Search Patterns for Sailors It’s late at night and you’re
sailing downwind in a moderate breeze. You hear a faint scream,
quickly go up top to investigate and discover, to your horror,
that no one is on deck. Apparently, your shipmate has fallen
overboard. You hit the MOB function on the GPS, get the boat
turned upwind and proceed to the approximate spot where your
companion fell overboard. He is nowhere to be seen. The water
temperature is only 55 degrees; it is critical that you find
your shipmate as soon as possible. You call the Coast Guard for
assistance, but you are 30 miles offshore, and it will be quite
a while before help arrives. By then hypothermia will have set
in—or worse. Your sailing companion’s best hope is for you to
find him or her yourself. But which way should you steer? How
far should you go? When should you change course? To answer
these questions you need to know how to execute a simple search
pattern. Search patterns are useful in other situations as
well—for example, if a piece of val