The present invention concerns life-saving equipment for the hauling-up of persons who have fallen overboard from smaller ships, i. e. sailing boats. Larger ships are traditio- nally provided with appropriate lifting equipment, among other things for this purpose, and there will be several per- sons on board who can co-operate in a purely manual hauling- in, but there is no corresponding requirements for sailing boats, where e. g. crane equipment solely for this purpose would also be a strongly-loading factor with regard to the cost, weight and usability of the boat.

However, there is still the fact that more people fall overboard from sailing boats than from"larger ships", and that these people have extreme difficulty in climbing back into the boat again. There are many examples where the only thing which can be done is to throw a line with a life belt to the person who has fallen overboard, and thereafter to seek harbour as quickly as possible while towing the person through the more or less cold water. It is precisely in cold waters that this can have fatal results.

In view of this, it is the object of the invention to provide life-saving equipment which does not to any great de- gree significantly or directly increase the cost of the boat equipment.

The invention is a further development of the equipment which is disclosed in DK 9400023 U3. This equipment has not proved to be effective, not only because it is unstable in its mounting by simple contact with the deck of the boat, but also because the operation of this equipment demands great strength. The equipment is based on the principle that a lifeline which is thrown to the person who has fallen over- board is fed over a wire-wheel at the top of a stand, to the other end of which there is fastened an inwardly-extending pivot arm which can be swung in the vertical plane. So-called "frog-legs", which are clamping arrangements with opposing swivel cleats which are spring loaded towards each other, are placed at the top of the stand, behind the wire-wheel and at the rocker arm, and these"frog-legs"allow a rope to be pul- led freely through in the one direction, but effectively ser-

ve to block any movement of the rope in the opposite direc- tion. After the person in the water has been drawn as far as possible in towards the boat, the lifeline is laid over the wire-wheel and is led down through the frog legs both on the stand and on the upwardly-swung pivot arm. When this is then swung down, its frog-legs will draw in the line, which can freely be drawn through the stand's frog-legs, while with a subsequent swinging upwards of the pivot arm, the line will be clamped firmly by the frog-legs on the stand but allow swinging-up during the sliding of the frog-legs on the pivot arm along the line, in that the operator must hold the drawn- in line reasonably taught in order to create this sliding. By "pumping"up and down with the pivot arm, the person having fallen overboard can hereby be lifted up from the water to a suitable height at which he/she is able to climb into the boat, and thus will be saved by just one single person.

With the invention it has been found that the operational security for such equipment will be significantly increased when the equipment and possibly the boat itself are arranged with means for quick and total securing of the equipment, which is normally stowed-away, in its position of use in such seldom cases of emergency. The operator of the equipment thus does not need to pay considerable attention to keeping the equipment erected, which can be difficult in cases of heavy seas. Moreover, upon conclusion of the hauling-up of the per- son in the water, the relevant operator will thus be given the possibility of assisting him/her into the boat without the risk of the equipment falling down to a position from which it is impossible to gain access to the deck, and in practice just as impossible to re-erect the equipment.

Therefore, according to the invention it is important that the equipment can be secured in a solid manner, and this can naturally be achieved by providing the deck of the boat with special means such as threaded bushes to accommodate se- curing bolts for a base on the equipment.

However, with the invention there is the preferred possi- bility that the desired solid securing can be effected with already existing parts of a sailing boat, so that the boat in

itself does not need to be specially equipped for the pur- pose. On conventional sailing boats there are no fixed parts which are suitable as basis for a securing of the equipment in a suitable position near the gunwale, and with a suitably high disposition of the wire roller over which the hauling in of the lifeline is effected, but with the invention it has been realised that the so-called side-shrouds, i. e. the very taught wires which out from the sides of the mast extend be- tween an upper area of the mast and an outer random area of the deck, lend themselves excellently for the purpose when the equipment is provided with a suitable clamping arrange- ment. This is preferably achieved with a set of elongated clamping jaws which, by a parallelogram control and an asso- ciated swing arm, can be compressed very hard and in a stable manner around the chosen side shroud. This firm clamping can be so strong that the equipment will not have any tendency to slide down when loaded, and thus the equipment does not re- quire to be supported down towards the deck, i. e. the above- mentioned stands can be completely dispensed with.

A second and important modification of the known equip- ment consists of the said pivot arm for the hauling in of the lifeline being housed immediately under the wire wheel and the associated fixed frog-leg cleats, with the pivot arm's frog-legs disposed in such a position that the two sets of frog-legs are brought almost completely together when the pivot arm assumes a swung-up position, preferably only just above the horizontal. The pivot arm is hereby easy to oper- ate, both because it is moved through an expedient angle range and because a relatively low gearing will arise between the pivot effect and the drawing-in movement of the frog- legs. This also means that the operator will find it easy to hold the drawn-in line part suitably stretched out during the return stroke of the pivot arm.

GB-A-2,270,881 discloses that a triangular frame can be pivotally fastened or secured to upright brackets on the boat deck, and which frame at its uppermost top has the said wire- wheel which can thus swing out over the gunwale at a rela- tively high position, in that further swinging out is preven-

ted by the tightening out of a wire piece between the frame top and a fixed point in on the deck. The hauling-in of the lifeline is carried out manually without any auxiliary equip- ment or by means of a winch. The frame will be inconvenient in its permanently mounted, swung-in position, and in heavy seas it will otherwise be extremely difficult to mount in an emergency situation. Similarly, the said upright deck brack- ets will also be inconvenient.

US-A-4,343,056 and 5,435,766 disclose firmly-mounted life-saving installations, partly in connection with a side shroud and moreover based on the use of hauling-in winches.

In the following, the invention is explained in more de- tail with reference to the drawing, in which fig. 1 is a perspective view of the equipment according to the invention, fig. 2 is a side view of a detail hereof, fig. 3 is a schematic plan view for the illustration of the mounting of the equipment, and fig. 4 is a schematic side view of the equipment accord- ing to fig. 1.

The equipment or aggregate shown in fig. 1 consists of two main parts, i. e. a securing part 2 and an operation part 4. The latter has a U-shaped plate chassis 6 with upwardly- extending side plates 8, between which there is suspended a pulley-wheel 10. On an upper, inclined member there is pro- vided a cross-plate 12 on which frog-legs 14 and a line rol- ler 16 are mounted. In connection with a transverse axle 18, at the one side there is mounted a pivot arm 20 which, via a cranked part 22, extends outwards into an operating handle 24 at the middle of the operation part 4. To the arm 20 there is welded an inwardly-extending plate 26 which supports a roller 28 and a frog-legs clamp 30 with the same orientation as the frog-legs 14. It will be understood that a swinging down of the pivot arm 20,24 will increase the distance between the parts 14,16 and 28,30.

The securing part 2 is shown in more detail in fig. 2, and in fig. 3 it is shown that it is intended for mounting on a side shroud 32 of a sailing boat 34. It comprises an elon-

gated base-plate part 36 with an angled-out outer edge part 38, and a displaceable parallel plate 40 with a corresponding outwardly-angled outer edge part 42. At its opposite outer edge, the base-plate part 36 has a pair of projecting ear parts 44 which have bearing pins 46 for parallel pivot-plates 48, which at 50 are pivotally secured to the displaceable plate 40, so that this is parallelogram controlled. Fastened to the upper pivot-plate 48 there is an operating arm 52 which extends at right-angles, and which when swung down can bring about a parallel displacement of the plate 40,42 up- wards and inwards against the edge part 38 of the base-plate 36.

The side shroud 32 will normally be one of a number of standard thicknesses, i. e. 7,12 or 14 mm, and therefore it is possible to dimension the securing part in such a manner that a full swinging-down of the arm 52 will result in a very firm clamping together of the plate edge parts 38 and 42 against the relevant side shroud 32 when the pivot-plates 48 are brought to an end position near a direction at right- angles in towards the edge part 42,38, whereby the clamping will be self-locking. It is preferred, however, that the op- erating arm 52 is provided outermost with a retaining hook 54 which, after the arm has been swung down, can be hooked around the front of the side shroud 32 for a complete safe- guard of the established locking position.

By means of the clamping part 2, the aggregate 2,4 can thus quickly be mounted at a suitable operating height on the side shroud 32 at the one or the other side of the boat 34. A lifeline 56 (fig. 3) thrown out to a person who has fallen overboard and who is subsequently hauled in to a position close to the side of the boat, is inserted in over the pul- ley-wheel 10 and led down by insertion between the frog-legs 14 and 30. When the operator hereafter"pumps"the pivot arm 20,24 up and down between the positions shown in fig. 4, the lifeline 56 will be drawn in at each downwards working stroke of the arm as a consequence of the effect of the frog-legs 30, while at each return stroke a blocking of the drawn-in line takes place in the frog-legs 14 and a free sliding of

the line through the upwardly-swung frog-legs 30. The opera- tor shall herewith merely take care to hold the end of the drawn-in line more or less taught, so that the frog-legs 30 can be returned without the formation of any loops bulging- out in the line between the frog-legs 30 and 14. When the ag- gregate is mounted at a comfortable working height, this will also involve that the person who has fallen overboard can be lifted up to a level from which there is access to the deck.

The operator will be perfectly able to help the person to climb aboard, in that the aggregate can be released with both hands while the lifeline is still loaded. If desired, how- ever, the pulley-wheel will be able to be housed at an even higher position on the aggregate part 4.

According to the invention, on one or both side shrouds 32 it will be possible to mount suitable clamping means, and which take up only little space, for quick mounting of the operation part 4 which is normally stowed away. Conversely, this operation part will be advantageous regardless of the method used for the securing.

The frog-legs 14 and 30 can possibly be replaced by other forms of one-way clamps, and the rollers 16 and 28 can be re- placed by fixed, curved slide surfaces.