Sometimes, Sailors Don’t Wear Lifejackets
Last week, we posted a video on our Facebook page of a 13-year-old sailor at the helm of the Santa Cruz 50 Deception, which was about 250 miles away from Oahu. The sailor was barefoot and wearing shorts and a T-shirt … and no PFD. Half of the comments on the post respectfully pointed out this fact.
“I hate to be that person but this seems incredibly irresponsible,” said one commenter. “Maybe I’m weird, but I always wear a PFD when I’m on my boat and away from the dock,” said another. As a Latitude editor, you could see this coming from a mile away — it is a standard reaction anytime someone is lifejacket-less.
And fair enough. Who could argue against safety? It is the official policy of Latitude Media LLC (assuming we had any “official policies”) to advocate for sailors to wear their lifejackets and to be as safe as possible at all times. But sometimes, despite our and everyone’s best efforts, sailors don’t wear lifejackets — myself included.
Is it anyone’s business whether someone else does or doesn’t wear a lifejacket on their boat? What’s the balance between encouraging safe habits and taking to the internet to reprimand people for not behaving how we’d like them to?
Here are a few times the safety discussion has felt a little out of balance: When Top Gun: Maverick came out last year, we were delighted to see Rufus Sjoberg’s J/125 Rufless featured in a scene on the Bay. We posted this picture:
You know what’s coming, right?
“The Top Gun: Maverick sailing scene was exciting to watch, however it would have been even better with Tom Cruise wearing his life jacket outside his T-shirt and Jennifer Connelly wearing a tethered lifejacket and parka at the helm,” read one comment. (And a parka? Now we’re giving fashion advice?) “Couldn’t they at least wear inflatable PFD’s?” read another.
To what extent do we expect other people to reflect our ideals of safety? Does anyone honestly expect Hollywood to be responsible stewards of seamanship, among other presumed safety standards? (Go here to comment on All Is Lost.)
I have to remind myself that there were just two comments on the Top Gun story. It’s easy to inflate what might be a minority opinion. It’s easy to sound supercilious on social media. I’ll admit that I’ve grown sensitive to this kind of commentary during my tenure at Latitude. A few years ago, there was a reliable, nearly singular voice telling us that we were encouraging unsafe behavior — sometimes on seemingly innocuous issues, such as circling a superyacht at anchor, or using a crude autopilot while singlehanding. (To be fair, nothing is completely risk-free when you’re sailing.)
A common refrain from this commenter was something like, “People might read your story and go sailing, and the worst might happen.” Well, that is a possibility, and it assumes that we must always hedge against people’s worst behavior and decisions — a premise with which we disagree. (If we said something like, “Send us a selfie of you crossing the bow of a container ship at close range,” then clearly we would be encouraging bad behavior. Just to be clear, DO NOT do that, ever.)
This is where some kind of double standard rears its head.
We don’t want to throw anyone under the bus, but you’ll notice in the photos above that lots (if not all) of the sailors in the two photos aren’t wearing lifejackets. We cannot recall a single comment pointing this out. It appears that lifejacket-less behavior is tolerated in certain contexts.
I know lots of bluewater sailors who go lifejacket-less during the day, then don a PFD at night and require crew to be tethered in if leaving the cockpit — or tethered in the cockpit if alone. When I was singlehanding my Columbia Challenger out of San Rafael between 2017 and 2020, I never wore a lifejacket. Sometimes, I trailed a knotted line behind the boat, but mostly, I was completely ‘naked.’
I honestly can’t tell you why, nor could I possibly rationalize my decision. Years later, after I’d sold the boat, I would think about what it might feel like: the boat lurching unexpectedly underneath me, the panic of slipping and falling into the water. The cold would be shocking, as would the awkward weight of my wet clothes. Assuming the boat was on “autopilot,” I would have a millisecond to grasp at something. I know from experience swimming off the boat while anchored how hard it was to pull myself up via the outboard in the best of circumstances. Maybe the boat would round up and maybe not, but even if it sailed a short distance away from me, that’s still a substantial distance to swim while fully clothed.
I know that it would all happen incredibly fast — the overwhelming cold, the panic, the uncontrollable shaking. I can’t bear to think of seeing the boat sail away or just out of reach. My family would be devastated. It would be such an absurd and preventable death. I died because I didn’t feel like wearing a lifejacket. (Assuming I did have a PFD on in this same scenario is not any kind of guarantee that I’d survive or be rescued in a timely manner; it would only give me a fighting chance.) Here’s a story of this exact scenario off of Berkeley.
So please don’t hear me saying that you shouldn’t wear a lifejacket. You absolutely should, always. Please be safe out there. Please don’t die a preventable death. But let’s at least be honest: Sometimes, people don’t wear lifejackets.
Well said
Ya second that. Personal choice
Admittedly, I find public reprimanding and shaming generally off-putting. While sailors without PFDs hardly phases me at all. To each their own.
Very well written article without pointing fingers or placing blame. We don’t wear lifejackets in the Estuary, and sometimes when it’s not rail-in-the-water windy, not in the Bay. But on the ocean, it’s mandatory for all aboard with the rare exception of calm weather when we are motoring during the day and there is more than one person in the cockpit. And always, life jackets and tethers on deck. No exceptions.
I get it people don’t always wear them but when people do things that require assistance because of their judgment then that’s another story. How many people are rescued when they fall off a cliff that they shouldn’t be on etc.
Years ago, we hired a “skipper” to help sail our new-to-us Tartan 38 from Sausalito to San Diego. I had recently returned from sailing from Colon, Panama to Tahiti, French Polynesia over 5-6 months, and had not once worn a lifejacket. So I balked when the paid skipper insisted I wear a lifejacket at all times, but I went along with it to avoid conflict. I’ll never forget when we got around Pt Conception, though, and the skipper made an exception to his hard and fast rule when he saw the super calm waters and sunny skies. He took off his own lifejacket and was even willing to crack open a beer. We do, however, make our kids wear life jackets whenever we are underway and they are on deck.
Ahhh…In this day and age with so many rules and regs and people with vocal opinions judging WAY too much!
For me I always prefer to live outside this current society “bubble” and always will.
Some will find fault in just about everything. Personally, I don’t care to wear a life preserver, except when the weather dictates it. It’s all personal preference, next thing you know there’ll be a demand to wear a helmet while sailing. Let those who enjoy their sport deal with it, it’s really nobody’s business.
It occurred to me, ten miles off Baja coast, or 250 miles from Oahu in this case, I would rather be attached to the boat than bobbing in the open ocean. In a shipping lane, you might be rescued, you might also be run down. At sea in a small boat, and usually alone at night in the cockpit , we always wore a parachute harness with large D-rings attached to a heavy-hooked tether, in all conditions– preferring not to find self in the drink! However, we did swim off the boat, unattached, at the equator..(but one at a time). See my book, “Workaholics Adrift” Transformation in the Pacific Islands”
Nice piece. Honestly didn’t even think about lifejackets during the sailing scenes in “Top Gun Maverick” — but cringed when he was zipping around with no helmet on the motorcycle. LOL. I never wore lifejackets until we had kids. Now we adults have to set the example. FWIW, there was a story in Latitude years ago about a guy who fell off his boat off Costa Rica, and watched the boat (on autopilot) putt-putt over the horizon. He was 12 miles offshore, 68 years old, naked, and not wearing a lifejacket. It took him all day and night, but he swam to shore and lived to tell the tale.
JR — I had the same thought while watching Top Gun last summer! I assume Tom Cruise can swim, but can he bounce off the asphalt with his skull?
Well, he has done every other stunt imaginable, but that one he’d probably leave to the stunt guy. LOL
The life jacket policy on board is the Captain’s decision. I’m OK with that. However, I do think that the growing genre of YouTube vloggers who have left it all behind to sail the seven seas are, rightly or wrongly, becoming “influencers” in our society and thereby have a greater responsibility to be seen taking all the appropriate safety measures including wearing life jackets. While some vloggers seem to do this well, I can’t say that all the channels we watch are consistently good role models. In aggregate, we’re talking of hundreds of thousands of aspiring sailors viewing these channels.
In the middle of an ocean (maybe not so middle too) a life jacket will not save you anyway (motorcycle helmets are only good to about 25 MPH too BTW). Being tired or over heated or even uncomfortable just might kill you too. I remember very clearly watching a young man with a bullet proof helmet on and…. shorts. If you want to be safe, stay home, pad your walls and probably pray, ’cause even a home is not safe for some people.
Don’t complain you can’t get your kids to wear a life jacket if you don’t. Kids (should I say Children?) are people, not pets.
The issue for me was that it was a 13 year old child. He cannot completely understand all of the risk involved with not wearing a pfd while ripping along 250 miles offshore, especially with a nice open transom behind him. Does he have a greater chance of being recovered alive with or without a pfd? For a child, it should be a no brainer to have him wear one.. I’m all for grown adults being able to choose for themselves what they’re comfortable with. I’m not for excessive regulations or any form of nanny state at all. To each their own. Cheers!