Should vessels that are abandoned mid-voyage be scuttled?

[Daydream believer]

...unless it's a bucket of fresh water being put into the ocean

gotcha!

anyway - the chance of anyone running into an abandoned sailboat is vanishingly small. I wouldn't be too concerned with scuttling it.

I qualified this in #25
Try & keep up
As for yachts hitting things- well there have not- in the grand scheme of things - been that many Vendee globe boats. But some still manage to belt something. Hugo Boss as an example. Alex managed to hit a fishing boat early on at the start of a race one year & that was not even sinking.
Shall we mention his broken foil?

 

[nestawayboats]

anyway - the chance of anyone running into an abandoned sailboat is vanishingly small. I wouldn't be too concerned with scuttling it.

Small but maybe not vanishingly small.

Let's say for convenience the abandoned boat and it's field of attached entangling debris is 18.5m wide, i.e. 1% of a nautical mile. 1 in a 100. How likely is it that two boats sailing across a large ocean will sail through the same 1 mile corridor? Maybe not that likely.

But let's say conditions are optimal so many sailing between the same two points (the ARC for example) are going to choose pretty much the same route. Or their plotter/software will have chosen it. Now let's say their plotter-linked autopilots keeps the boats within 5 miles either side of that optimal route (fairly easy to achieve on an off-wind route)... we could reasonably say several boats are quite likely to sail through the same 10 mile wide corridor.

And the risk of hitting that abandoned boat that's in that 10nm "corridor" is... 18.5 in 18,500, or... 1 in 1000.

Some people/medical organisations/governments definitely worry/act/spend money based on less risky risks.

 

[lustyd]

Hugo Boss as an example. Alex managed to hit a fishing boat

His career was all about spectacularly unfinished races though to be fair so if anyone was going to hit something mid-ocean it’d be him

 

[Buck Turgidson]

His career was all about spectacularly unfinished races though to be fair so if anyone was going to hit something mid-ocean it’d be him

He hit an Island when leading one of the Transat races too! I do miss that crazy guy!

 

[ridgy]

I'm surprised that rudder shafts on an ocean going catamaran are not in a water tight compartment, which is much easier to achieve on a cat than a mono. You don't even need a full bulkhead in front of it.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

I'm surprised that rudder shafts on an ocean going catamaran are not in a water tight compartment, which is much easier to achieve on a cat than a mono. You don't even need a full bulkhead in front of it.

Leopard, along with Lagoon, have a certain rep in multihull circles.

 

[capnsensible]

I'm surprised that rudder shafts on an ocean going catamaran are not in a water tight compartment, which is much easier to achieve on a cat than a mono. You don't even need a full bulkhead in front of it.

3 cats that I've delivered long distance had outdrive legs and rudders not in separate watertight compartments. The steering system makes that very difficult with the long bar joining the two rudders.

But there again, they are not building a warship. Most systems are very basic.

 

[lustyd]

But there again, they are not building a warship

That’s part of the problem, most folk don’t know when good enough is good enough.

Useful to chat about what needs mitigating in case of problems to be prepared but there comes a time when you just need to untie the lines and accept that the boat will be fine. Even warships sink occasionally, I can’t imagine the navy spend much time worrying

 

[Neeves]

I'm under the impression that balsa or foam core catamarans are unsinkable.

I was told by the builders of our catamaran, Lightwave, that it was in fact unsinkable. There was enough buoyancy in the foam, no balsa used, to support the metal work, engine and mast. In a case of 'filling with water' the vessels would float stern down, engines, but the yachts would float. I cannot verify that this is correct.

However

On the understanding that our cat was unsinkable I did install 'U' bolts that could be used in the event of an inversion such that the, inflated, life raft could be secured o the inverted bridge deck and I installed jackstays, between the 'U' bolts for the same inversion event. We also used red anti foal as being more visible from a helicopter.

Some cats have a 'V' painted on the underside of the bridge deck. This is only useful if the vessel is unsinkable. Having a life raft secured on a multihull deck seems perverse, they really need to be on the transom - accessible right way up or inverted.

I recall that a Prout catamaran was abandoned on a China Sea Race, HK to the Phillipines, 30/40 years ago, and the vessel was next found/seen being used as a Committee boat by a Vietnamese yacht club. I also recall the loss, disappearance of a Leopard cat on delivery from South Africa to Thailand (?), I think 3 on board - and it was found floating up side down some months later. Similarly yachts that lose their keels 'mid ocean' do seem to be found, again months later, inverted.

I hear of more containers being lost than yachts being abandoned. I don't hear of these lost containers nor the abandoned yachts (mono or multi) ever being the cause of an accident. In the grand scheme of 'things' the numbers are negligible (how many yachts are abandoned mid ocean) and the oceans do tend to be vast.

Its a bit like space junk - are the chances of a collision likely.....?

Inverted, floating fibre glass vessels are, surely, best left in one piece. If they eventually are found ashore, or found at all, they will be more easily 'managed' as one piece than as a myriad of pieces. Containers are a different story.

Jonathan

 

[Bouba]

I was told by the builders of our catamaran, Lightwave, that it was in fact unsinkable. There was enough buoyancy in the foam, no balsa used, to support the metal work, engine and mast. In a case of 'filling with water' the vessels would float stern down, engines, but the yachts would float. I cannot verify that this is correct.

However

On the understanding that our cat was unsinkable I did install 'U' bolts that could be used in the event of an inversion such that the, inflated, life raft could be secured o the inverted bridge deck and I installed jackstays, between the 'U' bolts for the same inversion event. We also used red anti foal as being more visible from a helicopter.

Some cats have a 'V' painted on the underside of the bridge deck. This is only useful if the vessel is unsinkable. Having a life raft secured on a multihull deck seems perverse, they really need to be on the transom - accessible right way up or inverted.

I recall that a Prout catamaran was abandoned on a China Sea Race, HK to the Phillipines, 30/40 years ago, and the vessel was next found/seen being used as a Committee boat by a Vietnamese yacht club. I also recall the loss, disappearance of a Leopard cat on delivery from South Africa to Thailand (?), I think 3 on board - and it was found floating up side down some months later. Similarly yachts that lose their keels 'mid ocean' do seem to be found, again months later, inverted.

I hear of more containers being lost than yachts being abandoned. I don't hear of these lost containers nor the abandoned yachts (mono or multi) ever being the cause of an accident. In the grand scheme of 'things' the numbers are negligible (how many yachts are abandoned mid ocean) and the oceans do tend to be vast.

Its a bit like space junk - are the chances of a collision likely.....?

Inverted, floating fibre glass vessels are, surely, best left in one piece. If they eventually are found ashore, or found at all, they will be more easily 'managed' as one piece than as a myriad of pieces. Containers are a different story.

Jonathan

I recall that someone once invented a self sinking container....did they not take off ?

 

[lustyd]

There’s an unsinkable superyacht at the bottom of the Med. Don’t trust the builders on this point, they’re usually either wrong or lying.

 

[Stemar]

I recall that someone once invented a self sinking container....did they not take off ?

The trouble is, if they're loaded with fridges, even if they do fill with water, they'll still float.

 

[Neeves]

I recall that someone once invented a self sinking container....did they not take off ?

The contents of the container might resist sinking.

Jonathan

Stemar beat me to it.

 

[Poignard]

There’s an unsinkable superyacht at the bottom of the Med. Don’t trust the builders on this point, they’re usually either wrong or lying.

And an unsinkable ocean liner at the bottom of the Atlantic.

 

[Irish Rover]

The wooden hulled Irish sail training ship Asgard 11 sank in the Bay of Biscay around 15 years ago, and although there was no definitive proof, it was generally surmised she struck a semi-submerged shipping container.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

And an unsinkable ocean liner at the bottom of the Atlantic.

A lot of these unsinkable boats are made of steel. So each piece will sink. Unlike modern yachts, mostly foam sandwich GRP. Each individual piece floats. The only thing that drags monos down is the keel.

 

[Wandering Star]

A lot of these unsinkable boats are made of steel. So each piece will sink. Unlike modern yachts, mostly foam sandwich GRP. Each individual piece floats. The only thing that drags monos down is the keel.

So Bavaria yachts could market themselves as unsinkable then?

 

[WF36]

So Bavaria yachts could market themselves as unsinkable then?

& Oyster.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

So Bavaria yachts could market themselves as unsinkable then?

It’s a thought. If you lost the rig, you could dump the keel and be unsinkable. Explosive bolts perhaps

 

[bergie]

An abandoned, semi-submerged catamaran that’s now a 45x24ft hazard, or a bit over three times the “target size” of a shipping container for example. And, my point, it’s a target that could have been removed…

In this particular case, World Cruising writes: Karolina Viking is being salvaged and will be towed by a tug to Cape Verde.