The Sinking of a 37ft Yacht...

richandlori · Post by **richandlori** » Fri Jun 03, 2005 10:28 am

Link Here

Glad we have positive flotation.

Rich

Andy26M · Post by **Andy26M** » Fri Jun 03, 2005 10:39 am

How truly heartbreaking for those folks.

- AndyS

Catigale · Post by **Catigale** » Fri Jun 03, 2005 11:00 am

Very sad tale - there is a good paragraph in there about how you need three things to go wrong to have a 'disaster' and how they were only one snafu away....

mike · Post by **mike** » Fri Jun 03, 2005 11:17 am

How sad... what a beautiful boat. Glad no one was hurt or killed... I'm sure the captain is going to have an interesting conversation with the liferaft servicing person.

--Mike

mtc · Post by **mtc** » Fri Jun 03, 2005 11:33 am

I'm sure the captain is going to have an interesting conversation with the liferaft servicing person.

Which brings up a great reminder. . . the person servicing that raft wasn't on it, was he/she?

Never rely on anyone for your safety. Check, and double check always having a redundancy available.

Scary story. What a shame.

joncon17 · Post by **joncon17** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 1:57 am

Sorry to say if you have ever seen the PM of an off-shore life raft in a marine store other than the manufactures tag traced back to the inspectors employee number its like trying to watch the guy at Wal-Mart change your oil filter in the pit. Ask any skydiver with experience who checks his gear. These guy where way lucky, I wonder if their EPRIBs went off? Daylight, fairly calm seas, boats around them, CG immediate response, never hit he water wow thats the PowerBall. From what Ive been told 95% its the canister repacking that will cause premature CO2 failure.

Catigale · Post by **Catigale** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 4:24 am

For a $1000 safety device I surprised the MOM didnt come with a backup electric pump or even a manual pump as standard kit,

Imagine you get into this thing (stepping UP from your sinking keelboat) and then you find it has a slow leak...are you supposed to just ride the sinking piece of plastic into the sea????

WOnder if they had any luck trying to get the hole stuffed with cushions or sails to get the leak to a point reduced to where pumps could keep up...they didnt mention it in the thread at all.

Post by **kmclemore** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 8:15 am

It would appear that they didn't want to get wet (yeah, really!):

"...we were eager (if at all possible) to have a dry transfer to the larger yacht .... we were mightily relieved to get into [the raft] without the need for a spell in the cold water."

If it had been me I would have sent my crew topside with my First Mate in charge of preparations to abandon and I'd be below getting the pumps running, then finding and hammering a pad & plug into that hole. Worst case, take one of the stowed sails and run it under the boat walking it forward from both sides of the hull, and hope it somewhat blocks the hole.

I simply cannot believe they did absolutely nothing to halt the foundering. Amazing.

richandlori · Post by **richandlori** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 10:27 am

from reading the story overagain, it looks like things happened so fast and before they realized they were really in trouble, the water in the boat was up to championway. I do agree that after you have secured "life" you could look to secure property. If I had to screw up on one item, I guess I would want it to be on the property side.

Rich

Graham Carr · Post by **Graham Carr** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 1:01 pm

I wonder if the electrical system had shorted out by the time the water reached the companionway. So who knows if the pumps were working or even large enough? The electrical system was still working when the water was above the floor, because they called the Coastguard. They may have used a hand held. I have read that some boats have a back-up battery mounted high for the radio. That if the cabin floods you can still call for help. It is easy to say sitting in my den, but I believe I would have stuffed the hole with something.

Graham

Catigale · Post by **Catigale** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 2:22 pm

Sail under the hull, then disconnect the water intake for the motor,and use it as a high capacity bilge pump to get the water out.

have to keep the motor in neutral, otherwise the prop just tears up the sail.

IF i heard a big bang under my boat, I would watch the bilges pretty closely...

Post by **kmclemore** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 3:42 pm

Catigale wrote:If i heard a big bang under my boat, I would watch the bilges pretty closely...

Yep... exactly!

Here's what got me....

When surfing down one of the bigger waves at about 11 kn., there was a loud bang, like a pistol-shot. Helmsman Brian McDowell felt the wheel go "limp" and watched helplessly as Megawat rounded up sharply. I had been sitting in the companionway & Roger was lying down below. (OK, so why didn't Roger immediately start looking around to see what the heck happened?) I asked Brian had the steering failed and he showed me, by spinning the wheel, that it was. At this time I suspected the (Lewmar/Whitlock) rod & ball-joint steering linkage had failed.

I went below, (..and OBTW, failed to look for any damage), and having checked with Roger that it was appropriate to put out a Mayday on VHF CH. 16, did just that.
Minus 60 minutes

...Roger and I spent the next few minutes pulling down the main, which is difficult with a fully battened main unless you are head-to-wind. We were lying broadside. At this time we could see that the N.Y.C. Jeanneau 54' Quite Correct, owned by John Roberts, and with our friends Brian Mathews and John Veale (Hammer!) aboard, was coming back towards us. An hour earlier she had passed us out so close by that we had a short and jovial conversation with them.
Minus 11 minutes (OK, so for over 49 minutes nobody went below to see what was happening!)

When I next went below it was to discover an unwelcome development. Water was well over the floorboards, and shoes etc, were floating about. (Not up to the companionway yet... still time to find the leak! And BTW, what the h*ll are the other guys doing while this is all happening?) Time to radio the Coastguard again, and reveal the worsening situation. They confirmed having scrambled two lifeboats and a helicopter. At about this time I spotted our rudder, with about half its stock attached, floating away from us.

Post by **kmclemore** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 3:58 pm

Graham Carr wrote:I wonder if the electrical system had shorted out by the time the water reached the companionway.

Actually, maybe Moe can answer this for us from an electronics point of view... but I am not sure that a 12-volt system *will* short out effectively under water. I believe that in large part it will still work (hence why his radio was still working).

Moe · Post by **Moe** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 10:38 pm

I fortunately don't have any experience with swamped marine systems, but I've made some saltwater rheostats and can say they conduct pretty well, depending on the salinity and distance between the electrodes. It's possible that a couple of well-charged batteries could hold voltage up while discharging pretty heavily through it.

--
Moe

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