There but for the grace of God go any of us!

What a story , boats can be replace but a life can't , we both so glade you he is safe .
we do a great deal of night sailing and we both enjoy a night sail but our biggest fear is hitting some thing in the dark , over the year we come to the conclusion keeping a good look out is a must but the reality is , if the radar don't pick it up the likely hood you not going to see it , in the end of the day we are all in the hands of the seas god s

We wish you well and a quick recover ..

www.bluewatersailor5.webs.com
 
A sobering story! A ship mooring buoy apparently, presumably adrift.
Dale certainly kept a cool head despite a painful injury.
A 50ft yacht sinking in 30mins does make you wonder whether watertight compartments should be mandatory.
(Just been watching Skip Novak's tour of his boats in Ushaia).
 
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tri39 said:
A 50ft yacht sinking in 30mins does make you wonder whether watertight compartments should be mandatory.
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To be honest, 30 minutes sounds like a good long time to me, after such an impact. We have visions of hitting something and going down within seconds! He had time to launch liferaft and dinghy, collect a radio and some personal items, and make an orderly departure complete with distress call.

I support the right of consenting adults to endanger themselves however they see fit, so I wouldn't want to see anything made mandatory - but I definitely think watertight bulkheads are a good idea!

It does sound like this boat had an almost-watertight bulkhead - if I'm reading his slightly garbled report right, the actual hole was in a forepeak crew cabin with no door to the rest of the boat. He had to go on deck and throw the dinghy clear of the access hatch in order to get into it. It sounds like the water into the main cabin was coming through hollow stringers that passed through the bulkhead - what a pity these weren't sealed internally in line with the bulkhead to make it truly waterproof. Not uncommon, I believe, for "watertight" bulkheads to actually have these kind of non-obvious penetrations.

Pete
 
Not trying to drift the thread, but what's the current score on forward-facing underwater sounding equipment, as a means of identifying solid objects in time to avoid them?

I think I suggested on the forum a year or two ago, that ocean-crossers might keep very large rubber buoyancy tanks in the corners of their saloons, deflated and compact until the moment when the boat seems doomed...then the skipper opens the cylinder, and the raft fills with 100,000N of buoyancy to prevent her sinking...the idea wasn't a success. :rolleyes:

I wonder how detailed and location-specific the rescuer's tales of a ship's drifting mooring buoy were. If the area is much-frequented and the winds are as light as I often hear the eastern Med can be, isn't it surprising the damned ironmongery hasn't been spotted in daylight? I s'pose it might be very low in the water.
 
dancrane said:
Not trying to drift the thread, but what's the current score on forward-facing underwater sounding equipment, as a means of identifying solid objects in time to avoid them?

I think I suggested on the forum a year or two ago, that ocean-crossers might keep very large rubber buoyancy tanks in the corners of their saloons, deflated and compact until the moment when the boat seems doomed...then the skipper opens the cylinder, and the raft fills with 100,000N of buoyancy to prevent her sinking...the idea wasn't a success. :rolleyes:

I wonder how detailed and location-specific the rescuer's tales of a ship's drifting mooring buoy were. If the area is much-frequented and the winds are as light as I often hear the eastern Med can be, isn't it surprising the damned ironmongery hasn't been spotted in daylight? I s'pose it might be very low in the water.
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Interesting point re the tanks ready for inflating-sounds like a reasonably good idea.

With regard to seeing a floating buoy submerged? well not realy possible. We many years ago struck a submerged container, in broad daylight. It was not visible at all laying approx 3 foot below the surface.

Peter
 
rivonia said:
We many years ago struck a submerged container, in broad daylight. It was not visible at all laying approx 3 foot below the surface.
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Very alarming. Enough to haunt potential ocean-crossers and come between them and their sleep...or come between them and their dreams.

Hence I wondered about the forward-looking sonar idea. Or am I in James Bond mode? I thought it sounded reasonable. Assuming the sounder would only raise the alarm if it received an echo that is repeated consistently over several seconds. Even if it's a ruddy great whale, it would be worth not barging into him.
 
I suppose it's a question of how far forward looking? And how much warning it would give esp if boat scooting along.
Lightning reflexes would be required from crew to stop boat in time, altho even killing the speed by releasing sheets would help.
Most impacts with a stationary object would occur in say forward third of boat below water line.
My boat has a crash bulkhead about ten feet from bow and there's another sealed compartment below the focsle floor.
But I do have to go on deck to access focsle. However a crawl thro watertight hatch is poss.
It always surprises me how open inside so many yachts are, with no watertight partition around the engine for example.
It only takes a dislodged hose!!
 
rivonia said:
Interesting point re the tanks ready for inflating-sounds like a reasonably good idea.
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It was marketed by a couple of companies, several decades ago; one of the Pardey books had a whole chapter on the subject. Never really took off, as the bags were inconvenient even when stowed, and had to be custom-made for each boat. For a lot less money, people could just get a standard liferaft off the shelf - which might not be quite as good in the event, but people generally assume it won't actually happen to them anyway.

It would have been more feasible to design in the bags when the boat was built - but if builders wanted unsinkable boats they generally went the Sadler or Etap foam-fill route instead.

Pete
 
dancrane said:
Not trying to drift the thread, but what's the current score on forward-facing underwater sounding equipment, as a means of identifying solid objects in time to avoid them?
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Forward looking echo sounders certainly exist (e.g. http://www.echopilot.com/), though whether they work on objects close to sea-level isn't clear. They're designed to see if you're running into shoal water or isolated rocks, so I guess the assumption is that obstacles are coming up from the bottom, not down from the sea surface.

I can see a technical problem in that waves would provide a lot of false positives for a near surface object, like the sea-clutter on a radar. So, while it might detect containers, it wouldn't detect something like a floating log - and I've heard of people being sunk by them. I suspect that a mooring buoy might also be difficult to detect.

Later Note: I checked the spec of the Echopilot, and the forward range is only 200m, which I suppose I should have realized - few echo sounders on yachts will go deeper than that. I suppose 200m might be enough warning - it would take a yacht travelling at 7 knots (say, 4 m/sec) about 50 seconds to travel that far. But is a minute's warning (or less if you're going faster) enough if you're in passage mode with autopilot on and a generally more relaxed attitude to things? You'd have to react to the warning, assess the danger and get into manual steering before you could do anything.

The Echopilot web-site isn't exactly confidence building either, as it show impossible displays of topography that would be masked by nearer elevations.
 
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Thanks for that, A.P. I agree it doesn't inspire great confidence yet, although with refinement I reckon it could.

As to the value of 50 seconds' warning, I'd think that would be a very great advance - even if the autopilot is achingly slow to respond in urgent situations, one or more sheets could be eased off, slackening her pace - anything that upsets the vessel's steering balance or reduces the impact speed must improve the chances in the event of a collision or a close-call.

I reckon for the singlehander who must sleep mid-ocean, equipping a boat with sub-aqua eyes giving any advance warning would improve the odds of averting catastrophe.

I'm sure there are too few bits of dangerous flotsam in the sea to spend long worrying about (though the number of lost containers, possibly floating and totally unaccounted for, is horrifying) but instances like this one are sobering and frightening...so if high-tech offers any solution, which owner of a £500K yacht wouldn't consider such a thing for basic safety?

What do Loch Ness Monster-hunters use for their researches? :rolleyes:
 
AntarcticPilot said:
The Echopilot web-site isn't exactly confidence building either, as it show impossible displays of topography that would be masked by nearer elevations.
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You are right, I have one. It's great at very low speed. It does show obstructions ahead, but the actual alarm time is too short unless you are expecting it and are prepared to go hard astern or turn. It gives false alarms too, particularly when crossing a mobo wake or in rough weather - when the undersides of waves give responses. It would not help avoiding a submerged container when under sail with speed.
 
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