Alan Scobie wrote:

‘As part of the Club’s regular review of risk assessment and training, a hardy band of members, braved the freezing waters of the River Dart on Saturday, 30th November. Our aim was to test the viability of recovering a conscious man-overboard into our Seine boats, based on British Rowing guidelines. 

As videos show, the testing was a success, demonstrating that a conscious man-overboard can be safely recovered, using a variety of techniques, depending on his weight and the relative strength of the crew. 

As the volunteer crew experienced in fairly challenging conditions, it is vital that our rowers know how to control their boat and carry out a recovery. The next step will be to brief all of the Club’s coxes so that man overboard training exercises can be included in our scheduled rows. We all hope these emergency situations never arise but we do need to be aware of how to act if they do. The practice is important for the safety of everyone.

Thanks to all those who took part in the testing. It was certainly time well spent and a bit of fun too, for most….. I think!’

Regrettably our website subscription does not allow me to embed videos directly. I think I have found a cheating work-around. I posted to Facebook and then linked back to our website. If this worked you can see Video 1 here. Tell me if I am wrong.

and Video 2 here/