Hands Up if.....

[capnsensible]

.... you have ever been on a yacht offshore taking on water from a not obvious place.

What did you do about it, what was the result?

For the purposes of this thread, 'read about it in a magazine' doesn't count.



I can go twice on this one, including how you generally got to pump out a gazillion gallons of oggin before you can find the leak, usually when its blowing old boots with lumpy seas and in the middle of the night.

Over to you.

 

[Simes]

Ah, OK. A good few years ago but not very far off shore. I go down into the boat to find a shallow lake of sea water swilling over the floor boards. There was not much wind so we were motor sailing. I flick on the bilge pump and watch as the water level falls. There is a steady stream of water coming into the boat from under the engine somewhere. I start emptying the cock pit lockers to get to the rear of the engine but cannot find the source of the leak. We turn around and head back to the harbour, the faster we go the more water comes in. We slow down and less water comes in. This has to be a hole in the hull somewhere under the engine, right!?
We get back to Gosport and the nice people at Gosport Boat Yard have waited for us. A quick haul out and there is no hole in the hull. The boat is put back in the water and there is no water coming in, what is going on? I start the engine to motor back to our mooring and suddenly the wife shouts that there is water coming in again. I am now thinking that the water must be travelling on some circuitous route to have taken so long coming in, the GBY crew have now all gone home and we are alone with a sinking boat late at night in Portsmouth harbour. I quickly motor round to the scrubbing berth at Campers Marina. At least if we sink it will be at HW and against the piles so that we can stand upright. As we tie up alongside the piles the engine is off and the wife says that there is no water coming in, WHAT! Could it be engine connected? A long and fiddly trace of the cooling pipes reveals a friction fracture of the raw water in pipe, after the raw water pump, so the faster the engine ran the more water came in.
Does not sound like much but it does not matter where your boat is sinking you still work hard to prevent it.

Simes

 

[ProDave]

^^ about two sentences in, when you said the faster you went, the faster the water came in, I had realised it was engine cooling water.

With sufficient sea room, I would have stopped the engine to test that theory.

 

[libellule]

Many years ago my wife and I were sailing in the Ionian on a bareboat charter. We had left Lefkas and were heading along the canal, under engine...it was he Ionian after all! I had stowed the mooring lines and fenders and left the wife ( a Yachtmaster) at the helm, while I went below to visit the head. A moment later the engine roared, the boat stopped and then went into reverse and then gently stopped in the mud! Then rocked heavily in the swell of the passing huge gin palace that had forced the wife out of the channel. At first it seemed the problem would be getting out of the mud, but on entering the hatch, I realised the boat was filling with water!!! Removing the companionway to reach the engine, I discovered that reversing the engine had pulled the deep sea seal from the prop shaft and the water was entering the boat through shaft tunnel. Luckily, I managed to force the seal back into place, stopping the flow. I then closed the engine water intake stopcock, disconnected the pipe, restarted the engine and used the pipe to hoover the water out of the bilges. ( It had almost reached the seats in the saloon. The engine and the bilge pumps soon had the boat dry, and I reconnected the pipe to the stopcock. A passing Fairline had seen our predicament and offered to tow us back into the canal from the shallows, the problem was he couldnt get close enough to pass a line. The wife, bless her, looped the line over her wrist and jumped in to swim across o the fairline and a successful tow got us back underway. I never found out the name of the big gin palace, and am still friends and sail with the fairline owner. Sorry, this has gone on a bit hasn't it! Just to put things in proportion, we were both RYA Yachtmasters, sail and power, we both worked in the marine environment and were both used to dealing with emergency situations. There was no need to panic as the boat was aground in non tidal waters. There was no need to involve or inform anybody of the situation as we were confident of rectifying it ourselves. The one thing I will always remember is the look on the Fairline owners face when the wife stepped out of the canal (not the cleanest place in the world....you know what I mean ) onto her boat!

 

[sarabande]

returning from a RORC Harwich to Hook race, in a Class 1, we had F8/9. Rather lumpy sea conditions off Harwich, before dawn, and a combination of waves lifted us right up, then disappeared from underneath us.

We fell, perhaps 10 maybe 12ft, with the boat at an angle, and a very loud noise and bits of kit jumping round down below. As we took stock and recovered to start making way again, I noticed the sole boards starting to lift up and down. Pretty quickly, it became clear that we were making water fairly rapidly, so it was lift the boards, and shine a torch down between the frames.

No obvious source of incoming water could be seen, but the level was rising steadily, and sloshing to and fro across the cabin. Lots of people pumping and baling very hard, as you might expect.

We tacked back towards Harwich, and as we rolled, there was a cracking sound from down by the keel. After several minutes the water level began to reduce to the point where I could see a flow coming through the limber holes from for'd of the keel. We extracted a lightweather jib from the locker, and fothered it over the bow from one side to the other, ran a VHF conversation with Harwich (no handhelds in those days, big fixed stuff , fired off a red flare or two, and then had an interesting few minutes with a coaster which started to circle us curiously.

There were another few cracking sounds as we bounced around, slowly getting under the lee of the land and into slightly calmer water. Then, taking up the boards for'd of the mast, we found the source. The boat was carvel built, and falling off the wave at an angle had caused the keel (a lead mine ) to wrench the garboard strakes asunder on one side, thus allowing the water outside to become quite rapidly the water inside, and cause a bit of chaos and concentrated activity for about fifteen minutes.

Bringing the boat more upright allowed the planks to click back together, though much of the stopping had vanished, leaving a residual leak which we could contain with pumping and buckets.


We made it back to Harwich, the HM found a sheltered berth for us, and we finally left the boat by lunchtime, having arranged for local repairs to be made during the week, before I brought the boat back to Cowes.

The big plus was having a tough racing crew who knew where buckets and pumps were, and who used them with gusto. The worrying focus of the first ten minutes was trying to find the entry point of the water, while working the comms and flares, and wrapping the jib under the boat in such a way that it did not interfere with the trim tab or prop. We were lucky the planks sprang back as the boat tacked one way then another; the timber frames were not damaged and only deformed in an elastic temporary way.

Adding some stainless frames in the region of the keel to make sure a similar event could not happen to the strakes was something which Lallows did expeditiously, and we never had any more trouble.

As I recall, at an early stage we did get the liferaft from its stowage in a locker and bring it into the after cockpit, and delegated one crewman to get it ready for heaving overboard. Other LJs were donned at the outset by the below deck crew. The physical workload was quite severe for the best part of ten minutes, but as we took stock and started to contain the inflow, people began to think normally and get stuck in to baling. The busiest bit for me, as navigator, was removing the cabin sole boards (clipped down !) and assessing the damage and passing the info up on deck for the owner to make the serious decisions - a job at which he was particularly skilled and effective.

Yes, it was nearly panic in the first few moments after the big bang, with three crew in the cockpit, and four turned in bunks, and me half asleep at the nav desk, all being uncertain and a little disorientated, but controlled high-level team work by people who knew and trusted each others' skills took over very quickly.

Were we "lucky" ? Clearly the damage was not terminal, but our concerted actions soon enabled us to assess the situation more accurately and formulate a response. I think we made the right decisions, and some "luck", as well, by concentrated team efforts.

Had the boat been built less strongly, we might have ended up in a liferaft a couple of miles offshore, with the HM aware. We were not afraid to take radical action early on, and tear up floor boards and throw them out of the way. We had good safety kit, knew how to use it, and bounced ideas of response actions between ourselves in an effective and speedy manner. Fortunately, it was a team welded by hundreds of hours of racing together, and no-one felt that the flooding was going to defeat us.



Another time I hit a submarine barrier in a Norwegian fjord......

 

[capnsensible]

Was delivering a yacht from Gib to Antigua via the Canaries. A forecast moderate westerly turned into a SW gale.

Several of the crew were quite seasick, one laying face down on the stbd saloon berth with a bucket.

Whilst on a morale boosting visit to the watch on, I looked into the saloon and saw the bucket and his arm floating. Got all crew up, into lifejackets and ran electric and hand bilge pumps. Took ages to get level down to lift deckboards. So started engine to keep batteries up. (This at 230 am).

Engine packs up.

Carried on pumping by hand, nothing seen in bilges, finally traced to fwd heads seawater inlet valve, pipe fallen off in bashing into wind. This took over an hour to trace. Bumpy. How 2 jubilee clips wrapped their hands in together remains a mystery. Valve a bit stiff so handle falls off. Cut pipe, replaced over spigot, folded over and put more clips on to stop water coming in. Result.

Bouncing around had stirred up diesel in tank, filter blocked (I have come to hate that over the years!). Replaced, bled and ran. Result 2.

Turned back and had a wild ride to Cadiz. Could only tell someone when we got in mobile range, no RNLI to tell!

Water also trashed autopilot breaker and fridge compressor.

Got all sorted in less than 24 hours including cooking a massive amount of food in freezer and getting Tupperware to put it in.

Got to Antigua, only other thing that happened apart from the usual bitty stuff was the boom falling off.

 

[jwilson]

Yes, once on an old clinker yacht, knew generally where the water was coming in (several plank seams) but could not fix, mucho mucho pumping. Once on a modern X-yacht on a long-distance passage, absolutely could not find source, but had to pump for a few minutes every hour. Turned out 500 miles later to be via engine exhaust outlet fitting on transom, driving hard offwind put that underwater. Substantial amount of water coming in every hour, it slopped up under the chart table and killed all the electronics including a supposedly waterproof GPS handheld.. That was on the boat that the racing crew said my sextant was the heaviest thing on board except the anchor, but it got used that trip.

Known deck leaks and stern gland leaks don't count, lots and lots of those on various boats.

 

[Barnacle Bill]

1st season I owned Nicholson 345 Aztec, went out round the island in slightly heavier conditions (despite a very obvious "Are you sure you know what you're doing, 'sir'?" caution from Solent Coastguard) and discovered that we were shipping water when bashing into the seas with a lot of water on the deck. Not serious, but substantially more than usual.

Eventually worked out that the anchor locker was filling up and failing to drain - the only drain hole was a very small one right in the stem (useless, because more squirted in than drained out in those condidions). Then of course it was overflowing into the chain locker and into the bilge.

So by being 'bold', and going out with the Coastguard warning us not to, we had discovered a design fault (which was subsequently rectified by making proper drains, covered with shell plates, on port and starboard). Fill up the original hole, bung a bit of rag round the chain where it goes into the chain locker and there we are.

 

[penfold]

One surprise was voluminous quantities of fresh water in the bilge; turned out the inspection hatches in the water tanks were not as watertight as advertised, and they were emptying themselves when heeled over under sail.

An acquaintance discovered his volvo pattern stern seal had come off the stern tube while transiting the Dorus Mor, but not before the bilge had filled up and the floorboards were awash; he had to hold it in place all the way back to Ardfern while the rest of the crew bailed and arranged a prompt lift out. The stern tube had fractured and allowed the seal to slip off, but the fracture only occurred because some bodger had ground the GRP tube down to paper thinness to get the wrongly sized seal to fit.

 

[Stemar]

^^ about two sentences in, when you said the faster you went, the faster the water came in, I had realised it was engine cooling water.

With sufficient sea room, I would have stopped the engine to test that theory.

Me too, but it's dead easy sitting at a computer.

When your pride & joy is sinking under you and you've a vision of swimming home, it's a bit of a different matter. The brain turns to mush, which is why pilots make such dumb errors when the smelly stuff hits the fan in spite of spending hours every year doing fan & smelly stuff drills to try and make it automatic.

 

[alant]

.... you have ever been on a yacht offshore taking on water from a not obvious place.

What did you do about it, what was the result?

For the purposes of this thread, 'read about it in a magazine' doesn't count.



I can go twice on this one, including how you generally got to pump out a gazillion gallons of oggin before you can find the leak, usually when its blowing old boots with lumpy seas and in the middle of the night.

Over to you.

Two occasions.

(1) Delivery from Alicante to Gibraltar, Moody 38.
On night watch, with owner asleep in stern cabin, motor sailing into a head sea, in sight of the Rock, when crew yelled water coming in. Told him to immediately get owner from his bunk just in case & then check source. Water was coming in around bow bulkhead. When anchored east of Gib, investigated & found anchor locker drains had been blocked with rag (?) & locker had filled up.

(2) On another delivery Croatia to Corfu, again on night watch, whilst motoring an old 31' wooden yacht, lots of water in bilge, kept pumping until Corfu, where engine packed in & slow drift toward Albania. Owner decided to get engine replaced in Corfu & when old one lifted out, found that the raw water inlet had a tee-piece hidden underneath, with one leg to engine & other one open to bilge. This happened just after the boat filled with smoke, because the engine battery dislodged, shorted out against a metal deck strut & started a fire. Interesting & 'exciting' trip that.

 

[DaveS]

Apologies to those who have heard this story before.

Many years ago SWMBO and I were racing in our Vivacity 20 (yes, I know) in the Forth. The coarse was from Pt. Edgar, leave Inchkeith to starboard, back to PE, and the NNE wind allowed us to lay Inchkeith close hauled on the port tack, reefed and well heeled. Approaching Inchkeith we were the last boat, but, through not having had to tack, much closer to the rest of the fleet than was normally the case at the windward mark. With our huge handicap, a corrected time win was looking a distinct possibility.

At this point SWMBO went below to check the chart and shouted "there's water down here!" "Yes, there's usually a bit of water" I replied, for it was rather a wet boat. "No, there's lots of water!" I looked, and the water was lapping the top of the starboard side berths. I hove to, then we plied buckets furiously, but we didn't seem to be gaining. I sent out a Pan Pan, but no reply. More bailing and still no signs of gaining - in fact we became convinced it was getting deeper. No obvious source could be found. I sent out a Mayday, again no reply. (The coax deck plug was later found to be disconnected for some never explained reason.) I spotted a yacht about half a mile away and let off an orange smoke. He came over to us at once and asked if we wanted a tow. I explained the situation and he agreed to stand by us while we headed for Port Edgar, in case we didn't make it.

On the journey back we continued to bail and soon we were definitely gaining. After about an hour all the water was out and none was coming in. Absolutely no trace of a leak. So we thanked and released our Good Samaritan and returned to PE very puzzled. The explanation turned out to be remarkably simple. The Vivacity's sink is mounted to starboard and covered with a board when not in use. When heeled on port tack it goes lower than the water line and water comes up the drain pipe, fills the sink and overflows behind the berths, all of this being hidden by the cover board. Once back on an even keel the sink drains. Needless to say, having found the problem, a sea cock was inserted into the drain and the boat from then on was significantly less wet!

 

[Jamesuk]

PAN PAN PAN PAN PAN PAN, this is sailing yacht Albatross....
...We are taking on water, 14 crew on board... OVER
Wait for a minute we go again 3x over.

All crew at this stage are up. For a zero coded vessel you soon realise how inadequate the manual bilge pumps are and the two buckets with lanyards are not enough.

Every saucepan is out taking out the water. TEN crew have a chain going 4 trying to find the source.

In short an engine repair earlier in the day was the cause. We were pumping hot water into the bilge.

 

[BruceDanforth]

Once, when a relative novice on a Foxhound, the water was found to be above the sole boards but it was just the stuffing box needing 'a few turns' so it was OK.

Years ago a friend on the 3 peaks in a charter boat of some kind opened an inspection hatch and was horrified to find the compartment totally flooded. They pumped it out with the roving bilge pump and carried on but a bit later on someone tried to get a drink - they had pumped the freshwater tank out so the only thing to drink was beer.

 

[ianat182]

My novice partner and I were intending to do a daytime trip down to Poole,picking up the first of the ebb through the Solent.Unfortunately the fore cast of a F4 southerly became a SW F5-6, meaning a wind over tide situation.Tacking back and forth and so lumpy it was difficult to get in a reef the boat had lots of weather helm needing lots of muscle. My crew became very nervous and went below briefly - very briefly...seawater was covering the saloon floor. We only had a Whale pump which reduced some of the flooding and I started the engine hoping the Dynastasrt had not been flooded and turned tail for Warsash now against the ebb and crew pumping like mad!
We just managed to reach the scrubbing piles and run her aground.
The reason for the flooding was the lower rudder bearing plate bolts and non-locking nuts holding the rudder tube. We were able to just reach the 4 bolts and loose nuts in the aft locker and slackened these sufficiently to leave a gap to insert some polythene builders sealant and each bolt retightened,but with a locking nut,later replaced with proper nyloc ones.Just in case a further inspection or leak occurred I cut 6" dia hole in the cockpit floor and fitted a plastic access hatch. It was a very close run thing in all respects.

Ianat182

 

[BrianH]

The Kvarner Gulf separating Croatia's Istrian peninsular and the Dalmatian islands archipelago is notorious for disturbed seas with a north-eastern wind of any intensity even when not strong; their characteristic is of short frequency and a steep wave front. In 2008 I had departed the island of Ilovik at daybreak and was sailing single-handed on a north-westerly course there in my HR94 motor-sailor when such a condition arose and I found water below. At no time did it occur to me to transmit a Mayday - Croatia has nothing like the RNLI and is not known for its rescue services, although I understand there are some at the major ports, widely dispersed.

I quote from my narrative log written after the event. I apologise for its wordiness but some may gain instruction in parts.

By the time I had cleared the land and into the Kvarner Gulf the wind was up to 25 knots and the sea had become chaotic and violent, the ship was rolling badly and waves were breaking over onto the deck.

The crashing and banging below was tremendous, many glasses were broken within their closed cupboard and various objects had been thrown about the cabin and were rolling about on the sole. I had also heard a tremendous bang from the port cockpit locker and wondered if the batteries were adrift, but when I checked they were secure and it had been a heavy container that had shifted completely from its original position.

However, we were sailing fast in the right direction and we just had to keep sailing, which is what we did for the next hour, crashing on with every second wave breaking over the fore part of the boat and streaming back to the aft scuppers. This was the only way that water on deck could drain overboard with the high bulwarks that the boat has above deck level along the entire sheerline.

The doghouse was proving its worth, completely protecting me from the wind and spray, although salt was caking the windows and obscuring the view, until the next dash of water cleared it. Thinking that this scenario had to be photographed I engaged the autopilot (for once I was manually steering) and started below to dig the camera out from its secure stowage.

I stopped on the top step, frozen with shock - the cabin sole, steeply canted to port, was totally awash with water sloshing from side to side with the ship's motion.

My first thought was of the electric bilge pump installation that I had planned but postponed. My second was that the manual pump had its seacock closed and would have to be opened - it was situated in the engine compartment. Then I started to calculate the shortest distance to land - it was clearly back towards Unije; could I keep the ship afloat long enough to beach there or find refuge?

At the time, I had no idea where the leak was or how serious it was - I could only think I was sinking out in the middle of the Kvarner Gulf with no help around.

In a swift series of actions I started the engine; turned the ship off the wind and set a reciprocal course on the autopilot to get back under the lee of Unije; raised the cockpit floor to the engine compartment and dived down to turn the seacock for the pump; got the pump handle from the seat compartment and started to pump. And pump. And pump.

After about ten minutes I began to realise that in no way could anyone sustain this energy permanently to keep a ship afloat, if the water was pouring in then it was only delaying the inevitable. But I could see that the level was well down from when I was first confronted with it and in a matter of a few minutes the pump was sucking air, but I was completely exhausted.

I had been analyzing the situation while pumping and already believed that the water draining from the scuppers was getting below. This was partly confirmed by the fact that, with the wind and waves now abaft the beam, waves were no longer breaking on deck and the water below was not increasing even though I had stopped pumping.

I then made an extensive examination of all seacocks and of the bilges - trying to trace the entry point - it certainly was not any of the skin fittings and definitely not from the forward part of the ship. The deep bilge sump just forward of the engine was still filling with streams of water from both the cabin bilges and the aft engine and cockpit locker compartments but this was just the remnants of the flooding that was draining away.

I was now drawing level with Unije and already the motion was easier as the land shielded us from the worst of the waves. In fact, with the sun shining and the sea calming, the previous couple of hours all seemed like a bad dream. I made the decision that I would pass round the southern tip of Unije and round up to pass up the eastern side of the island to one of the indentations where I knew there were some secure anchorages.

After I had rounded the point I again met the NE wind but I was still in the lee of the island. It was 13:30 when I dropped anchor in Uvula Podkujni on the east coast of Unije.

Later I found that the heavy container that had been thrown about in the port cockpit locker had smashed an anchoring point for the drain tubes that led from the deck to the cockpit drain seacock, tearing the aft drain tube out of its T-junction with the forward drain tube. Being on the starboard tack that put the port side down, this junction was intermittently below sea level so water was entering from the seacock as well as all the waves that were breaking on deck and draining into the ship.​

 

[Sandgrounder]

Many years ago, I was aboard a 100 yr old, approx sailing trawler, moving South in Northerly gale in the North chanel and later the Irish Sea. At about midnight the Skipper found water above the sole boards and the electric bilge pump appeared to be out of action. I was handed a 5ft metal bar and invited to slot it into the pump head on deck and get working. I had the best cardiovascular workout I had had in years! Then they discovered the cause of the problem with the auto bilge pump - a waxed paper wrapper over the strum box and panic over.

Not serious more foolish but a lesson.

 

[alant]

PAN PAN PAN PAN PAN PAN, this is sailing yacht Albatross....
...We are taking on water, 14 crew on board... OVER
Wait for a minute we go again 3x over.

All crew at this stage are up. For a zero coded vessel you soon realise how inadequate the manual bilge pumps are and the two buckets with lanyards are not enough.

Every saucepan is out taking out the water. TEN crew have a chain going 4 trying to find the source.

In short an engine repair earlier in the day was the cause. We were pumping hot water into the bilge.

UKSA Boat sinking?

 

[capnsensible]

Thanks all, lots to be learnt there. Good to see how people get on with it under pressure.

My second one:

A few years ago I delivered a 40 foot yacht from Lanzarote to Antigua, owner on board, all went well.

Anyway, his family weren't keen on the Windies so got asked to bring it back. No problem.

So I arrived with 2 crew, prepped and got going. Fab 2 day reach out into a brisk Atlantic, hurrah gonna make good time.

Then the leak starts. Somewhere up forward, right at the base of the stem, cant get to it at all. Had to stuff loads of various packaging up into the small gap under the deckboards, slowed it down a lot. Only 2 days out of Antigua, so no brainer really, about turn. Very bumpy, hourly checks on leak, stuffing held ok though.

Back to Jolly Harbour and lifted strait away. Turns out that years before the boat had hit a rock and been repaired. Whilst in JH, the boat had spent a few months ashore and the cradles they use for moving boats around are tricycle, hence unknowingly, the forward support was right on the old repair. Well the trip across ttothe hardstanding and back probably weakened the repair and the Atlantic did the rest.

Got lucky there! Owner not to happy but did put us in the all inclusive Jolly Beach Resort for a few days, what a guy!!

Finally got going but well into late June. Weather was great though, fast sailing. Only other snags were when the spinnaker pole folded in half (telescopic not very good) and the engine exhaust elbow blowing. Not the first time Ive had to deal with wonky exhaust and seems a bit of a theme on here.

Happy days!

 

[fisherman]

Bro and wife had 19 hours pumping and bailing, 26ft carvel built, in a S gale 12 miles off L'Aberwrach. Flare fired over a fishing boat were not seen, para flares directly overhead I suppose. Ran up the slip and had her garboards caulked, but the next scuffly day she leaked again. The two frames in way of the mast partners were cracked both sides so the garboards opened up, more caulking merely shifted the leak further forward and aft, when the frames were repaired she was OK.