Two dead, four injured in Padstow speedboat crash.

l'escargot said:
Not when the boat is passing over you... Every propeller near a person in the water is a danger - whatever the boat.
Click to expand...

Hmmm, there is such a thing as risk assessment. To get caught by the propellor of a saildrive equipped, deep keeled yacht, the swimmer would have to be three or four feet under water and would already have been hit by the keel - if they were conscious, swimming and possibly wearing a life jacket, they would probably have been pushed along the side of the boat - if they end up going under the boat, the impact with the keel is probably going to be enough to do serious damage and likely drown them. The prop on an outboard is closer to the surface and there is nothing under a rib to stop you before it hits you.

If there were a viable propguard for my saildrive, I would have no problem with having one fitted - it would also reduce the risk of getting tangled with ropes.
 
Seajet said:
Maby,

I'm with you.

When I was 10 I saw a young girl being carried off a speedboat on Lake Windermere ( no speed limits then ) with blood pouring from deep gashes in her leg.

A couple of friends rescued a chap who was lying on a mudflat bleeding to death after a very similar accident to the Padstow one.

Legs float up if one is in the water; to argue about prop guards being ' bad for performance ' illustrates the sort of mentality of speedboat / high perfomance mobo drivers who don't care to look up the long list of past accidents, and learn.
Click to expand...

You sir annoy me.

Performance isn't just about top speed.

I must clearly be an idiot as I do 43 knots without a prop guard.
 
Seajet said:
The singer Kirsty McColl was killed by a speedboat after she pushed her daughter out of its' way.
Click to expand...
Actually it was her son, and quite different to the tragedy in Padstow, she was just surfacing from a dive in Mexico and was hit by a speedboat allegedly being driven by a Mexican multi millionaire.
 
Seajet said:
Maby,

I'm with you.

When I was 10 I saw a young girl being carried off a speedboat on Lake Windermere ( no speed limits then ) with blood pouring from deep gashes in her leg.

The singer Kirsty McColl was killed by a speedboat after she pushed her daughter out of its' way.

A couple of friends rescued a chap who was lying on a mudflat bleeding to death after a very similar accident to the Padstow one.

Legs float up if one is in the water; to argue about prop guards being ' bad for performance ' illustrates the sort of mentality of speedboat / high perfomance mobo drivers who don't care to look up the long list of past accidents, and learn.

Quite agree with the statements above; a 'prop guard' can make the difference, in an accident, between severe bruising and amputation (without anasthetic), which would you prefer, to yourself or someone else? :mad:
Click to expand...
 
I am not an expert on motorboats and I have not read the whole thread, but can a device be designed that doesn't need a kill cord or a frictionless throttle? Something that you need to hold. When i forgot my killcord I had to hold the little stop to keep the engine running. The throttle doesn't have to be frictionless but you would have to squeeze the lever or the engine goes into neutral and tick- over. Letting go to rescue a capsized dinghy in a club safety boat would immediately be safe. Auto-pilots would overide but I wouldn't imagine it is a good idea to leave on 300hp RIB on autopilot anyway? I agree that we are over regulated but where one person's action endanger children I usually take a different stance.
 
maby said:
Hmmm, there is such a thing as risk assessment. To get caught by the propellor of a saildrive equipped, deep keeled yacht, the swimmer would have to be three or four feet under water and would already have been hit by the keel - if they were conscious, swimming and possibly wearing a life jacket, they would probably have been pushed along the side of the boat - if they end up going under the boat, the impact with the keel is probably going to be enough to do serious damage and likely drown them. The prop on an outboard is closer to the surface and there is nothing under a rib to stop you before it hits you.

If there were a viable propguard for my saildrive, I would have no problem with having one fitted - it would also reduce the risk of getting tangled with ropes.
Click to expand...

The outcome of any sensible risk assessment must be to keep any propeller as far as possible away from a person in the water and to make sure it is not engaged - on every boat.

Not all sail boats are deep keeled, some even motor with their keels up. Have a look at the underwater profiles of some biggish motor boats, with shaft drive or legs, they don't draw much and the propellers are certainly within a legs length of the stern of a boat - and no keel to hit them first - as it is with a huge number of sailing boats.

I think your idea of the boat pushing someone to one side is very optimistic at anything but dead slow. Propellers - of any sort, guarded or not - and people in the water just don't mix and you need to keep as much distance between them as you can. To think otherwise is dangerous thinking.
 
Last edited:
Isn't a propeller guard just that, a structure to guard/protect the propeller from debris?

Being hit by a piece of metal travelling through the water at 30 knots is just as likely to maim and kill as a piece of metal at the same speed with a spinning action.
 
Seatrout said:
...Being hit by a piece of metal travelling through the water at 30 knots is just as likely to maim and kill as a piece of metal at the same speed with a spinning action.
Click to expand...

The outcome is likely to be the same at speed with or without the guard. A guard will only be effective at dead slow or stop, which is why they tend to be used on some rescue and dive boats, but it is far better to have the propeller not engaged and as far from a person in the water that you practically can - hands or feet can still go into most prop guards and one hitting you on the head from a bouncing boat can still do some damage.
 
maby said:
That's a bit simplistic, you know. The propellors on large yachts and mobos are usually sufficiently deep and inset from the waterline that contact with a swimmer is very unlikely. An outboard is a very different thing.
Click to expand...
Isnt the issue with a fast motorboat that without a motor cut off, it circles until it hits you? I am not sure how many fatalities there are from being hit by the props simply by falling out of the boat ( thought I think the Allum Bay incident might have been one such).
It should be reasonably obvious to anyone that props and people dont mix, and if you are in control of your boat, you can hopefully take efforts to avoid that. It is when you are no longer in control of the boat, the larger issue arises, I think- hence the killcord on boats where you are at a higher risk of losing control/falling overboard.
 
I've just read through the thread and there's a few points I'd like to make.

Firstly, the RYA power boat Level 2 teaches 'one hand steer, one hand throtle' at all times when underway, as well as wearing a the kill cord at all times. I don't think that there's a simpler solution to the problem of a helmsman going overboard or losing balance than the kill cord. It's simple, easy to test and has only one disadvantage: the helm has to put it on for it to work. Any other proposed solution will be costly to implement, probably still depend on the helm doing somehting (eg wear a distance activated tag) and be even more prone to failure than the kill cord.

The 'zero resistance throttle' idea is fine on a tiller throttle, where the return spring is strong enough to shut the throttle (must slack off the adjustment on the dinghy outboard) but is no use in a cable operated system, as the resistance of the cables and lever are, in most installations, too great for the spring to overcome.

Secondly, prop guards are a misunderstood. They are not designed to prevent injury to persons in the water, they're to minimise the chance of damage to the prop due to rope and debris in the water. which is why the MOB RIBs on merchant vessels are fitted with them. The damage to a person in the water is mainly caused by the hull and outboard skeg hitting them; the chopping action of the prop just adds to the damage.

Finally, I don't like the idea of regulation. Most of the EU has regulations in place which, in theory, should mean that incidents like this don't happen because everyone behind the wheel of a high powered RIB has ungone training so that they know all about the kill cord etc etc. I invite you to visit anchorages throughout southern Europe and see just how effective this legislation is.....

If any good is to come out of this tradgedy, then it is to once again raise the question of the correct use of the kill cord and perhaps penetrate the granite skulls of a few out there who still haven't quite understood why they should use one.
 
Last edited:
l'escargot said:
The outcome is likely to be the same at speed with or without the guard. A guard will only be effective at dead slow or stop, which is why they tend to be used on some rescue and dive boats, but it is far better to have the propeller not engaged and as far from a person in the water that you practically can - hands or feet can still go into most prop guards and one hitting you on the head from a bouncing boat can still do some damage.
Click to expand...
And that's part of why they are no longer recommended..... not only are they designed to protect the prop, not the person in the water, but also, they are potential entrapment locations.
 
ArthurJStoatfondler said:
I wonder if this was inexperience or familiarity breeding contempt? Sadly, both can be equally fatal.
Click to expand...

BBC News, mentioned it was a 'new' boat. No information about the purchaser or the driver's experience.
Whilst regulation/training has pros/cons, perhaps some basic driver training (similar to anyone getting a motorbike), should be mandatory for purchasers of powerful boats.
 
BelleSerene said:
...Yours sink in the bath do they?
Click to expand...
Yes they do, don't yours? Or they would if the bath was deep enough to immerse my whole body unsupported.

Muscle and bone, the main constituents of legs, have negative buoyancy. You need fat and air filled cavities to float. Legs sink in an immobile body, with or without a life jacket on, face down or face up. You need some sort of swimming action or other muscular action to bring the legs up.

Next time you have a leg of pork or lamb for Sunday lunch, chuck it in a bowl of water and let me know whether it sinks or floats.
 
l'escargot said:
The outcome of any sensible risk assessment must be to keep any propeller as far as possible away from a person in the water and to make sure it is not engaged - on every boat.

Not all sail boats are deep keeled, some even motor with their keels up. Have a look at the underwater profiles of some biggish motor boats, with shaft drive or legs, they don't draw much and the propellers are certainly within a legs length of the stern of a boat - and no keel to hit them first - as it is with a huge number of sailing boats.

I think your idea of the boat pushing someone to one side is very optimistic at anything but dead slow. Propellers - of any sort, guarded or not - and people in the water just don't mix and you need to keep as much distance between them as you can. To think otherwise is dangerous thinking.
Click to expand...

We seem to be talking rather at cross purposes here. I was responding to your post that seemed to oppose prop guards on large outboards on the grounds that it would be the start of a slippery slope towards prop guards on all boats by pointing out that there is a sliding risk scale and one does not necessarily lead to the other. My boat is 43 foot, deep keeled saildrive - flat out speed is perhaps 8 knots - the chances of my propellor damaging a surface swimmer are very small - the boat is also over 4m wide at the waterline - to hit the prop, someone would have to go right under the boat and miss the 2m deep keel. I would be happy to fit a prop guard if there were something suitable available - and will investigate next time it is hauled out - but I think its primary advantage would be to protect against ropes.

I'm certainly not suggesting mechanical solutions as an alternative to care and common sense. But if a prop guard can help to reduce the severity of injuries when common sense fails and the only argument against it is that it knocks a few knots off the top speed of some overpowered MOBO, then I would agree with Seajet that it is irresponsible to not have one fitted.
 
maby said:
...But if a prop guard can help to reduce the severity of injuries when common sense fails and the only argument against it is that it knocks a few knots off the top speed of some overpowered MOBO, then I would agree with Seajet that it is irresponsible to not have one fitted.
Click to expand...
And that is the nub of the discussion. A RIB hitting you at 30 knots is unlikely to cause you any less damage with a prop guard and the effect of a prop guard is more than knocking a bit off the top speed if you read the RYA advice. And what exactly is " an overpowered Mobo", one that can do 10 knots, 20 knots or more, or just one that can go faster than a sailing boat?

If you want to take the discussion a step further and apply it to slower boats with any form of propeller, your propeller out of control at 8 knots is as capable of inflicting equal damage to a swimmer in the water as that of a RIB at the same speed. It is probably just less likely to end up in that situation - in cases like this the prop strike is the secondary incident caused by the primary incident which was the helm being ejected from the boat and no mechanism for stopping the engine coming in to play for whatever reason.

If you wanted to look at picking up a swimmer or even a MOB I would perhaps suggest that your propeller would present more of a risk, especially if you have a boarding ladder or sugar scoop - it is much easier in a manoeuvrable RIB to recover someone away from the prop than it is in a large sailing boat.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top