I always wear my life jacket when sailing. Actually for this tip over, things went fairly well. I had my wallet, keys, and cell phone in a dry bag in the mesh net near the mast, and my cooler under the tarped bow area. Even in the knockover and righting, my hat never came off! Only thing I lost was two small bungee cords used for transport. Unfortunately I didn't have enough hands to mind the tiller/drop the motor/attach the topping lift/drop the main/furl the jib all at nearly the same time, so over I went. Even after getting it righted, dropping the main, lowering the motor and firing it up, I still had trouble keeping headed into the wind. With my 2hp Honda running wide open I was barely making forward progress, and because of the partially open jib, the nose would keep catching the wind and falling off so hard it took both motor and rudder to get it pointed back into the wind.