Crew winched to safety after 70-ft yacht sinks

Did I read it right? The bilge pump didn't work due to an ingress of water?

Of course pleased that all are safe.
 
Well I read it more as...

There was an ingress of watery stuff

The water shorted the lectrics

The bilge pump doesn't work if the lectrics are dead

If it's a clipper it's hard to imagine it has no redundancy! And some of the usual tricks in such situations such as raw water inlet from engine along with putting a bung in the hole could surely have held back water enough to prevent a short...
 
An ex clipper would presumably be code 0 capable. Which would imply not so much redundancy as reserve buoyancy internal subdivision.
Pump failure would be normal without internal subdivision. As for redundancy most yachts have little or none.
Mine has the usual electric, manual and final bucket. No subdivision.
What code 0 actually requires I have no clue. I have never had a reason to read the requirements.

Hence my personal response. Vessel taking on water. I reply to CG and respond without hesitation. Without salvage pumps, can’t really do much but pick up the crew.
The points. I note here, they used the life raft, the vessel sank, they were picked up from the raft.

Sailing mid November western approaches even close to shore. Not having a life raft could have been a tragic out come.
 
ShinyShoe said:
Well I read it more as...

There was an ingress of watery stuff

The water shorted the lectrics

The bilge pump doesn't work if the lectrics are dead

If it's a clipper it's hard to imagine it has no redundancy! And some of the usual tricks in such situations such as raw water inlet from engine along with putting a bung in the hole could surely have held back water enough to prevent a short...
Click to expand...

It's so easy for them sitting by a cosy fire saying they could had done this or that,
Tons of time to think of what they can do then post here, but when you step down a company way in the middle of the night and find the floors afloat now that a very different story.
To find a leak in a 40 foot boat when part of the hull has filled is hard enough let alone in a 70 ft boat .
If the power was out then they wouldn't been able to start the engine so the raw water suggesting goes out the window.
There come a point for us who have been in this type of situation when we have to decide what more important,
Trying the Impossible saving the boat or the life on tho on board.
These guys did just the right thing , as we read the boats sink not long after they left the boat.
These clippers guys would had lots of training and probably wil be more prepared what to do in these situation then Most weekend sailors so let not start running them down.
Well done guys of doing what was needed to live another day.
 
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Oh gosh, let's hope this doesn't become yet another "ckipper evil", "RKJ evil" thread.

Any idea what the boat was?
 
Finding a leak once it's well submerged is extremely difficult. From personal experience, I can say it really made my bum twitch when I found water over the sole boards on delivery trip with new to us boat, just off the Skerries. Water had covered all the underwater hull fittings so difficult to find the problem. Eventually found it was the gas locker drain on the transom which submerged with stern squat when motoring and the plywood gas locker bottom was well rotten. Luckily I spotted it by chance when opening the cockpit locker to get a bucket. Managed to hang over the stern and stick a cork in the outlet which stopped the ingress but it took a hell of a long time to pump the water out with just hand pump. First jobs when we arrived were to make a new gas locker and fit an electric pump and float switch.
 
I have a boat that was coded ‘0’, and she came with watertight bulkheads, a stability book* and three bilge pumps, one Whale 25 on the deep bilge only and a Henderson and a big electric pump which go to a manifold with valves to each compartment. It would certainly be possible to sink her, but if you do as we do and close the bulkheads and hatches at sea, which is the work of a moment and not inconvenient, she would have to be damaged on a bulkhead or have a door fail.

* Favourite chapter: Departure Condition: Main Saloon Flooded Yes, I know what it means, but I must have a childish sense of humour as it still makes me giggle.
 
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I wasn't knocking their decision to get in the raft. They are alive to tell the tale. Too many have gone down trying to save the unsavable.

My assumption was that they knew of the leak before the electrics were shorted and so could start engine etc. I made that assumption, partly on the assumption that a purpose designed RTW would be designed to minimise risk of the battery swimming if the boat took some water.

For some reason I thought clippers were Steel built. . Must have merged with the British Steel RTW race in my head. So I was thinking a massive hole was rather less likely, more likely a seacock or engine prop shaft.

And, I suppose although clipper may add lots of redundant features, they don't need them to be usable 2 up...
 
Kukri said:
I have a boat that was coded ‘0’, and she came with watertight bulkheads, a stability book* and three bilge pumps, one Whale 25 on the deep bilge only and a Henderson and a big electric pump which go to a manifold with valves to each compartment. It would certainly be possible to sink her, but if you do as we do and close the bulkheads and hatches at sea, which is the work of a moment and not inconvenient, she would have to be damaged on a bulkhead or have a door fail.

* Favourite chapter: Departure Condition: Main Saloon Flooded Yes, I know what it means, but I must have a childish sense of humour as it still makes me giggle.
Click to expand...

The wording is strange.
However, comforting to know you could depart with the main saloon flooded if you were inclined to do so. :)
 
ShinyShoe said:
I wasn't knocking their decision to get in the raft. They are alive to tell the tale. Too many have gone down trying to save the unsavable.

My assumption was that they knew of the leak before the electrics were shorted and so could start engine etc. I made that assumption, partly on the assumption that a purpose designed RTW would be designed to minimise risk of the battery swimming if the boat took some water.

For some reason I thought clippers were Steel built. . Must have merged with the British Steel RTW race in my head. So I was thinking a massive hole was rather less likely, more likely a seacock or engine prop shaft.

And, I suppose although clipper may add lots of redundant features, they don't need them to be usable 2 up...
Click to expand...

You say this is a Clipper yacht - can you post the link that you got this from?
 
dunedin said:
Strongly suspect that it is not a boat currently owned or operated by Clipper. There are a lot of the previous 2 or 3 fleets of EX-Clipper boats now in other hands.
Click to expand...

I seem to think that some were bought by the Joint Services as Nic 55 replacements, but they were not found satisfactory and the Nic 55s soldiered on a bit longer...
 
boomerangben said:
The link from the MCA fb page makes it sounds like a catastrophic ingress of water causing failure of all electrics. Sounds like a really big hole
Click to expand...
+1

If the yacht sank before the lifeboat could get there then it must have been a b****y big hole. Whether or not the bilge pump was working and what level of redundancy they had is almost totally irrelevant
 
Kukri said:
I seem to think that some were bought by the Joint Services as Nic 55 replacements, but they were not found satisfactory and the Nic 55s soldiered on a bit longer...
Click to expand...

Not true, but don't let facts get in the way of a good smear of a great company
 
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