LEISURE SAILORS should undertake survival courses and become familiar with different types of lifejackets, the Marine Casualty Investigation Board said.
Sailors should also know how to recover casualties from the water, the board said, in a report published yesterday on the death of a yachtsman off Co Wicklow.
Kenneth Jones was knocked off the deck of the yacht Alana during the annual Sean Whiston Perpetual Cup Race from Wicklow to the Poolbeg Yacht Club in Dublin, on September 14th, 2008.
He was unable to inflate his personal flotation device and was 22 minutes in the water before he was rescued and airlifted to Tallaght hospital, but did not survive.
The lifejacket failure was raised at his inquest, but the report says it was manually inflated.
The cause of death was due to drowning, against a background of severe coronary heart disease, and the investigation concludes he would have suffered a blow to the head from the boom. The blow, combined with cold shock and his condition “would have left him severely physically incapacitated and probably unable” to operate his flotation device.
A nearby yacht, Naomh Crónán, assisted and attempts were made to resuscitate Mr Jones. He was one of three on board the Alana and had “taken his weight off the boom when the spinnaker filled, allowing the boom to swing, hitting him and causing him to fall overboard”, it adds.
The board says the Marine Safety Directorate should publicise its code of practice for The Safe Operation of Recreational Craft and sailors should consult it.
All leisure craft with radio communications equipment should comply with the necessary regulations and radio users should be appropriately certified, it says.
