What To Do On A Sinking Boat

by Tim Greyton

Boats sink. Granted, it thankfully happens a lot less these days but they do still happen all around the world, even on five star cruises. There are a lot more ships that head towards the bottom of the sea than say planes that fall to earth, so knowing what to do in the event of a sinking could serve you well. Consider carefully these top tips and you’ll boost your chances of survival

Life jacket. If you do one thing to help save your life, make sure it is wearing a life jacket. more people owe their lives to this piece of equipment than any other water safety item. The 2 top reasons are that a life jacket will keep you upright and let you know where the water’s surface is if you become disorientated. Secondly, no one can swim for ever and so once your energy is depleted a life jacket will stop you from going under

Keep calm. Most ship sinking survivors claim that staying calm was the reason they stayed alive. When you are in a state of panic you make hasty decisions and burn up much need energy. It is quite rare for a boat to suddenly hit the bottom the ocean, they usually take at least a couple of hours to fully submerge. You therefore have time to think straight and make sure your actions are not irrational

Be on the ships deck.When a boat is on its way to join the fishes, you really do not want to be anywhere south of the deck. There are a lot more hazards below deck and you can easily get trapped in rooms or pockets of water. head up to the ships deck as fast as you can and resist the urge to head back down

Move away from the ship. The idea that when a boat sinks it sucks down all that is around it has been suggested to be false when people have performed crude tests. However, no one can really predict what would happen with any degree of accuracy and people who have experienced it first hand have claimed that a pull effect does occur. To be on the safe side swim a good 50m away from the boat before it goes down

Stay together. when in the water, assuming there is no lifeboat, the first thing you should do is form a group with everyone else. This is will put off any predators as they usually class a group of people as one big object, it will also minimise heat loss and increase you chances of people seen by rescuers.

If you’re looking for very safe cruises go for river cruise or if you’d like a cruise agent with high saftey records visit Peter Deilmann Cruises

Article Source: ArticleRich.com

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 at 12:01 am and is filed under Boats and Boat Equipment, Power boats, Sailing, Water Safety, Yacht Chartering. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.