Dealing with serious emergencies

Jimmy Cornell explains how he dealt with grounding, prop entanglement, collision, lightning strike, a carbon monoxide scare... and more!

- Jimmy Cornell

Perhaps it is inevitable in my long and eventful sailing life that I've faced a number of emergency situations. In every case I was able to deal with them successfully. People ask how I managed to complete all these thousands of miles and end up without any serious problems. The easiest answer would be to say that I have been lucky, but I must admit that I have been well prepared and also cautious.

Fitting out the 36ft van de Stadt-designed Aventura myself taught me the importance of being self-sufficient, and ever since then I have attempted to do all that is necessary to be prepared for the worst.

One golden rule I have learned is not to panic. It is indeed crucial in an emergency situation to keep calm, take time to properly assess the situation, draw up a plan of action and then act.

The importance of having such an attitude in an emergency situation was confirmed by Mike Johnson, a former fighter jet pilot and mountaineer, who took part in one of my world cruising surveys on voyage planning. He said: "In the final analysis, it all depends on knowledge, preparation and constant review.

"We use a simple acronym for most of our decision-making-DODAR: diagnose the problem; options available; decide on the most appropriate; act upon it; review how it is working. If necessary, return to step one. This may sound simplistic but we have seen so many minor situations develop into disasters because people didn't even begin at the first step."

I have chosen some incidents that highlight the most essential points: the ability to deal with an emergency when it happens, and to put right what is broken, or at least find a temporary solution.

I'll start with my first serious emergency-running aground on a coral reef-because it taught me some valuable lessons which, I am convinced, helped me overcome similar situations in the future.