Buoys – rafts – and aquatic devices – Water rescue or life protecting apparatus
Reexamination Certificate
2001-12-20
2003-03-18
Sotelo, Jesus D. (Department: 3617)
Buoys, rafts, and aquatic devices
Water rescue or life protecting apparatus
C441S084000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06533626
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention has for its object an onboard device for rescuing a person from the sea permitting a conscious person to rescue himself.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The state of the art can be defined by the following material:
round life preservers,
U shaped life preservers in the form of horse collar,
life preservers in triangular or square shape, of various rigid and inflatable materials.
These life preservers do not guarantee flotation because the victim is involuntary and may not have donned his life preserver before falling over or else has no one else to throw him one. Even if the victim has a life preserver, he remains in the water awaiting rescue by another person. The same is true for the following material:
floating devices of rectangular shape of different sizes such as life preserver cushions of aircraft or else larger ones of ships with ropes to be gripped,
life vests of rigid foam or inflatable;
sealed and inflatable combinations,
life rafts of different sizes, rigid or inflatable, that can receive one or several tens of persons,
personal signaling material: whistles, mirrors, lamps, fires, coloring agents, radio emitters for satellite positioning, etc.
Often, when a victim falls into the sea, he has none of the above equipment.
Studies of various organizations concerned with maritime safety show that there exist three critical stages in saving someone from the sea:
1—supplying flotation equipment,
2—establishing physical contact with the victim,
3—bringing the victim onboard.
Existing equipment, products or techniques to solve the problem are incomplete because they rely on one or two stages leading to rescue.
For example:
1) flotation:
there exist lifesavers (in the form of rings, horseshoes, etc.), life vests of rigid foam or inflatable of any shape and even an inflatable life raft, for one person and which the victim is supposed to take with him when going overboard. The mentioned equipment supply flotation but the contact with the boat which continues on its course is lost and this does not permit bringing the victim onboard. Others offer the possibility of hoisting the victim but only in the case in which the latter floats besides the boat. Poles are adapted to mark the position in the water of the victim as well as a radio signal which transmits by satellite his exact position but which lacks two of the three critical stages of lifesaving.
In the case of someone who falls into the sea, if he does not have a life jacket or lifesaver, it is impossible to guarantee that the other members of the crew can give him a flotation aid. If the mariner is alone, it is certain that no one will come to hi said immediately. When other persons are onboard, no one may have noticed his fall (example: the mariner is on watch while the others sleep), the other members of the crew can find it impossible to maneuver the boat correctly and return to the point of fall to supply the flotation element. There exist several possible reasons.
Hence, the only solution for a victim to float, is that the wear a life vest or a preserver before falling or else that there exists a rescue element in the water, beside the victim which the latter can immediately seize.
2) establish contact with the victim:
A lone victim or without a witness is slot.
If the victim is not connected with the boat by means of a rope, the physical contact is lost and must be reestablished.
If a crewmate moves the boat a distance while maneuvering it, it is difficult for him to maintain visual contact with the victim. An automatic or manual mechanism could throw onto the water position equipment such as a pole with a flag, or a radio satellite transmission. At night, the crew would lose sight of the victim if he is not provided with a signal lamp, similarly the victim would have difficulty finding a lifebuoy if he does not have a lamp.
To establish contact, the boat should return and stop exactly at the spot where the person is in the water, under any circumstances. It is extremely difficult to carry out this maneuver while under sail, sometimes impossible in heavy weather, strong wind and high seas. If the crew brings the boat around into immediate adjacency, this often endangers the victim more than if the boat were to maintain a certain distance.
It could be attempted to establish contact by throwing a buoy attached to a cord but, so that the victim can grasp it and pull in, it is necessary that the be immobile on the water, otherwise it will be torn out of the hands of said victim will not have the time to reel it in. Moreover, this supposes that the boat is stopped.
In high winds, it is impossible to stop a sailboat, particularly a multi-hull which maintains a certain speed on the water. If contact is established with the victim by means of a rope, even if the victim has succeeded in putting on a vest or a buoy, he will be dragged by the boat which continues to advance. Moreover, in more than 70% of the bodies of water, the resistance to advance is such that the victim is quickly submerged and risks being sunk, requiring him or the other crew members to cut said cord, thereby losing physical contact.
Hence the only solution to establish and keep contact is to supply the victim with a flotation element attached to the boat, which is easy to grasp and which does not offer resistance to advance in the water when the victim is dragged behind a boat.
3) returning the victim onboard:
All the existing equipment supposes external assistance and is not suitable for a single mariner or someone without others capable of maneuvering in a storm.
What would work under conditions of calm seas and winds to throw a buoy attached to a cord and pull up to return the victim onboard, does not work if the boat is not stopped. As described above, the resistance is such that you can't drag the victim by the rope. On the other hand, if the boat manages to stop next to the victim, there often results a greater danger than if the boat kept a certain distance. When the edge of the boat is high above the water, the victim must be dragged up in a comfortable way, without danger, which presupposes a hoisting equipment.
Thus the only solution by which the victim can certainly return onboard, is that the be able to do it himself. Similarly, the rescue device must have hydrodynamic characteristics permitting the victim to be drawn by a rope, without resistance behind a boat and permitting the victim to pull himself up or be pulled up toward the boat and then over the side into the boat.
The following patents also define the state of the prior art.
FR-A-2.638.705: onboard safety device on a boat with a crew to alert the crew and its location for the recovery of someone fallen overboard, characterized in that it comprises first individual means for emitting at least an acoustic signal carried by each member of the crew, controlled by falling into the water, means for receiving this signal onboard the boat, control means of an assistance assembly actuated by this signal and second means for emitting and for receiving at least one radio signal between the person fallen into the seal and the boat.
FR-A-2.622.717: the invention relates to a device comprising an emitter and a receiver designed such that distance from the emitter triggers an alarm. The emitter is carried by the person to be monitored, departure from the emitter, by decreasing below a certain threshold the signal received by the fixed receiver on the boat, triggers an alarm. The device according to the invention is particularly adapted for the surveillance of persons onboard small boats.
FR-A-2.692.723: device for marking. It comprises a small balloon and a radar wave reflector, with three reflecting faces perpendicular to each other fixed at several points to the internal wall of the balloon, the points of securement being disposed only along two straight perpendicular lines, but not secants.
FR-A-2.695.904: the device is adapted to facilitate the rescue of a person fallen into the sea. It comprises at least an emitter emitting a coded signal and adapted to
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