Three-minute MOB recovery

Seawork 11th - 13th June 2024	Speed@Seawork 10th June 2024	Commercial Marine Network Conferences

The 25th edition of Europe’s largest commercial marine and workboat exhibition, provides businesses the opportunity to showcase their services, equipment, vessels and supplies to an international audience.	Speed@Seawork on Monday 10 June in Cowes offers a sector specific event that showcases fast vessels operating at high speed for security interventions and Search & Rescue.	The Commercial Marine Network, in partnership with Seawork and Maritime Journal, introduce Series 3 of ‘Get set for Workboat 2050’. An online conference series of expert panels navigating the waters of decarbonisation compliance and looking at practical applications across the workboat industry.
Visit the Seawork Website	Speed@Seawork on the Seawork Website	View the Conferences on Maritime Journal

One Seawork 2022 exhibitor is now manufacturing and distributing a complete system that has been designed to retrieve a man overboard (MOB) in under three minutes.

The C-Hero system is now manufactured to ISO 9001 standards by Harken Industrial in Pewaukee, Wis., and distributed by C-Hero, a California-based company, in the United States. Harken also sells the system through its industrial products network in the rest of the world.

The Harken C-Hero system provides a proven three-minute MOB recovery

C-Hero founder Shane Smith, a tugboat captain, started his career working with his father in Hawaii during the 1970s, working on diving, salvage, bunkering, and ocean towing. He later moved to California, where he worked for more than 30 years as a tug captain performing coastwise towing, pushing barges on the rivers, and ship docking on San Francisco Bay. He has operated push boats, conventional tugsand tractor tugs.

Smith spent the next part of his career training captains and helping companies go through internal and external audits of their marine safety management systems (SMS). He became concerned that most SMS systems used by tug companies were focused on complying with required monthly or quarterly MOB drills, while never demonstrating a way to actually retrieve a person from the water.

Smith started C-Hero in a garage with the objective of helping crews with effective MOB recovery. The C-Hero system provides a proven three-minute MOB recovery while under way.

The C-Hero Vertical Rescue Davit is a lightweight portable man overboard system, which consists of a small crane and a self-tailing Harken winch that quickly attaches to any bitt on a boat. (A bitt is a pair of posts on the deck used for fastening mooring lines or cables.)

The radial winch in this system provides mechanical assistance that allows a rescue to be performed by a single crew member. The crane’s boom is long enough to clear any fenders.

The C-Hero Vertical Rescue 12 with Recovery Strap provides quick recovery of conscious or unconscious persons who have fallen overboard. Deployed via a 12-foot lightweight pole, a strap goes over the person in the water and then under their arms for a vertical recovery using the rescue davit. Crew members stay onboard and inside the bulwarks while performing the rescue.

Harken industrial will also be presenting its range of LokHead winches, purchases, traction winches, rail & trolley systems and much more at Seawork International 2022 on stand D5.