Two people drown

[michael_99]

News today. Two people drowned when a "wind bullet" hit a 22 ft trailer sailer in nth Queensland. The weather was perfect for sailing. 7 people where onboard. The skipper,45 and a guest drowned.The boat capsized, and sank in only 3 mtrs of water. 7 people on a 22 ft trailer sailer. Waiting for more details.

 

[Lakesailor]

So long as they all had lifejackets I would have thought 7 was OK for day-sailing. Most boats 18 ft up have 4 berths.

 

[Talbot]

4 people on a 22' boat will make quite a differerence to the AVS. 7 people would make an enormous difference. IMHO this was dangerously overloaded.

 

[Lakesailor]

But you don't know how many were adults and how many children.
In fact 7 adults could weigh anything between 350Kg and 800Kg.

Not enough facts.

 

[Talbot]

Even if it was 2 adults and 5 children it would be too many, and in that case the 5 kids should all have been wearing lifejackets because they would not have been in the cockpit.

 

[Evadne]

Newspaper reports

FWIW they were all adults, and it was a calm day. Sounds like a katabatic phenomenum. Report 1 and report 2.
Also says it was an aluminium boat, a local design?

 

[graham]

Re: Newspaper reports

Hard to comment on the information available.Army Assault boats are only about 18 feet and carry 12 heavilly loaded chaps at speed.Also aluminium.

on the other hand I would not leave the pontoon with 7 adults aboard my 22 foot yacht.

 

[michael_99]

Re: Newspaper reports

The design of the boat was along the lines of a Hartley plywood boat.