Here in New Zealand, there are strict rules on the safety equipment that boats need to carry on board if they are competing in any yacht races, and also if they are intending on sailing offshore (both racing and cruising).

Internationally registered vessels are exempt from these requirements, however I would imagine any prudent seafarer would want to ensure that they had all the correct gear on board to enable them to best handle any situation that came their way.

The new Yachting New Zealand regulations can be found here.

One of the regulations is to have a diagram of the vessel showing the location of all the relevant safety equipment on board.

Here is an example that Yachting NZ provides in the handbook:

The plan should be displayed in a prominent position on the boat.

Now I don’t actually have one of these for Wildwood, so seeing as it is a rainy day, I thought I would make one up. Here is a blank template you can use if you want to print it out and hand draw on your safety equipment.

Some of the things you should include on your diagram are:

• Location of emergency steering gear
• Bilge pumps
• Buckets
• Rig cutting tools, bolt cutters, axe
• Tool kit
• First aid kit
• Bosuns Chair
• Storm Sails
• Sail repair kit
• Gas locker
• Water tanks
• Batteries
• Life jackets
• Harnesses
• Life buoys
• Sea cocks – with soft wooden plugs attached
• Fuel tank & shut off
• VHF Radio
• EPIRB
• GPS
• Flares
• Torch
• Foghorn
• Radar reflector
• Day Shapes
• Fire Extinguishers & Fire blanket
• Life Raft
• Grab bag
• Knife
• Heaving Line
• Anchor & spare anchor
• Drogue
• Sea Anchor

So with the help of my son Seth, I was able to figure out how to upload the hull shape above in to my computer’s photo editor and then add shapes and text boxes to the picture to come up with the diagram below. (It took me ages!) but I am quite pleased with the result.

We don’t keep all our coastal cruising safety gear on the boat all the time. Things like the life raft and grab bag come home with us while we are just sailing around the harbour.

Do you have a safety equipment diagram on your boat? If you have a diagram you are happy to share, email it through to me and I will add your pic (and a link back to your blog) to this post as well. astrolabesailing@gmail.com