Fin keel,lying on beach,tide coming in,panic watertight integrity?

jerrytug

jerrytug

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This is a situation which needs a checklist,and even a "dry run" or "panic practice",which is not mentioned much,but is every fin keel`s worst nightmare. Tide goes out, and you`re aground,and the vessel heels right over...sitting on her side on the beach.
Round the outside close all cocks,bungs in.
Next cockpit lockers. Mastic and nails. Cockpit drains. Instrument cut-outs,am I relying on a bit of chinese **** as to whether she refloats or not?
Moving forward,washboards and hatch. Can I make them all strongly waterproof in a few minutes? Have I a plan???
Forwards. Ventilators hurry up the tides comong in! Coachroof hatch.
Foredeck the hawsepipe springs to mind. Fore hatch.

Once everything`s watertight,we can relax and enjoy.

Any tips for this situation? I would be up for compiling a checklist. Has it happened to you and how would you refloat without stress next time?
Thank you in advance for any practical tips,cheers good watch Jerry.
 
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Seems to me the most important thing, if she is aground and you can not get her off, is to make sure she falls over towards the beach/land and well fendered.
Seems to me besides weight distribution best way to do this would be to take a halyard that goes to the top of the mast, and using extra rope, take this to the shore so it can be pulled over as tide recedes. But never done it in anger,
 
You forgot the most important thing. Once the boat's aground and you know you are going to lie down, before she tilts too far - PUT THE KETTLE ON! :D
 
Not a problem for me with my long keel and bilge fins, but I was under the impression that a conventional fin-keeled boat will float up from lying on her side without any drastic measures. As long as she didn't tip the wrong way down a slope, that is, and closing seacocks would be sensible.

Pete
 
Good advice,another point which occurs is that some vessels will be able to happily rest on the gun`ls or the turn of the bilge without damage,whereas others will be dented,or the hull-deck joint will be opened: very good point about the fenders,get the mattresses and cushions under the side as well,probly not the inflatable tender,too squishy and might want the use of it.
I fully realise it totally depends what boat it is and the weather.
On some boats,it might be impossible!
If you had this manoevre planned and practised,it might be an option for repairs below the waterline. And it might allow access to the masthead which you could winch down to the beach.
I`ve done odd bits of beaching.. MFV in the middle of the Wash for a quick paint job for example but she wasn`t RIGHT OVER just sitting on the bilge.
How would it work with the average 7-12 metre glassfibre bermudan? Sress or S.O.P.?
 
jerrytug said:
This is a situation which needs a checklist,and even a "dry run" or "panic practice",which is not mentioned much,but is every fin keel`s worst nightmare. Tide goes out, and you`re aground,and the vessel heels right over...sitting on her side on the beach.
Round the outside close all cocks,bungs in.
Next cockpit lockers. Mastic and nails. Cockpit drains. Instrument cut-outs,am I relying on a bit of chinese **** as to whether she refloats or not?
Moving forward,washboards and hatch. Can I make them all strongly waterproof in a few minutes? Have I a plan???
Forwards. Ventilators hurry up the tides comong in! Coachroof hatch.
Foredeck the hawsepipe springs to mind. Fore hatch.

Once everything`s watertight,we can relax and enjoy.

Any tips for this situation? I would be up for compiling a checklist. Has it happened to you and how would you refloat without stress next time?
Thank you in advance for any practical tips,cheers good watch Jerry.
Click to expand...

Look at http://www.marine-techniques.co.uk/images/yacht-aground.jpg

Had the person who was in command simply turned off the heads sink and galley seacocks she would have refloated without the slightest water ingress, had a quick liftout to check for keel damage and to clean the muddy hull side, and been back sialing the next morning.

He did not turn off any seacocks - left in the dinghy before she heeled too much. Water flooded in through the heads sink, damage to upholstery, electrics, electronics (all on the downhill side). I was there as she refloated and she lifted without a drop coming in the cockpit lockers.
 
jerrytug said:
get the mattresses and cushions under the side as well,probly not the inflatable tender,too squishy and might want the use of it.
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Not only that, but when YM tried it they found that they couldn't force the dinghy into position below the water anyway. Turns out that inflatable dinghies are actually rather buoyant things; whoever would have guessed? :)

Pete
 
If you've run aground it follows that the depth of water is less than say 5 ft so you'll need to either use a dinghy, or walk out a kedge or main anchor ready to pull yourself off when there is enough depth. Suggest that anchor be tied to a long warp rather than the anchor chain,and the warp led back to a main winch( if no windlass) through the bow roller, then winching off until enough depth for cooling water and propulsion are effective. The anchor warp being led back to the cockpit area means that the engine controls are close by when needed. Much of my worry would be causing any damage to the rudder if a spade type, perhaps too even a transom hung type.


ianat182
 
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jerrytug said:
This is a situation which needs a checklist,and even a "dry run" or "panic practice",which is not mentioned much,but is every fin keel`s worst nightmare. Tide goes out, and you`re aground,and the vessel heels right over...sitting on her side on the beach.
Round the outside close all cocks,bungs in.
Next cockpit lockers. Mastic and nails. Cockpit drains. Instrument cut-outs,am I relying on a bit of chinese **** as to whether she refloats or not?
Moving forward,washboards and hatch. Can I make them all strongly waterproof in a few minutes? Have I a plan???
Forwards. Ventilators hurry up the tides comong in! Coachroof hatch.
Foredeck the hawsepipe springs to mind. Fore hatch.

Once everything`s watertight,we can relax and enjoy.

Any tips for this situation? I would be up for compiling a checklist. Has it happened to you and how would you refloat without stress next time?
Thank you in advance for any practical tips,cheers good watch Jerry.
Click to expand...

I always thought that this was an argument against having a winged keel. Alright, it might be more difficult to topple it but, if you do, the angle will be even more acute.

Otherwise I would have thought it would be in the design brief for boat to remain watertight when lying on its side (unless lying down a slope). I know mine is (I hadn't noticed that the tidetable was based on GMT rather than local time...) and I believe, IIRC, it's a requirement of French certifying standards.
 
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jerrytug said:
This is a situation which needs a checklist,and even a "dry run" or "panic practice",which is not mentioned much,but is every fin keel`s worst nightmare. Tide goes out, and you`re aground,and the vessel heels right over...sitting on her side on the beach.
Click to expand...
No guarantees, but I think you'd be surprised how quickly a boat will start to lift once the water starts coming back.

The only (twice) I've had to do it for real (once as a relatively novice crew, once as a skipper) we duct-taped the cockpit lockers and ventilators, but we really needn't have bothered: in neither case did anything other than the odd splash come over the cockpit coaming.

I think the key point is that a lot of the weight of the boat is in the keel, which is supported by the beach. The water only has to lift the hull, which is relatively light.

eg if you take a 10m boat weighing about 5 tonnes, there's probably a couple of tons of keel, so the water only needs to lift about three tons -- so a total immersed volume of about 3 cubic metres should be enough.

But before anyone jumps down my throat ... I am NOT saying that there is no point playing the "What if" game... it's a great way of stopping dramas from turning into crises.
 
Joker said:
assuming you're on sand, then putting fenders concentrates the load in a very small area - might you be better off just resting on the sand?
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How does that "small area" compare to the area of a couple of pads per side in a boatyard cradle? Or the travelift strops that lift my whole boat by two six-inch-square areas because of her hull shape? Boat hulls are strong, they have to be to withstand the forces of the sea in bad weather.

Pete
 
Some thing similar happened to me. I was sitting in the middle of Fishguard harbour dried out and strapped in to a cradle. I had just bought the boat which had spent the winter sitting on the beach in the cradle. The previous owner had helped me move it to a pre picked spot in the harbour at high tide.

At low tide at midnight the cradle broke and my boat fell on to it's side. Nothing broke, it was a steel boat.

But I had an agonising wait to see if it would float or fill. The previous owner had had the side windows out and had missed a few bolts out on replacement. [ Typical Robbie job ] so I busied myself stuffing blu tack into the holes while I waited.

Yes it did float with some margin to spare. But it was one of the better moments in my life when I saw the mast top stirring and starting to inch up.
 
Careening used to be the normal method of scrubbing, painting and repairing below the waterline. Admittedly it is the norm to lay her over side on to the beach , lying uphill, but it is unusual for the boat to reverse onto an obstacle isn't it?

My fin and skeg hull landed (accidentally) on a beach and lay over demurely. We hardly felt her start to come back up apart from the fact that we could now get the last drops out of the beer cans! I think the little bit of tumblehome made the angle more acceptable, but she only went to 40 degrees. Water comes much closer to the gunwhales when sailing than when refloating. Of course, a shallow, soap-dish hull form would not fare so well as they are effectively capsized when on their beam ends and would most likely flood.

By all means close seacocks, but chances are that there will be no drama, so long as the weather is benign.

Rob.
 
Had a Prima, racing boat with stonking great keel, lying on the beach next to me last year to give it a scrub prior to a race the following day. It took him a little longer to lift off than me but no ill effects as far as I’m aware.
 
I was once in this situation helping a chums' long keeled boat which he'd driven hard onto the mud due to exhaustion ( I always say it's fatigue that will get you ).

We dug a channel for the keel to get to deep water, placing a kedge out by another boat; the line to that kedge was smoking on the manual winch when we hauled her off ! ( 15 tons ).

As well as lightening the boat as much as possible - water tank emptied, most of the fuel & everything portable transferred - we also had a few people stand on the foredeck, to prevent the aft heel of the keel digging in as we reversed off.

As mentioned previously, twin, bilge or wing keelers can actually be a lot worse off, if inconsistent mud or similar heels them over, then the lower keel will hold her over; saw this happen to a wing keel boat and it seemed a miracle she ever floated again !

It's also an idea to check any engine intakes are clear, not bunged up with mud etc.
 
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No matter how she settles she will refloat exactly the same way surely? If the water didn't flood in when she settled why would it flood in when she rises? The hull could get stuck on mud requiring the water to rise further to break the sticking effect, the waves may be bigger, but if nothing is causing the hull to stay down it will refloat.
 
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