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Comment by sandworm101 | Hacker News Reader

>> Sascha had gone to the side to relieve himself and simply fell overboard. He’d reached for the railing to grab it on the way down, but he missed. And that was it — his boat sped away without him, nearly 40 miles away from shore.

There is an old story told about how most drowning victims are found with their fly open... drunk people peeing into the water slip and fall into that water. I don't know anything about this particular incident, but peeing off a dock or over the edge of a boat is always dangerous. You are doing something very routine at the point where land meets water. Even without alcohol/drugs, overconfidence with a routine task quickly leads to big mistakes. (I saw similar incidents with people who decided pee over the edge of cliffs. Don't do that.)

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Also true of the tourist corpses fished out of the icy canals of Amsterdam in winter.

> doing something very routine at the point where land meets water

Men are also doing something that typically requires two hands on an unstable platform with limited visual cues for the horizon.

> requires two hands

That's quite a humble brag!

Two guys are relieving themselves into a river.

First guy: Boy, that water is cold.

Second guy: And deep, too!

More serious answer. The drunk man’s lean is a tale as old as time. Get your zipper down, get situated, and your left arm goes against the wall to stop the world from moving out from under you. You should only need both hands for a moment. Less if you’ve practiced.

Don’t some boats have a tether to the power key, like treadmills?

If my memory serves, every boat I've ever been on has had one. In my experience though, it rarely gets used, especially if the individual driving is also fishing. The article states that Scheller was trolling at the time, so he likely wanted to be able to leave the console and grab his rod at a moment's notice. Reckless as it may be, driving with the power key attached to the console in some way rather than yourself makes that process faster and much easier. It's a trade-off between convenience and safety that, unfortunately, leads many to favor convenience a majority of the time.

Seems like there should be some inexpensive way to buy/built a BTLE “kill switch” that hooks onto your belt. (And indeed a simple search turns up such a product for about $200.)

Killing the power can help in some situations, but nowhere near all of them. A small boat moves very differently than a person treading water. It drifts in the wind. A swimmer doesn't. Even with the engine off, there is a good chance that he wouldn't get back on. And a one-foot wave isn't so small when your eyes are only a couple inches above the water. You need a positive connection between you and boat.

The tethered dead man's cutoff is a norm on small outboards. I seem to recall it is even a legal requirement to use it in some jurisdictions (including clipping it to the skipper's body). But on anything out in the ocean like this with a larger outboard with a separate steering station it is not something that is normal at all. There are products that achieve the same outcome including wearable beacons that will shut the motor off if you get separated, but they are not common and a little expensive.

Why?? Use one hand.

I can’t undo a zipper with one hand, but power to those who can.

... where should you pee?

> where should you pee?

The head. If there isn’t one, give a buddy a heads up.

In this case there was no buddy either.

Really if you ever need to go the edge of the boat you should be tied in. This is especially true with sailboats since you often work at the edge of the boat doing things like pulling lines or other actions where you can easily lose balance or the boat can quickly shift.

If you are sailing in open water like this, miles from shore, especially solo, you should be tying yourself whenever you go to the edge of the boat. This is standard equipment on most boats, a full-body harness (often intergrated with an CO2 inflated life vest and water activated beacon). There is a big industrial caribiner style clip you clip onto the railing or similar with so that if you fall overboard you can pull yourself back. The rig is similar to what you would wear while roofing a house.

This applies to all offshore boating, but if you are ever boating solo, even more precaution should be taken to do this.

Cut a piece of plastic bottle to make a portable urinal

Who is downvoting this? This is very literally the key life-and-death question.

Too bad if there's some humor in it. You have to live with that sometimes.

Deactivate the propulsion before peeing. Maybe even drop anchor? If you fall overboard you could probably get back onboard.

Anchors are only a thing very very close to land. Few boats carry a thousand-foot anchor rope.

Anchors do not need to touch the bottom of the ocean for them to slow the watercraft down or reduce its drift. Anchors are very much a thing far away from shore.

You should clip on. If you're moving around anywhere you could possibly fall over, and you're alone or the water isn't calm or you're far from shore or basically any other risk factor, you clip yourself to the jacklines first.

If you're alone and can't stop and don't have anything the other commenters mentioned and your boat is fiberglass and in good condition? Just pee inboard on the deck in a place with good drainage and wash it off. Can't be much worse than the droppings that birds provide.

But, personally in general (car camping especially) I like the humble pee bottle. At Walmart in the RV section they have the blue chemicals used in portable toilets and plane lavatories and the like. You can get it in a little tide pod format. Cuts the smell and keeps things sterile. Drop that into any container (preferably non-translucent and 2+ liters) add a little water and you've got your own miniature portable toilet.

You can also buy a real portable toilet, they are quite nice these days, but can be bulky. The keyword to find them is "cartridge toilet" because typically the waste volume is a container that is detached and carried to the dump point. I once hiked 3 miles holding one of these portable toilets just so I could take a dramatically scenic (and civilized) poop and it was absolutely worth it.

I think a bucket is more traditional...

Or at least pee from behind a railing of some sort so that when you slip you won't fall outside the boat.

Note that the railing has to be high enough that even with the swaying of the boat, it's not going to hit you below your center of mass. A lot of boat railings aren't tall enough.

Bucket

Gatorade bottle (the dude even had his own supply according to TFA)

Worst case, on deck near the drain holes, then wash it off

Usually told at the the start of a trip as the “harnesses always on when solo on deck or at night” policy is explained to crew.

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