2.8 Main Dangers to Survivors & Long-Term Survival Discipline

2.8 Main Dangers to Survivors & Long-Term Survival Discipline

Core Principle: Table A-VI/1-1 lists main dangers to survivors as an explicit knowledge item. Rank them by how quickly they kill, because that ranking is what drives your priorities in the first hour and over the following week.

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1. The Dangers, Ranked by Lethality Timeline

   SECONDS   ->  Cold shock: involuntary gasp, aspiration, drowning
   MINUTES   ->  Drowning after cold incapacitation / swim failure
   HOURS     ->  Hypothermia; injury and untreated haemorrhage
   1-3 DAYS  ->  Dehydration; heat exhaustion; seasickness spiral
   3-10 DAYS ->  Immersion foot, salt-water sores, infection, sunburn
   ANY TIME  ->  Despair, panic, loss of the will to survive

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2. Water: The Rules That Actually Matter

1. No water in the first 24 hours for uninjured survivors. The body enters an antidiuretic state after shock, and seasickness peaks — anything drunk is likely to be vomited back with electrolytes attached. Casualties who are burned, bleeding, or already dehydrated are the exception.
2. From day 2, 500 ml per person per day, split into three small doses at sunrise, noon and sunset. Sip; rinse the mouth; swallow slowly.
3. Never drink seawater. Seawater is roughly 3.5% salt (35,000 ppm). The human kidney can only concentrate urine to about 2%, so excreting the salt load in a litre of seawater requires more than a litre of body water. Drinking it accelerates dehydration and produces delirium.
4. Never drink urine. It carries the concentrated waste your body has just spent water to remove.
5. Never drink alcohol. It suppresses antidiuretic hormone, causes diuresis, and vasodilates the skin — the opposite of everything a cold, dehydrated survivor needs.
6. Collect rainwater. The canopy gutter feeds a tube into the craft. Let the first flow run to waste to wash off salt, then collect. Top up rations from collected water first and preserve the sealed pouches.

The Food Rule Nobody Expects

If water is short, do not eat. Metabolising protein produces nitrogenous waste that the kidneys must excrete in water. Eating on a restricted water ration spends water you do not have. SOLAS rations are deliberately high-carbohydrate and low-protein for exactly this reason. Fishing is worthwhile only when you have water to spare; raw fish flesh also carries a heavy protein load.

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3. Craft Organisation: The First Hour Inside

A survival craft that is organised in the first hour will still be functioning on day five. The sequence:

1. Cut the painter once everyone who can be recovered is aboard and the ship is going — using the buoyant, blunt-tipped safety knife stowed at the entrance.
2. Stream the sea anchor to cut drift and hold the entrance away from the seas.
3. Search for survivors in the immediate area; link with other craft and secure them together with painters, then stream a single drogue from the group.
4. Close the canopy against spray, then adjust for ventilation.
5. Bail and sponge dry; the floor must stay as dry as possible.
6. Issue anti-seasickness tablets to everyone immediately — six tablets per person are supplied. Oral medication cannot be absorbed once vomiting has started.
7. Appoint a commander — normally the senior person present, but competence outranks rank in a liferaft. Assign a deputy.
8. Set the duty roster: continuous lookout, bailing, canopy and pump watch, water and rations, first aid, log-keeper.
9. Inventory the equipment and inspect the craft for leaks; top up the buoyancy tubes with the bellows.
10. Deploy or check the location aids — EPIRB on, SART mounted high, radio schedule agreed.

Daily Routine

• Maintain a continuous lookout, changed frequently so nobody stares themselves blind.
• Top up tube pressure each evening: gas cools at night and the tubes go soft.
• Ventilate during the day; close down in cold or heavy spray. Carbon dioxide accumulates in a sealed canopy with a full complement.
• Exercise in place — fingers, toes, shoulders — to maintain circulation and prevent immersion foot.
• Keep the log: date, time, position if known, weather, sightings, rations issued, medical events. It steadies people and it matters afterwards.

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4. Morale Is a Survival System, Not a Nicety

Documented survival cases show a consistent pattern: groups with structure, a leader and a shared expectation of rescue outlive better-equipped groups without them. Practical measures:

• Give every person a job, including the injured — a casualty who cannot bail can still keep the log or watch one sector of the horizon.
• State the plan out loud: what the EPIRB has already done, when a search is likely, what the rations plan is.
• Enforce fair, visible rationing. Nothing destroys a craft faster than a suspicion that water is being taken unfairly.
• Keep people occupied and warm; suppress fatalistic talk without dismissing fear.
• Watch for the person who goes quiet and stops participating — that withdrawal is the recognised early sign of giving up.

Exam Watchout: questions in this area typically offer a plausible-sounding but fatal distractor — drinking a small amount of seawater, eating fish to "keep strength up" while water is short, swimming to a distant shore, or removing wet clothing in a cold raft to "dry off". All four are wrong for the reasons above.