Preparation not luck determines survival at sea, says waterman

By Kisean Joseph

Kisean.joseph@antiguaobserver.com

Many fishermen leave port without filing a float plan or carrying basic safety equipment, a licensed waterman says, warning that preparation is what ultimately determines survival at sea.

Eli Fuller, who describes himself as a waterman, said too many vessels leave port without telling anyone where they are going or when they are expected back, making it far harder to locate them if something goes wrong.

“Some fishermen should file a float plan every time they leave port. Not just fishermen, anybody going to sea should file a float plan. That means writing down and telling somebody where you’re going, what time you’re leaving, what time you expect to be back in port, how many people on board, what you’re going to be doing. That doesn’t happen enough,” Fuller said.

He said the absence of that basic step has cost precious time in past search efforts, narrowing the window in which people lost at sea can be found alive.

Fuller pointed to a recent rescue he was involved in as an example of how preparation can determine outcomes in an emergency.

“Those guys had a dinghy in place of a life raft. They all had life jackets on board. They had a working VHF, which they called the French Coast Guard. They had a GPS hooked up to the VHF so that everybody knew exactly where they were when they called for a mayday,” he said.

Fuller said every piece of safety equipment removed from that scenario would have lowered the odds of survival.

He offered several practical suggestions to reduce vessel losses. Alongside filing float plans, he recommended fishermen and boaters invest in low-cost satellite tracking devices, saying a device such as a Garmin Explorer allows a distressed vessel to transmit its exact location from anywhere, even outside cell phone range.

He also called for basic safety equipment, including VHF radios, flares, life jackets and life rafts, to be treated as standard rather than optional, particularly among fishing vessels that are not required to carry them under current rules.

Fuller said complacency about the sea, rather than any single equipment gap, was often the underlying problem.

“The sea wants to kill you, and if you allow it to, it will,” he said, adding that preparation should be treated as a decision made before a vessel ever leaves port, not something worked out once trouble has already begun.