This bulletin board, hosted by the CDSOA, Inc., is the on-line meeting place for all Cape Dory owners and groups. We welcome everyone's questions, answers and comments about Cape Dory sailboat
Many boats under 35 feet have a kill switch. When pulled out, this spring-loaded pin completes a circuit and keeps your engine running. A small clip pushes under the switch to hold it open. This clip is attached to a lanyard that should be attached somewhere on the boat operator’s body. Usually a flexible line coiled like a spring, the lanyard allows the operator reasonable movement. If the operator falls off the seat or into the water, the clip pulls out, the pin closes and the engine shuts down.
If your boat doesn’t have a kill switch, you can retrofit it with various types of commercially available switches. Radio-activated switches allow the operator to wander a certain distance from the console before shutting the engine down; water-activated models shut down the boat if the operator goes overboard.
An important piece of safety equipment, a kill switch can prevent man-overboard fatalities, providing it’s used. All too often, however, I see the lanyard and clip attached to the instrument panel, while the other end hangs unattached. This renders the kill switch useless. The second-worst thing to falling overboard is falling overboard and watching your boat sail away. Be sure to have a kill switch on board and use it faithfully.
The above is from a United States Power Squadron newsletter. Above this article was the picture of a sailboat. Initially, I thought this was for powerboaters but then the read the language "watching your boat sail away".
I had never thought of this.
Does anyone use a kill switch on the engine If so, how was it installed, etc.
Fair winds,
Roberto
a/k/a Sea Hunt "The Tadpole Sailor"
CDSOA #1097
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"I wish to have no Connection with any Ship that does not Sail fast for I intend to go in harm's way." Captain John Paul Jones, 16 November 1778, as quoted in Naval History and Heritage Command, http://www.history.navy.mil
First and foremost a kill switch will not help a lot if your sails are up. The best you can hope for is the boat will round-up and stall into the wind. If the auto-pilot is engaged you are really up the creek without a paddle. A kill switch could be installed if you just happen to have a fuel solenoid. Most of the sailboats I am familiar with only have a kill cable which pulls the rack back on the engine and denies the engine fuel.
If so, how was it installed, etc.