Anyone know this boat.

[shanemax]

I have mentioned this on another part of the forum but starting again I borrowed a mooring last night in Harwich harbour. Yes, the mooring rope was covered in growth so no one was coming back. The mooring was 20 meters from a Seal tour boat, yellow in colour. I have never seen this boat move, I am not saying it is not busy at other times but every time I have seen it it's on its mooring. I could not help but notice the bilge pump was going off every 5 minutes pumping out two to three litres of water. There was no phone number on the boat so I could not call anyone. I hope the battery is good. I could not see a solar panel but I expect there must be one. If anyone knows the owner please give them the nod.

 

[shanemax]

This was 11/09/23

 

[Poignard]

I can understand your concern.

A couple of weeks ago I spent two nights on a pontoon at Arzal, next to a rather decrepit wooden cruisng yacht. Every hour or so her automatic bige pump activated and discharged what seemed an alarming amount of water.

The yacht was not plugged into the mains, and had no solar panel or wind generator.

I was a bit apprehensive that her battery might give out, and I would wake up to find her sunk and leaning affectionately against my boat.

 

[MoodySabre]

This boat?
Seal watching at Harwich | home

 

[John 32i]

Unless they have two similar boats it was definitely being used on Saturday morning.

 

[steved]

I have mentioned this on another part of the forum but starting again I borrowed a mooring last night in Harwich harbour. Yes, the mooring rope was covered in growth so no one was coming back. The mooring was 20 meters from a Seal tour boat, yellow in colour. I have never seen this boat move, I am not saying it is not busy at other times but every time I have seen it it's on its mooring. I could not help but notice the bilge pump was going off every 5 minutes pumping out two to three litres of water. There was no phone number on the boat so I could not call anyone. I hope the battery is good. I could not see a solar panel but I expect there must be one. If anyone knows the owner please give them the nod.

I know the owner of the 'Haven Cruiser' the seal watching boat, it's the same person that runs the Harbour ferry from Harwich to Shotley/Felixstowe which I skipper on. He is aware that Haven Cruiser is leaky, but I'll mention it to him that the bilge pump is going off that frequently.

Also, just to mention, he has three mooring buoys in a row, the middle one is for the ferry to use when the wind is strong from the west, and generally he doesn't like other boats using the buoys....

 

[shanemax]

I picked that mooring up at 7oc in the evening. The ferry was already tied up. Judging by the growth on the rope it is very rarely used. I was gone at 6.30 in the morning. If someone is using my mooring while I am away, best of luck to them. The ferry nearly sank last year, perhaps this year it is going to be the seal boat. In my opinion, if you are carrying passengers you should stay on top of the maintenance. It questions "what else could be wrong"

 

[steved]

I picked that mooring up at 7oc in the evening. The ferry was already tied up. Judging by the growth on the rope it is very rarely used. I was gone at 6.30 in the morning. If someone is using my mooring while I am away, best of luck to them. The ferry nearly sank last year, perhaps this year it is going to be the seal boat. In my opinion, if you are carrying passengers you should stay on top of the maintenance. It questions "what else could be wrong"

Just to be clear, the ferry / seal boat operator is hands on when it comes to maintenance, and is very proactive in preventative maintenance. It was 2/3 years ago that the ferry sustained damage whilst alongside Ha'penny Pier during very strong winds, this was not a lack of maintenance issue, just bad luck. That is why HHA have now provided buoys for use when the weather dictates that the boat cannot be along side.

I do agree that the use of unoccupied buoys is normal practice.

 

[shanemax]

In your own words you say "he is aware his boat is leaky" well I hope his leaky boat is not carrying families with young children. If it's leaky then you don't just leave it and hope the pumps can cope. The more people you load into a leaky boat the more pressure on the leak so it gets worse. It hardy fills me full of confidence about his competence.

 

[shanemax]

And it was not just bad luck. I do not use halfpenny pier any more since I ripped out a cleat. I have seen a 40 foot yacht bucking so much its swimming platform was disappearing under the water and much damage was caused. In the wrong weather, with the wrong wind and a ship passing Halfpenny pier pontoon is an accident waiting to happen. I anchor off and come in by dinghy. Yes 95% of the time it is fine but you have installed some pretty large attached fenders to that pontoon and that's for one reason only.

 

[fredrussell]

If only we had some way of knowing in advance which way the wind was going to be blowing!
Or, to put it another way, if there’s a lot of east or west in the wind forecast - you’ll have a bumpy night at Ha’penny Pier. Otherwise, it’s a great place to spend an evening.

 

[shanemax]

You are far better off on the inside than the outside but if the weather, wind ,and current, start collaborating and one of those ferries passes by you could be in for damage. The boats start pitching and that turns into bucking and the mooring ropes just cannot cope and something has to give. With me I lost a cleat and another was badly bent. Hanging fenders makes no difference to that type of movement and can get ripped off or thrown up onto the pontoon.

 

[john_morris_uk]

In your own words you say "he is aware his boat is leaky" well I hope his leaky boat is not carrying families with young children. If it's leaky then you don't just leave it and hope the pumps can cope. The more people you load into a leaky boat the more pressure on the leak so it gets worse. It hardy fills me full of confidence about his competence.

I don’t want to start picking a fight but much of what you are saying in this post isn’t really true. Whilst a straightforward leak increases as pressure increases, a fully laden boat of the sort you’re referring to doesn’t sink very far in the water compared to when it’s unladen. The reality is that the rate of leakage barely alters.

Why there’s a leak is another matter. Faulty stern gland? This might be much slower when the boats actually in use? Or there again it might be much faster..!

We’ve heard that the owner attends to maintenance so I’d be wondering what the problem actually is before condemning him outright (and making assumptions about his business operations.)

The families with young children comment is just adding emotive language. Would carrying elderly people be better? Perhaps you just meant ‘paying customers?

 

[shanemax]

If I pay to go on a tour boat I expect it to be perfect when it comes to safety. Yes PERFECT. If I take young children, (who are inclined to panic when things go wrong) or older people ( who may not be as fit as they were at saving themselves0 then every thing must be 100% in order. A leak of any description on a boat is not good especially a "paying passenger boat" because they are inexperienced people. The thought of the boat going down in Walton backwaters with all that deep mud, and should the tide is out, the steep slope of the banks is a nightmare. Many other boats have found a leak can contaminate the fuel, fuse the electrics, and make the boat unstable. You go out on it and make sure you take your kids and don't forget Granny.

 

[Poecheng]

If I pay to go on a tour boat I expect it to be perfect when it comes to safety. Yes PERFECT. If I take young children, (who are inclined to panic when things go wrong) or older people ( who may not be as fit as they were at saving themselves0 then every thing must be 100% in order. A leak of any description on a boat is not good especially a "paying passenger boat" because they are inexperienced people. The thought of the boat going down in Walton backwaters with all that deep mud, and should the tide is out, the steep slope of the banks is a nightmare. Many other boats have found a leak can contaminate the fuel, fuse the electrics, and make the boat unstable. You go out on it and make sure you take your kids and don't forget Granny.

You pays yer money, yer takes yer choice.
With that stipulation, you won't be going on any boat.
There is a very large space - unacknowledged in your post - between a wooden boat (with suitable pumps) having a leak and going down to the bottom of the creek with all hands.

 

[steved]

I will also add that the ferry / seal watching is a commercial activity whereby the vessels can carry more than 12 passengers, and therefore subject to annual MCA inspections which are both out of water surveys and in water running trials. I have been in attendance on several of these inspections, and believe me, if the boats are not up to standard then the licence will not be renewed. Lastly, the owner would simply not put any boat in service if there were issues that affected the safety of passengers. No boat is 100% perfect, and an aging wooden boat will collect some water in the bilge, this could also be from rainwater.

 

[john_morris_uk]

If I pay to go on a tour boat I expect it to be perfect when it comes to safety. Yes PERFECT. If I take young children, (who are inclined to panic when things go wrong) or older people ( who may not be as fit as they were at saving themselves0 then every thing must be 100% in order. A leak of any description on a boat is not good especially a "paying passenger boat" because they are inexperienced people. The thought of the boat going down in Walton backwaters with all that deep mud, and should the tide is out, the steep slope of the banks is a nightmare. Many other boats have found a leak can contaminate the fuel, fuse the electrics, and make the boat unstable. You go out on it and make sure you take your kids and don't forget Granny.

Whilst I’m 100% with you regarding safety equipment being up to date and in good order, you’d better not travel on any commercial plane or ferry. Even shiny brand new ones will have a long list of defects that are waiting to be fixed. Obviously if the faults are safety critical then the boat/plane can’t be used but it’s a complete delusion to demand that ‘everything must be 100% in order’.

We can debate whether the leak as described is critically bad or not.

 

[PaulRainbow]

Whilst I’m 100% with you regarding safety equipment being up to date and in good order, you’d better not travel on any commercial plane or ferry. Even shiny brand new ones will have a long list of defects that are waiting to be fixed. Obviously if the faults are safety critical then the boat/plane can’t be used but it’s a complete delusion to demand that ‘everything must be 100% in order’.

We can debate whether the leak as described is critically bad or not.

If the boat is sitting on a mooring buoy with no shore power or solar panels, the leak shouldn't be too big, or the batteries would have gone flat and the boat would have sunk.

2 or 3 litres at a time, every 5 minutes is 600-900 litres in 24 hours.

 

[john_morris_uk]

If the boat is sitting on a mooring buoy with no shore power or solar panels, the leak shouldn't be too big, or the batteries would have gone flat and the boat would have sunk.

2 or 3 litres at a time, every 5 minutes is 600-900 litres in 24 hours.

Sounds a lot. However as the batteries didn’t go flat, it’s either a poor/bad estimate of quantity and/or frequency or the boats got a very large battery bank.

(I suggest that power boats used as tripper boats don’t always have large battery banks as they rely on the engine and charging system to be running when they’re in use.)

 

[shanemax]

I very much doubt whether there is still very much wrong with this Harwich Seal boat, I dare say with all this chit chat going on it will have been fixed by now. But lets do the mathematics. Lets cut the estimated figure by more than half.
Lets say only 2 litres per 10 mins, thats 12 litres per hour x 24 =288 litres per day = 63 gallons per day. A gallon of water weighs 3.78kl x 63 = 238 kls. Now this one is for all the experts, the questions is would nearly a quarter of a ton of water sloshing from one side of the boat to the other de stabilise it.