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View From The Helm
Recent news items and commentary...
CO
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CPR Update
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EPIRB Note
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Recent Articles
When our 2006 boat registration renewal showed up, there were two stickers and
a brochure inside. The brochure warned about the dangers of carbon monoxide
(CO) poisoning, and said we needed to place these stickers on the hull near
the helm and the transom:
This information came at an interesting time. We had read recently about a
couple of carbon monoxide deaths linked to on-board generators, and we'd
been wondering why Evinrude is making such a big deal about the low CO
emissions of the E-TEC.
We hopped on the Internet to do a little Googling, and came
away with some surprising (to us, anyway) information:
It turns out CO poisoning has been a topic of concern for a number of
regulatory bodies, including the US Coast Guard, the National Institutes of
Health, the American Boat & Yacht Council, and the California
Department of Boating and Waterways.
Investigations of several drownings that occured while "teak surfing" (letting a
boat tow you around while hanging on to a swimstep) revealed that the
victims had actually succumbed to CO poisoning from the engine exhaust prior to
drowning. In a similar fashion, there were several other cases of people
drowning when they swam near the exhaust of their boats, or as they
sat near the transom while the boat was running at low speed.
Now that people are aware of the problem, there is some suspicion that a
significant number of drowning deaths are actually a result of CO poisoning,
but previously no one thought about testing drowning victims for CO
poisoning.
How does this affect fishermen? It turns out that there are
a number of situations where CO from engine exhaust can accumlate in a fishing
boat, including: idling while at a dock, exhaust from your
neighbor's boat in the next slip, leaving the motor running while out of gear,
or while slow trolling with a slow following breeze. Running an onboard gas
generator can also cause problems.
I don't know if this is much ado about nothing, but it's definitely worth being
aware of. Better safe than sorry!
Here are some related links:
US Coast Guard Advisory on CO Poisoning:
http://www.uscgboating.org/command/co.htm
Especially this page:
http://www.uscgboating.org/command/co/accumulate.htm
American Boat & Yacht Council:
http://www.uscgboating.org/command/co/files/abyc_th-22_ed_report.pdf
Centers for Disease Control:
http://www.cdc.gov/co/
California Department of Boating and Waterways:
http://www.dbw.ca.gov/codanger.asp
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