A person in the water is a life-threatening emergency. In the Pacific Northwest, where Puget Sound runs 45–55°F year-round, the window between in the water and unconscious can close in fifteen minutes — not from drowning, from cold. The procedures on this page exist because in those fifteen minutes the difference between rescue and recovery is procedure, drilled, executed without thinking.
This article walks through what to do. It is a working guide, not a substitute for live training; the procedures it describes should be drilled, not read.
The first thirty seconds: immediate response
What happens in the half-minute after the splash determines whether the person in the water is found quickly or not at all.
Shout “Man overboard.” Yell it. Every crew member needs to know inside two seconds. The shout focuses attention and triggers muscle memory if you have drilled — and if you have not drilled, the shout is what wakes everyone up to the fact that someone is gone.
Point at them and do not stop pointing. Assign one crew member, immediately, as the spotter. That person extends an arm at the person in the water and does not look away — not at the chartplotter, not at the helm, not at the deck. In rough seas or with a small boat moving away, a person’s head disappears into chop within seconds. The pointer’s arm is the reference everyone else uses to come back. If the spotter looks away, the person is harder to find. Sometimes much harder.
Throw flotation immediately. Most boats carry a horseshoe buoy or MOB pole at the stern — clipped, deployable in one motion. Throw it now. Do not wait for an order. The buoy serves two purposes: it gives the person something to grab, and it marks the spot where they entered the water. If visibility is poor or the crew is small, the buoy is the second reference point alongside the spotter’s arm.
Mark a GPS waypoint. Most chartplotters have a dedicated MOB button — a single press marks the position and offers a return course. Use it. In fog, in dusk, or any condition where you cannot maintain visual contact, the waypoint is what brings you back. Standalone handheld GPS units almost all have the function; learn where it is on your unit before you need it.
These four actions take roughly fifteen seconds in total when drilled. They take longer when not. The reason a Sea.net article on man overboard tells you to drill before you read further is because the difference between a fifteen-second response and a forty-five-second response is, in cold water, often the difference.
Recovery under sail: the Figure-Eight
The Figure-Eight is the standard recovery manoeuvre for sailing vessels. It uses the boat’s existing momentum and sail trim to bring you back to the person in the water under control, not at speed, with the wind doing most of the work. ASA 103 and ASA 104 cover it; RYA Day Skipper covers it; every reputable sailing school drills it. If you have not done it, the next time you are sailing in light air, throw a fender overboard and practise.
First move: head up and back the jib. The instant you hear “man overboard,” head the boat into the wind and backwind the jib by sheeting it to the windward side. The boat slows rapidly. This does two things at once — it stops you drifting further from the person, and it sets up the manoeuvre.
Bear away onto the opposite tack. Once the boat has slowed, fall off the wind onto the opposite tack from the person in the water. You are now sailing downwind back toward them, under control, with full visibility ahead.
Approach close-hauled. When you are about two boat lengths short of the person, tack or jibe — depending on conditions — to bring the boat back onto the original tack, now heading into the wind. You are close-hauled and naturally slowing. The person should be on your leeward side as you approach. The leeward side keeps the boat from drifting onto them and gives the recovery crew a working surface at the rail.
Stop the boat completely before pickup. Do not coast in with way on. Backwind the jib again or release the main entirely; let the boat lose every knot of momentum. A boat moving at half a knot is a boat that can hit a person in the water hard enough to break ribs.
The Figure-Eight is the recovery you drill. Run it as a crew, with someone in the water role-playing (a fender or weighted cushion), in three different wind strengths over a season. If your crew has done it five times in a year, you are likely to execute it without thinking when you need it. If your crew has never done it, your odds are worse than you imagine.
Recovery under power: the Quick-Stop
A powerboat recovery is faster than a sailing recovery. It is also more dangerous, because of the propeller.
Reverse and turn toward the person immediately. As soon as you hear the call, throttle into reverse and put the wheel toward the person in the water. This kills your forward way and starts the return.
Circle back at idle. Once stopped, motor slowly in an arc that brings you around to the person’s position. Approach from downwind so wind and current push the boat away from them, not into them. Position the person at your strongest pickup point — typically amidships on the lee side.
Kill all engines before final approach. This is non-negotiable. A propeller strike on a person in the water is, in most cases, fatal. At final approach, put the engine in neutral, then kill it entirely. The boat coasts the last few feet. Do not run a propeller anywhere near a person in the water, ever, at any throttle setting.
The PNW exception. In strong currents — Cattle Pass, Deception Pass, Active Pass — you may need to keep an engine running to hold position relative to the person while you set up the recovery. This is a judgment call. The rule remains: prop in neutral, well clear of the person, until the moment they are aboard.
Getting them aboard: the hardest part
Positioning the boat is half the recovery. Getting the person up the side is the other half, and it is genuinely difficult — particularly with a hypothermic person, who may have lost the strength to help themselves.
Use the boarding ladder if they can climb. Most cruising boats carry a stern ladder. Deploy it, position the boat, and let the person climb. Be at the top to assist.
For an exhausted person, use a sling. A loop of rode with a knotted bowline at one end, passed under the arms, allows the crew to haul. Haul horizontal, not vertical. A vertical hoist of a hypothermic person can stop their heart — the cardiovascular system has been compensating for cold-water immersion in a horizontal posture, and a sudden vertical lift causes blood to drop to the legs and triggers cardiac arrest. This is called post-rescue collapse, and it kills people who have already been recovered. Haul them aboard horizontal — across the rail, lying down — even if it takes longer.
LifeSling or equivalent. Most modern cruising boats carry a LifeSling — a buoyant horseshoe collar trailed on a 150-foot line, designed to be circled around a person in the water and used as both flotation and hoist sling. If you have one, drill it. If you don’t, buy one. They are the standard recovery tool on Pacific Northwest cruising boats for good reason.
Cold water: the procedure does not stop on deck
A person pulled from 50°F water has begun the cascade. They may be conscious; they may even be talking. They are not safe.
Below decks immediately. Get them out of the wind. The cabin holds heat the cockpit does not.
Wet clothing off; dry insulation on. Wool or fleece, not cotton. Sleeping bag if you have one. Towel. Warm (not hot) blanket if you have a heater.
Warm drinks if they are fully conscious. Sweet tea, broth, water. Not alcohol. Not coffee. Both promote heat loss. Hot drinks should be warm rather than scalding — a hypothermic person’s mouth has reduced sensation and can be burned without registering it.
Do not rub limbs. Do not put them in a hot shower. Do not apply direct heat. The instinct to “warm them up fast” is wrong. Cold blood pooled in the limbs, returning suddenly to the core, causes afterdrop — core temperature drops rather than rises, and cardiac arrest follows. Slow, central rewarming is the rule.
Call the Coast Guard. VHF 16. Position, persons aboard, nature of emergency, condition of casualty. The Coast Guard will dispatch a rescue swimmer, a 47-MLB, or a helicopter depending on conditions. They will also stay on the radio with you. If the person’s condition is serious — confusion, slurred speech, shivering that has stopped — say so explicitly. Cessation of shivering in a hypothermic person is not improvement; it is the body running out of options.
The drill
Reading these steps is one thing. Executing them at 0300 in fifteen knots and a foot of chop, with one of your crew below ill, and a chart plotter you cannot see clearly because the spray has fogged the cockpit instruments, is another.
Drill at least once per season, ideally three times. Use a fender or weighted cushion. Throw it at an unannounced moment. Time the recovery from splash to “person aboard” — first attempt will likely run four to six minutes; you want to drive that under three.
Drill in different conditions. Calm flat water on a Sunday afternoon does not prepare a crew for fifteen knots and chop. The drill that has not been done in fog has not been done.
Assign roles before you need them. Who shouts? Who points? Who throws the buoy? Who helms? Who tends the boarding ladder? If everyone knows their role, execution is faster and less chaotic.
On Pacific Northwest water in particular
The defining variable of MOB in the Pacific Northwest is cold. Puget Sound runs 45–48°F in winter, 52–55°F at the warmest in late August. Even summer water is cold enough to incapacitate a strong swimmer in fifteen to twenty minutes. The phases:
- Cold shock (first 1–3 minutes): Involuntary gasp on entry. People who fall in without a lifejacket can drown in the first thirty seconds simply from inhaling water during the gasp. The instinctive panic that follows is not weakness; it is the body’s response to sudden cold. Lifejackets save lives in this phase, full stop.
- Swimming failure (3–30 minutes): As cold reaches the muscles in the arms and legs, coordination collapses. A swimmer who could comfortably do a quarter-mile in summer cannot maintain a stroke in cold water for ten minutes. They will not swim to the boat. The boat must come to them.
- Hypothermia (30 minutes onward): Core temperature drops. Confusion, slurred speech, slowing or stopping of shivering, eventual unconsciousness. In 50°F water, this stage begins around the thirty- to forty-five-minute mark.
The first phase is solved by lifejackets and tethers. The second phase is solved by the recovery procedure on this page. The third phase is solved by the procedure plus the cold-water rewarming protocol.
If you are not wearing a lifejacket on deck in the Pacific Northwest in non-summer months, you are gambling with the first phase. Don’t.
What this article does not replace
This is reference. The procedures on this page are summarized from USCG, RYA, and ASA training materials, and from the standard cruising literature (Beth Leonard, John Kretschmer, Lin & Larry Pardey). They do not substitute for an actual MOB drill on your actual boat with your actual crew. Read the article. Then drill. Then drill in worse conditions. Then drill again before the next season.
The drill that has not been done in fog has not been done.