of actually putting his life at risk
When I lived down in the Florida keys I made friends with an “old salt” who had many tales of personal danger on the high seas. I was appalled to find out that he couldn’t swim at all. I couldn’t understand this until he explained that if you’re overboard, or your ship goes down in the middle of the ocean, being a strong swimmer only delays the inevitable for a few hours at best! The ocean is vast and if not spotted immediately there is a near zero chance of rescue. A very sobering thought.
He seems like the kind of guy who says he won’t wear a seatbelt because what if it traps him if the car’s in the water or on fire? Sure it might be a bad idea in unusual cases, but overall it’s a very good idea. Knowing how to swim seems like overall a very good idea too.
In the 1990s there was a man going home to Galiano Island by ferry from Vancouver, British Columbia but missed it so got on a ferry going to Victoria. As Galiano Island neared he jumped off and swam to shore. Somebody aboard saw him ‘fall off’ thus the ferry was stopped and a search was launched via the zodiacs but didn’t find him that night and the ferry was late arriving. Within a week the man was found a charged.
19 drinks? She might of died of alcohol poisoning if she did not fall overboard anyway, holy crap.
I went on a Bahamas cruise in 1994. One night, in full dark, I was going down the stairs on the outermost port side of the ship. It occurred to me that the "hand" rail was down at my *knees* and it struck me just how easily I could have fallen overboard, and I was sure no one would have known...
I swear youtube recommends me the craziest videos at night
You didn’t mention the Williamson turn.
It was used by the Capt’n of the training ship Bay State back in the 1980s when an idiot trainee decided to go body surfing alongside the ship mid-Atlantic. He threw a line out his cabin port shimmied down and to the hoots of his cabin mate surfed along in the ship’s wake. That lasted about 2 mins until he lost his grip. His cabin mate alerted the bridge and the Capt’n slowed the ship and executed a Williamson turn. Against all odds they found the idiot student. Masterful seamanship.
Back in the mid 80’s my Brother was standing on the bow of the families ‘Hatteras 46ft’ game fishing boat, that was steaming from Pittwater/Hawkesbury River to Sydney Harbour, after repairs and a service at a marina in Pittwater.
While holding the bow rail in a medium swell, the bow rail broke and my Brother went overboard. Dad and Uncle where in the cabin with the boat on auto pilot. (5nm off the coast…standard run track, radar alarm on).
My Brother popped up 20m behind the boat in a 3-4m swell. Luckily our Uncle had to get something from the stern side locker and saw him.
It was later established that the bow rail gave way, as there were 2 x bolts missing on the the rail fittings.
My brother happened to work at the marina in Pittwater, as a 2nd year shipwright apprentice. He also happened to do some work on our boat…repair and refit that bow rail section.
Love your dedication to the sea mate, been watching since your channel since it started.
Man I was already afraid of falling over board but just imagine seeing the ship leave you behind that’s gotta be unsettling
Fascinating, thank you Mike keep up the great videos