In a fortnight or later I MIGHT join a sailing trip from the west coast of the UK to Portugal (Fairo). Apart from it being great fun there are safety aspects to be thought about.<br> I don't know the skipper (my parents offered the trip to me) and his SOP's (standard operational procedures). <br>But what are the basics I should know before joining the trip? What are commom mistakes? What should I prepare myself for? <br>Its not something that I am new to, I've done several DAY trips sailing. Also my dad was a sailing instructor but I think only on lakes and coastal areas.<br>Tomorrow I'll be getting some books from the liberary.<br>Reinhardt

I'm no sailor, but I'd start with several of the stories here on the ETS site. The one about the folks sailing on their first long distance, open ocean trip seems to be appropriate. Check out Lessons Learned Sailing to Hawaii...The 1st Attempt.<br>

Learn everything you can about the ship you are on. Where is the emergency gear ( or is there gear); liferaft, lifejackets, immersion suits. Are all systems present and in order; running lights, electronics etc. What is the expected weather you will be facing. An inquiry to the RNLS will provide aditional points.

I've been to a similar trip (from northern France to Portugal) and I enjoyed it very much. It was really worth the money I paid (about four months of my payment...). <br><br>The most important safety rule when sailing is to stay on the yacht - use your hand, legs, harness and whatever you can to keep you there. All the skippers I know (including myself) starts the trip with a strong order to wear a safety harness during the night (regardless of the weather) and in the strong wind (e.g. more then 5B). It's really hard to find a man in the sea during bad weather. On one of my trips the skipper took the garbage bag, filled half of it with water, half with air and threw overboard shouting "Alarm! Man overboard!" - there were 5 people on the deck, some of them quite experienced but we failed to "rescue" the bag - that really convinced us to wear the harness (OK, maybe throwing plastic to the sea is not a good thing, but IMHO this time it was justified).<br><br>In my country (Poland) a skipper is obliged to talk over the safety rules, alarms , location of safety equipment, etc. with the crew during the first day of the trip. If he doesn't do that - ask.<br><br>The most important piece of knowledge you'll need is the knowledge about ships' lights and colission avoidance. General rules are: 1) every ship wants to collide with you 2) you don't have a right of way, even if you does - and the more lights has the ship (especially any colour light on the mast), the more you have to avoid him. Also check what are the lights of fishing ships using trawl (they are slow and easy to avoid, but trawls can be very long) and other means of fishing (these types are totally unpredictable - they can alter their course and speed, drag nets from every direction, etc.).<br><br>Now, about the gear - having your own safety harness, preferably with an integrated pneumatic jacket, is a good idea - it would usually be better than what you find on the boat - however, you can live without it. As always, it's good to have a knife and/or multi-tool. A small flashlight (small enough to wear all the time) would be very useful. Pack a lot of warm stuff - woolen gloves and cap, polartec jackets, etc. That's more an everyday use than survival gear - but emergency stuff should already be on the boat.<br><br>Enjoy the trip - I wish I were you, I probably won't sail till May 2003...

Zoltan,<br>Thanx for the info. Sadly the trip is cancelled. I have been promished a weekend sailing around the S coast of Portugal.<br>Reinhardt

Well guys I've finally done it . Two weeks sailing from Portugal to England. I really had a great time to sum it all up nicely. I've experienced dolfins, bad humor, gales, trawling fishing boats (at night), being on collising (?) courses, etc. The safety on board was good. I tried to wear my life jacket all the time on deck but that didn't happen even though they were not uncomfortable. I'll just blame it on that no one else wore theirs. But i did make sure i always wore it at night (even though no one would stand a chance of being recued at night with waves 3m high) or in windy weather.
I was with ten other people on the UK's biggest, oldest privatly owned boat. it was 100 years old. A trawler. It was my first big ädventure"and one of many I hope.

reinhardt