Enforcement?
Ports may control visiting foreign vessels B1
A good tsunami Crew deliver wave of supplies for island
A9
Vol.7, No.10
Not again
New year resolutions that you can do this time C7
www.the-triton.com
January 2011
LESSON LEARNED
Know your options to survive medical emergencies Without help, ‘situation could threaten his life’
Captain who went through it ready to spare others his pain By Dorie Cox As captain of M/Y Pegasus, Charles Dugas-Standish and his crew occasionally skied behind the WaveRunner between charters in the Caribbean. That was, until DugasStandish wiped out while slaloming and hit his face into the tip of his ski. The ensuing 12 hours changed the way Dugas-Standish works as a megayacht captain. In the subsequent eight years, 46-year-old Dugas-Standish has not wanted to talk much about the accident that landed him in a hospital on St. Martin, had him airlifted to Florida and required more than a year of recovery. But now he realizes that his experience can help other crew be better prepared for emergencies. As a kid in Houston, DugasStandish was drawn to the water; so much so that he eventually moved to California to work as a free diver and a commercial diver. He started in yachting in 1989. “I’ve done it my whole life,” DugasStandish said of waterskiing. “It was a freak fall. Maybe it was late, I was tired, my form was poor. I was probably going
By Capt. Gianni Brill
Medical evacuations are a lifeline in an emergency, but yacht crew must know how to access them, as seen in this evacuation from M/Y Perle Bleue PHOTO FROM CAPT. GIANNI BRILL (see story at right). too fast.” When he hit the water that day, he knew instantly it was bad. “I had broken my nose a couple of times before, so I knew.” He got his head out of the water to signal to the bosun who had been driving the WaveRunner. The bosun raced back, scooped the captain out of the water and drove him to the beach. Once onshore, Dugas-Standish saw the crystal white beach change color.
“I was painting red,” he said, using a slang term he learned as an emergency medical personnel and a water safety law enforcement officer in his 20s. The injury had hit an artery. “I couldn’t see out of one eye, but I was conscious,” Dugas-Standish said. And he was determined to stay that way. Someone gave him ice for the
See LESSON, page A11
Captain, not license, hones watch keeper skills While the largest of megayachts require trained and certified watch keepers, yacht captains at this month’s From the Bridge luncheon said that on smaller vessels, the ticket isn’t as critical as the effort. “I’ve used unlicensed crew that are perfectly From the Bridge capable of standing Dorie Cox watch,” one captain said. “With four crew, you have no choice. You have to use unlicensed crew.” As always, individual comments
are not attributed to any one person in particular so as to encourage frank and open discussion. The attending captains are identified in a photograph on page A14. So just how do captains create a watch system? It all starts with safety, these captains said. One captain said he teaches his watch keepers what he feels they must know, including how to plot the course. “It keeps them busy, keeps them alert, and it keeps their eyes on it,” this captain said. “We may rely on the GPS, but I teach them how to navigate. When I get a new guy onboard, I teach him stem to stern. I pull out the
diagrams, everything. They need to be good, fast.” “You won’t learn this stuff by reading,” another said. “You have to start doing it.” How captains manage their watch keepers varies according to the number of crew onboard, the certifications required for the yacht and each member’s proficiency. “On a 51m, it’s very formal, with a proper watch of three watch keepers and three look-outs,” a captain said. “Ours is run informally,” another captain said. “We don’t have ‘qualified’
See BRIDGE, page A13
Preparing for our crossing after the Monaco Yacht Show this year, Peter (one of my best friends from California), joined M/Y Perle Bleue as a watch observer. We departed from the Canary Islands for Ft. Lauderdale on Oct. 14. On Oct. 23 about 1900 (ship’s time), Peter suddenly developed an acute pain on his left flank, about where his kidneys are located. I administered 4 Advil pills and he went to bed, with the pain getting worse and worse. With the advice from another friend, Dr. Michael Healy (in Paris at the time at a urologist conference), at about 2100 on Oct. 24, we started to administer 10 mg. of morphine. Healy strongly advised us to get Peter off the boat as soon as possible because without professional medical help, the situation could threaten his life. We started contacting Bermuda Radio about 2200 as the closest land mass (240nm) with medical care.
See MEDEVAC, page A12
TRITON SURVEY
What’s the primary factor in determining what to charge (or to pay) for a yacht delivery? Captain’s experience – Actual 27.0% passage – 19.6% Going rate Size of yacht – 22.3% – 19.6%
Distance – 7.4% Yacht’s delivery budget – 5.4% – Story, C1