MOB

Matt Osborne, my friend for whom I play the straight man, constantly pushes the limits of good taste. I love him to death (really, how soon can it be arranged?). We got together for a beer the other day as I was in Los Gatos. It had been awhile since I last saw him, but one thing we spoke of was relavant to post here.

Man over board drill.

I don't do them as often as I should, but this particular one was a fiasco. He looked at me with a mixture of confusion and shock. "Man over board?", it just didn't compute. I had just taken a large blue boat fender and thrown it over my shoulder into the choppy water. It had receded about 25 yards in the rear view when I started to explain we would try to get the blue fender as if it were a person who had fallen over board.

I wanted to try somethings out, "Does it work to just flip a 180 back to the MOB or not?", is a figure 8 the best strategy?" Basic stuff. What ensued was about ten minutes of the most laughable attempts by us to get the fender back onboard. Going too Fast...or having the waves pull it out of Matt's reach at the last second. It was a typical SF Bay afternoon and both the fetch and the wind was up. It was keystone cops and my primary realization remains that it had better be one of my crew that falls overboard as there is little hope that a solo inexperienced crewman will be able to get the boat back to me if I go over the side.

This is now that acid test according to Matt. If I sail with someone else, he asks, "Oh, did you throw the buoy off the back, Man Overboard!" .