SALVAGE CHALLENGE

saltwater_gypsy

saltwater_gypsy

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Now back in Scotland . Boat for sale
www.saltwatergypsy.com
The photo shows a nice Contest 30 stranded high and dry on the rocks. The yacht went on the rocks in heavy seas and was progressively lifted higher with surprisingly little damage. The tidal range is 0.3m repeat 0.3m so floating off on the next Springs is not an option. Salvage suggestions welcome
Location:40deg34'N,08deg18'E (NW Sardinia) PICTURE:
http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn14/hectou/wreck2.jpg
 
It really need a barge with heavy lift (10 tons should be oversafe).. probably worth it if you were there NAD the facilites are available.. probably around 10 k for the lift... yep, could be some potential profit...

Wanna sleeping partner lol ???
 
Take a load of greased scaffolding planks. Put them underneath to make a slide then push/pull hard.
 
you need to find a way to raise the boat high enough that you can place a patch (if there is a hole) and some sacrificial wood, whether there is a hole or not attached to the port side. You then need a craft that is capable of pulling her off the rocks the idea being that the sacrificial wood takes the brunt of the damage, some poor soul will need to be onboard as this happens so he / she can take immediate action once she is afloat. You are talking about a serious tug and people who really know what they are doing in practice the cost of the salvage outweighs the value of the boat. My sympathy to the owner
 
Nice one.. YOU read the Gypsy Moth scandal too /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

No way Hose.... it wont work.. GM was balanced.. this isnt... needs a straight lift.. cant see a way of getting a crane or JCB to the end of the lighthouse island ???.... soooooo.. striaght pick up.. sometimes not to exoensive as the tug may well, probably IS.. idle.. so barter.. a thirty grand yottt is a great pot at the end of the rainbow.. just decide (On common sense and local knowledge) if its possible, if it is.. treat it like a gambling proposition.. lol.. you weigh it up, apply YOUR risk factors and.... decide.. one way or the other..

Fun game /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif
 
I think the idea of a greased scaffold planks between boat and water at springs is good, then using line up the mast, pulling the boat over to seaward, and onto the planks, then slide it off into the water. Would be great fun but might not work. I wonder how much it costs to hire a tug?
 
What you want is obviously a chinook or equivalent.
Is it out of range from bribable dodgy air forces?

Other than that, maybe off with the rudder and keel, then greasy planks?
 
you wouldn't need a tug - that yacht would not be strong enough to take that sort of pull. Any working boat with a reasonable engine should be strong enough.

I know the method works, as I have used it myself (but from a sandy rather than rocky shore.
 
Another option could be heavy duty lifting bags? Place the bags fore and aft and blow up enough to lift off the rocks then pull the yacht down the bags into the water? Pumps can be run from the bit of land...
 
No chance whatsoever of turning over as she stands. Unless you want to hire a lifting barge the only way I can see is to take off the rig, unbolt the keel, empty/strip the boat of everything possible and get maybe fifteen strong men to lift the hull to the water (obviously after a quick patch job inside). With planks, jacks etc you might be able to do this with fewer men.

The keel you can drag with blocks/tackles/anchors/planks/levers till in shallow water, then attach something biggish to float it away.
 
Aircraft crash-rescue lifting airbags, if you can beg/borrow them from the NATO airbase in the south of Sardinia, or the local airport. Then you need a powered barge with a back-hoe digger chained on, some lifting strops, a compressor with hoses and appropriate couplings, and a team of young, fit, fearless blokes ( try NATO airbase again.... )

Oh, and Lloyd's Open Form!

/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
I remember seeing in a magazine (YM I think) a few years ago a photo of a Westerly Centaur being lifted off some rocks by a big helicopter. A Contest 30 is a bit heavier though.

A few years ago a 50' American yacht (deep long keel, heavy displacement) came ashore here one night when the wind went round to the NW - seems like their anchor cable had snagged on a coral head, and then the snatch loads caused something (a shackle perhaps) in the system to break.
They came in diagonally and were resting on soft sand in shallow water - but there was a rather wide coral reef immediately west of them.

Although there are quite a few biggish motor yachts here, none were inclined apparently to try and tow this yacht off - it got to the stage where the only tow available was from one of the harbour tugs, who agreed to do it for the fuel / labour cost only (I think it was still over GBP 1,000).

The tug has 15' draft, and could not get in close enough to pull the yacht out the way she came in (ie from the NW) - hence it was decided that the only way they could get her off was to pull her out due west, ie straight over the reef.
I helped to rig up a harness around the hull, using pretty much all the rope on board, as none of the deck fittings were strong enough to cope with these sort of loads. And I stayed on board when the tug took up tension on the tow rope and then put one engine in slow ahead...... and we took off at 5 knots........ apparently it was the slowest speed that the tug could go at.
Rather scary - it sounded like the hull in way of the turn of the bilge was disintegrating fast (re the graunching noises) as we were dragged over the reef - I was expecting her to sink as soon as we got in to deeper water.

But no, she floated, and I went over the side with a mask to have a look - the hull was balsa cored fibreglass with a fairly thick outer GRP skin, and this outer layer had been taken off in way of where it had been in contact with the reef, with a fair amount of balsa removed, but the inner layer was still intact!

She was towed out stern first, and the rudder was torn off in the process. There were a few leaks, which the bilge pump coped with OK while being towed by the tug 10 miles down the coast to the haul out yard.
The hull was repaired, and a new temporary rudder was fabricated, to allow the yacht to get to Trinidad where a full restoration was carried out.

I would not recommend that they try the same with the yacht in the above mentioned photo, especially as coral is probably a lot softer than the granite (or similar?) rocks that the Contest appears to have gone ashore on.
But it might perhaps be the only solution if all other methods fail.
 
I think this is the best option suggested so far. You could buy the airbags that are for lifting cars ( Drapers sell them). They are rated at about 2 tonnes each. Using say 4 of these bags you could raise the boat to the vertical by lifting a foot or so then blocking then adjusting the lift bags and keep repeating the process till she is vertical again.
I would then errect a steel cage around the righted yacht with the yachts keel resting on the bottom of the cage. On the outside of the cage parallel to the keel have 2 runners that would take the weight of the whole structure and boat as the whole thing was dragged accross the rocks into deep water. Once in deeper water the yacht can float out of the steel cage and be removed on its own.
You could do it all with scaffold tubes and fittings so no expensive kit needed. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
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