Man overboard!

ON A recent cruise to the Mediterranean on a very large ship I was standing on an open upper deck late in the evening with nobody else around. I soon found my myself wondering what I would do if somebody were to go over the side as we steamed along at 22 knots.

Yes I know, I was on holiday but I am still enough of a seaman, with the need to always be situationally aware drummed into me since I was sixteen, to be thinking what action I would take. Nobody else was about. Shouting "man overboard" would have probably been of very limited use. Getting the nearest lifebuoy over the wall would give the bridge team something to spot compared to a head being kept just out of the water, and that's what I would have done first.

Alerting the bridge could have been problematic. Possibly it would have been easy to spot a crew member who would be sufficiently well trained to report quickly and accurately what had happened. Otherwise I would have found the nearest public phone (and there were a lot situated around the ship) and (it being an American owned ship) dialled 911 which presumably would have got me to the bridge team.