Closed Captions (CC):
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last time

on sailing bella chandra we did a full

sailing channel recap of three years of

our cruising life on belachandra

in one video

if you're new to the channel hi i'm

noelle and i'm dan and we're sailing

bella chandra

we're just a couple canadians sailing

around the caribbean making youtube

videos and if you like our channel and

you want to subscribe just go below this

channel look for the big red subscribe

button

press that button hey guys in this

week's video i'd like to give you a

little overview of some of the safety

equipment we carry on balachandra we

here on belchandra are complying to the

coast guard regulations for safety in

canada we also have

some items and procedures on board that

are not required by the coast guard but

for

our own safety we feel that they're

important we were planning a trip to

bermuda and we had outfitted our boat

based on the newport bermuda race safety

standards at that time

so we meet those requirements and that

was good enough for us as we were

planning that trip we carry a lot of

things on board for a lot of different

situations we want to be prepared

if we got stuck in a really bad storm if

we had to abandon ship

if we have a fire on board if we lose

the rudder

all kinds of things could happen and we

wanted to be prepared for most of these

pretty nasty situations and so we made

sure that we had

all of that gear on board as a caveat

you want to check with your own

local coast guard for the port that

you're registered with

to make sure that you're fitting the

requirements that they have for your

boat in a boat of your size

in canada our coast guard is pretty

thorough and the requirement for safety

equipment on board a vessel like this

it's pretty standard compared to what

you would find internationally so this

may be a good guide for you

but you do want to check with your local

coast guard and you want to make sure

that you're comfortable with

what you have on your boat before you

take on a major ocean passage

and so i hope you enjoyed this video and

find it helpful and hopefully will help

you

with setting up the safety gear on your

boat

every boat should have a ditch bag ready

to go in case of an abandoned ship

situation

chances are if you're only coastal

cruising you could probably summon some

help

before you would ever need to abandon

ship but in the event that you would

you'd be happy to have your ditch bag

ready to go with all the things that you

would need

make sure your ditch bag is easily

accessible so it can be quickly grabbed

when abandoning ship

our life raft is within the service date

and ready to deploy in the event that we

would need to abandon ship

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we also carry a storm jib on board and

needed to use it

just once sailing down from canada where

we were caught in very high winds and

rough seats just off cape hatteras

the storm sale helped us get out of that

situation and probably saved our boat

if you go back and watch our video on

the jordan series drogue you'll know why

we carry this device on board

this is a sea drogue in case we were

ever caught in a serious storm and had

to run

downwind in dangerous seas we carry a

large set of bolt cutters on board in

case we were ever to be dismasted

hopefully these bolt cutters will be

strong enough to clip away the rigging

if our spars were in the water and

threatening to hold the boat

friends of ours actually keep a

battery-powered angle grinder on board

just in case this were to happen most

wheel driven boats will have an

emergency tiller

somewhere on board if you don't have an

emergency tiller on board

look for your emergency tiller it's

probably there

if it's not there you might want to have

one made if the gears or cables going

from our pinnacle to our quadrant

and ultimately turning the rudder were

to break our emergency tiller can be

used to steer the boat

we keep it here in our aft lazarette and

we know exactly where it is

in case we ever needed to use it it

almost goes without saying these days

that cruisers ought to carry some

digital communication devices

on bella chandra we carry an e-perp we

also have a garment

in reach we have our cell phones and we

have an ssb radio

so that we can get offshore weather

either from chris parker

or other weather stations when cruising

offshore having long range capabilities

like satellite communication or

satellite weather make all the

difference

it also goes without saying that an

e-perp is the number one search and

rescue item to have on board as when

deployed your chances of being rescued

are very high

i would not go offshore without a knee

perf on board

sometimes we have crew on board over

sailing with friends

we thought it was important to put up

some of these laminated safety cards

around the boat with some of the

procedures that you would need to know

if you wanted to operate some of the

safety gear especially if it's for an

emergency with some of the most

important life-saving procedures you

might need to know if you're sailing

with us and something were to happen

and we wouldn't be there to guide

someone through it it's also possible

that we might forget some of these

procedures

and need to look back for a recap we

have one card specifically for starting

the engine

we have another card here at the nav

station in case the worst were to happen

and we had to make a mayday call this is

our emergency

vhf calling procedure another very

important card to post

is your man overboard procedure on bella

chandra our man overboard procedure card

is in the cockpit pinned up just below

our cockpit table

it's laminated so it can't get wet and

placing it here under the cockpit table

keeps it out of the sun so it doesn't

fade

listed here is the procedure that we

would follow if someone were to fall

overboard

another possibility is if your boat were

to be set adrift

by a slipped mooring or a broken anchor

chain someone who may board your vessel

to try and save it

would be able to follow the steps on

this highly visible card

and perhaps start your engine and save

your boat

cards like this posted around the boat

makes it very easy to follow the steps

and understand what to do in case of an

emergency

we carry a spare marine 12 volt battery

in case our starter battery was ever to

fail or if our main house bank were to

fail and we needed to operate the vhf

radio

with this spare 12 volt battery being

trickle charged on deck

we can put this in use at any moment

when an auxiliary 12-volt power supply

was necessary

in case our digital navigation equipment

were ever to fail

we carry all of the classic navigational

tools on board we would need to navigate

without electronics

on balachandra we carry a working

sextant with

instructions as well as a nautical

almanac

and a book on paper chart navigation as

well as all the necessary paper charts

and paper chart navigation tools

we would need in the absence of our

digital navigation instruments

using traditional navigation methods

it's also a good idea to have a

secondary compass on board in case

something happens to your main compass

i carry a small backup stainless steel

compass in our chart table

just in case on balachandra our life

vests and tethers are easily accessible

here in one of our hanging lockers

we can grab them quickly and they're

ready to go when we need them

our live vests have built-in harnesses

if you're choosing a live vest

try to find one that has a built-in

harness like this unless you plan on

wearing a harness and a life vest

together

especially if you're planning any

offshore cruising you want to be able to

tether in from your life vest or from a

harness

to the boat we wouldn't think of doing

an offshore passage without jack lines

on board we run our jack lines full from

bow to stern

and on a passage we don't leave the

cockpit without clipping into our jack

lines

we've been in some pretty rough seas

coming down from the north atlantic and

without jack lines we could easily have

been washed overboard

there's also been times on long passage

where i've had to access our diesel cans

which are strapped up on deck

and i wouldn't think of doing that under

a heavy sea without being tethered to

our jack lines

not only should you have jack lines but

it's also a very good idea to have a

clipping point somewhere around the mask

most boats will probably have one there

and if you're not sure

check around the base of your mask and

look for a place where you can clip your

tether

someone does have to go up to the mass

from time to time lines and halyards can

get tangled and going on deck may be

necessary for different reasons

every crew member carries a sharp

serrated knife

when working on deck in case of an

emergency and rigging needs to be cut

you want to have a knife on your person

which is easily accessible

this is a man overboard pole or mob

pole we set up our boat using guidelines

posted for the newport bermuda race and

an mob

pole is one of the items required for

that race

when thrown overboard the mob pole acts

as a flag floating in the water

which is much easier to see than the

actual man overboard who will be bobbing

around between waves

and difficult to spot i think just about

every vessel is required to have a life

ring or a flotation device that can be

thrown from the deck balachandra came

with this life ring and we've always had

it installed here on the stern ready to

go

in case someone were to fall in the

water another great item to have on

board is this really easy to grab throw

rope you tie off or hold on to one end

and toss this bag out into the water

the rope deploys and whoever has fallen

overboard should be able to grab this

quite easily

what's great is it's simple and it's

fast another great use for this bag is

it's quick to throw into the dinghy and

take with you

and should be compliant with your local

coast guard's regulations for having a

man overboard device in your dinghy

we have a propane gas oven on board and

with that we are required to keep a

propane detector on board in case

of a propane leak we also have an aspire

diesel furnace on board which burns

diesel and is a byproduct

emits carbon monoxide the carbon

monoxide is vented to the exterior of

the boat but if due to some accident the

carbon monoxide

were to vent inside the boat it could be

deadly and because of this we carry a

carbon monoxide detector in our aft

cabin

to let us know day or night if we have a

carbon monoxide leak

inside the boat we carry a fog horn on

balachandra especially in nova scotia

canada

where fog is very common in fog you blow

this

once every minute so on bella chandra we

keep a foghorn in a spare foghorn in

case we use up the first one

we've got another one ready to go

balachandra carries a fire extinguisher

in every cabin of the boat

in canada that is the requirement we

also have another fire extinguisher

in our engine compartment that is

triggered automatically by smoke

we make sure that all of our fire

extinguishers are up to date

and that the gauge is reading full on

each one on balachandra we keep a fire

blanket in our galley

just another great idea if we had a fire

starting that we couldn't control

a fire blanket might just be the better

solution over pouring water or even

using a fire extinguisher

on balachandra we put together a very

thorough

marine first aid kit we hand picked

first aid items that we thought we would

need in a marine environment the

interior of bella chandra has many grab

rails throughout the boat we have this

great poland or a galley we can grab

onto

and as well another handhold all along

the galley counter if someone is cooking

underway

if you're going up and down the gangway

especially underway we have several

handholds to grab onto and bars at the

top of the gangway

we know that there's almost this

unlimited amount of safety equipment

available to cruisers out there at your

local boat store

to different suppliers around the world

and obviously we can't cover

all of them we're just showing you what

we have on our boat and i'm sure there's

lots of things we could have and would

want to have and maybe can't afford just

make sure that whatever you do for your

boat that you're comfortable with it i

already know that we're going to have a

lot of comments with suggestions for

equipment and gear that's out there then

we know about them and we'd like to have

them on board there's a lot of new gps

electronics and ais

transponders you can put on your life

vests there's a lot of gear out there

that we could have

and probably will have at some point but

we're just showing you what we have here

on bella chandra it's coast car

compliant and we're happy with it at

this moment

there's other safety equipment that we

probably will pick up along the way

and we'll try to showcase it here on the

channel as we receive those items

so that's the end of this video and our

little overview of the safety equipment

we have here on balachandra

i hope you guys find it helpful and if

you have any questions or comments

please just leave them in the comments

section below

or you can send me a message through

facebook and we'd be happy to hear from

you

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week's video please don't forget to hit

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thanks see you later

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