How to survive being lost at sea

Unlike every other terrain type, the open ocean doesn’t offer any useful resources to find and leaves you at the mercy of the weather and relying on the limited supplies you have. The option to not be able to find anything useful is a major factor in how long it would be possible to survive, leaving your odds entirely dependent on what you had at the point of being stranded and the knowledge you had on how to use those supplies. Here are a few points about being lost at sea and some survival tips to keep in mind should it ever happen to you.

What are the chances of being stranded in the open ocean?

Each year there is an average of between 350-500 ships that go missing around the globe, but the vast majority of these are smaller vessels in tropical areas where the weather is much more violent. When it comes to the larger cargo or oil tanker-sized ships, these average 2 ships per week and mostly go missing in particular areas. Over 80% of all ships that go missing are found before they sink, and over 90% of all people classed as being stranded at sea are found in less than 5 days after being reported missing.

As for the chances in general of someone being stranded at sea, it would depend on so many factors that there can’t be a single answer. The more time you spend at sea the greater the chance, but on average sailing and flying over the ocean is much safer than driving a car for the same distance.

How long can you survive floating in the sea?

If you were just dumped right in the middle of the sea without a boat or any supplies, and assuming there are no environmental factors and you remained still, then you could last between 2 and 3 days until you died of thirst. If you were simply floating then the water would be supporting your body weight and it would require no effort to remain in that position, as long as the sea was calm enough. If stranded in a colder region of the world then hypothermia would be the biggest threat to life and could cause someone to fall unconscious and drown in under an hour.

Factors like body fat content and fitness levels play a big part in how long you can survive in cold water, but the average expectancy before someone falls unconscious in water that’s 0 °C is less than 20 minutes. At 4 °C a person can last for up to half an hour, and at 10 °C it can be as long as 60 minutes.

What to do if you are stranded at sea?

The first stage of the stranding will be the most important as this is the only time you’ll be able to gather supplies, but your chances of doing this will be purely situational. The more gear you can grab before having to get into a life raft the better, but ultimately after the initial stranding incident you’ll find yourself in the open ocean wondering what to do next.

Take every opportunity to gather fresh water.

The only time you’ll be able to get fresh drinking water is when it rains, so do everything you can to gather as much clean water as possible. Life jackets, plastic sheeting, or any kind of waterproof and flexible material can be made into a rain catcher to funnel water into a container. Even if your containers are full it’s worth drinking as much water as you can when you have the opportunity, even if you’re not thirsty because you never know how long you’ll have to stretch the supplies you have until the next rainfall.

Be resourceful

If something looks like junk when you’re in a survival situation, just change the way you look at it and make it useful. Someone else’s t-shirt that may not fit you can be torn up and made into a cord to make something out of, or torn open and hung up to be used as a sunscreen. Anything made out of metal like an aluminum drinking can could be twisted up and made into a fishhook or primitive knife, and this goes for anything else that you may consider junk. Broken electronics are full of wires for fishing lines and hooks, and even an old boot can provide a flat rubber cutting surface to gut a fish on, the more resourceful you are the more things you’ll find to help you survive.

Take it easy

It is pointless trying to propel yourself anywhere even if you have something like a paddle because the sea is simply too big and you probably won’t be able to row against the current anyway. It would take many months to row across an ocean and the amount of calories and effort it would be required to do so would quickly drain your food supplies, something that should be heavily rationed right from the start. Saving your energy means saving your food and water, so don’t waste it trying to paddle your way across hundreds of miles of ocean.

Keep an eye on the boats shadow

When stranded during the day your boat will create a shadow under the water which will attract fish and other animals. Small fish will take cover in the shadow and will in turn attract bigger fish looking to eat them. Using a fishing hook to catch any kind of fish will give you enough bait to go after the bigger ones, but getting that first one might be tricky. Survival fishing kits almost never come with any kind of bait other than spinners or fake fish lures, something that may have difficulty attracting a fish on its own.

If at sea for long enough the bottom of the boat will attract plant life and can create its own mini-ecosystem. There have been many people stranded at sea for long enough that they reported how the same fish would follow their boat around in the shade, even when floating hundreds of miles. This food source should not be overfished and the smaller catches should be used as bait to catch something more substantial, as living off the small shadow-dwelling fish alone wouldn’t be sustainable for very long.

Keep out the sun and keep dry

Getting salt water and your skin will leave a tiny amount of salt behind after it’s dried, which can quickly build up and dry out the skin to the point it starts cracking and creating sores. Getting wet with salt water and then drying out over and over will make your journey very uncomfortable, so only get wet when you have to. Staying out of the sun is an obvious one but in the event your skin is also covered in saltwater sores, the sun will amplify the pain and accelerate the cracking effect, increasing the chance of infection.

Ration from the start

You probably won’t know how long it will be until someone rescues you, so it doesn’t matter how many supplies you have with you at the time. A week’s worth of good eating might have to turn into a month of being hungry, but alive. Perishable food should be consumed first and the highest calorie foods should be rationed into daily amounts instead of eaten in a meal or two. Water is the one thing it’s important not to deprive yourself of but if you remain as inactive as possible, you should be able to get away with drinking less than your normal daily amount.

Try to get noticed

It’s very difficult to see something as small as a raft in the ocean, and looking from a sideways perspective anything small enough could easily be hidden by the waves. If you’re lucky enough to have flares with you, only use these if you think there’s a realistic chance someone will see them, but if not then your only option is to stand up wave your arms around, or wave a piece of cloth, anything to get yourself noticed. One of the common rescue methods in other terrain types is a signaling mirror, but this won’t work at sea amongst the millions of bright reflections constantly bouncing off the water.