What Now Skip? WNS January

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timbartlett

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Happy New Year!
Yep, you've missed Christmas and Hogmanay, and on planet MBY it's already January. So stamp the snow off your boots, pull your chair closer to the fire, and settle down with the last of the port before wrapping your head round the January What Now Skip -- set at round about mid-day on a warm, sunny, day in early autumn.

Please remember:

* The idea is to offer a nautical puzzle, which experienced skippers will (hopefully) find interesting or entertaining, from which the less experienced may be able to learn something, and from which we can all pick up ideas.
* The WNS skipper is a fictional character. Any resemblance to a real individual is purely accidental, except that he occasionally makes mistakes, and he is not able to make time run backwards. So having got into a situation, he can't get out of it by wishing that he had done something different.
* WNS is not a competition to see who can match some hidden but predetermined solution. Of course I have an answer in mind (you wouldn't like it if I gave you an impossible situation, would you?) But mine may not be the best or only answer.
* If you think I've missed something or given confusing information please ask for clarification.
* Attributed extracts from selected posts will appear in the next issue of MBY.
Our hero, on a 38 foot sports cruiser with his wife, his 22 year old daughter and daughter's boyfriend, has just entered a river estuary, with the idea of anchoring for lunch.

There's no speed limit at this point, but he has slowed down to avoid a sailing dinghy when he is overtaken by two young lads in some sort of rubber boat. He can't tell whether it's a small RIB or an inflatable, but it's about three metres long, powered by a tiller-steered outboard, and doing about fifteen knots.

To his horror, he sees the rubber boat hit the stern of the dinghy, throwing the occupants of both boats into the water.

The sailing dinghy carries on for a few yards by itself, before capsizing, leaving the rubber boat circling the three swimmers -- of whom the only one wearing a buoyancy aid is the helmsman of the dinghy.

What now, skip?
Click to expand...
 
1) Get the shotgun out and sink the inflatable or take out the outboard with a well aimed blast.

2) Get daughter making hot soup

3) Chuck boyfriend over to rescue swimmers

4) Sit back with a warm glow of a job well done.
 
Action will surely depend on the tightness of the circle the rubber boat is doing and how quickly it is going.

Options are fairly limited .... but basically you need to get the bodies out of the water ASAP as in Jan the water is flippin cold!!

Stage 1 - Mayday (relay?) as chances are you will need medical assistance.
Stage 2 - Can you get close enough to throw a life ring (or 2) in the middle?
Stage 3 - can you stop the rubber boat - have you got a floating line to throw in front of the boat to catch on the prop? Or is it's path wide enough that you can block it with your boat? If you've got a tender ready to launch I'd get it in the water (assuming a crew member with sufficient nouse!)
 
We haven't been told how fast the inflatable is going or how close to the kids it's coming, but as a general rule only try to intercept the rubber boat as a last resort, as you are likely to just alter it's course so that it may run over the kids instead of circling them. Better to throw a floating line in the water to try and foul the prop. If it's circling wide enough, you should be able to reach the kids and position your boat on whichever side of them protects them from the circling inflatable, and get them out of the water.
 
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Just to clarify:
The incident is set in late autumn (i.e. when the water is at its warmest)
It will appear in the January 2010 issue of Motor Boat and Yachting
Sorry for any confusion.

You have only normal boating equipment -- which for most of us does not include RPG's, machine guns, rifles, pistols, or shotguns.

Judging by videos of similar incidents, the turning circle of unmanned outboard-powered boats seems to vary quite a lot -- and changes depending on wind and waves. All I think we can sensibly say is that this one is erratic, but generally has a diameter of between 20 and 50 feet, and the boat is taking between 5 and 10 seconds to complete each circle.
Tim
 
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If I can't use my shotgun I'm not playing :mad:

Unless.......

What about my speargun. :rolleyes:

or

Chase the inflatable, put the bow over it and dump the anchor into it. :cool:

or

Apply throttle to just under planing speed to use the wake to shove thew inflatable up onto the bank. After all that's what mobos do to raggies alll the time :eek::D

Then

Procede as before.

Just before anyone has a go at me, this is all tongue in cheek.
 
Sorry - I thought it was January conditions ... ok - not such a rush to get the bodies out of the water - although it is still pretty cold and as they won't have been expecting a dip it would be fair to say they could be in shock - so still want to act quickly.

With the 5-10 second turning circle and such an eratic diameter it will be vital to act quickly to stop the boat. So - back to floating line.

If the boat does a longer loop then I might be temted to ram it and direct away from swimmers.
 
timbartlett said:
Just to clarify:
All I think we can sensibly say is that this one is erratic, but generally has a diameter of between 20 and 50 feet, and the boat is taking between 5 and 10 seconds to complete each circle.
Tim
Click to expand...

Did you think about this, Tim? That means a speed of 8.6 to 10.7mph. We're not used to WNS scenarios being feasible like that. In the good old days figures plucked from the air like that would have yielded speeds of either 4" per week or Mach 9.2

Hopefully, normal service will be resumed shortly. Harumph.
 
fireball said:
Action will surely depend on the tightness of the circle the rubber boat is doing and how quickly it is going.

Options are fairly limited .... but basically you need to get the bodies out of the water ASAP as in Jan the water is flippin cold!!

Stage 1 - Mayday (relay?) as chances are you will need medical assistance.
Stage 2 - Can you get close enough to throw a life ring (or 2) in the middle?
Stage 3 - can you stop the rubber boat - have you got a floating line to throw in front of the boat to catch on the prop? Or is it's path wide enough that you can block it with your boat? If you've got a tender ready to launch I'd get it in the water (assuming a crew member with sufficient nouse!)
Click to expand...
I'd go with that too. Mayday, use own boat to block the runaway dingy and get the three out of the water fast chucking life rings at the non swimmers. Perhaps suggest the non swimmers hang on to the upturned dingy to give your crew time to recover them onto your vessel. Then give the two yobs a good kick up the ass while waiting for the police to arrest them. ;) Kidd'n - well in jest but just a little.
 
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Had it actually happen earlier this year. As it was, the two in the dinghy were rescued by a much smaller boat than ours, whilst we stood by. The loose dinghy was tearing round in a very small circle having hooked a buoy and was stopped by another small boat.

With more crew we might have been able to do more but with the six knot current, just dodging the moored boats and keeping abreast in case we were needed, was as much as could be done.

Could have anchored, then got the dinghy down, but by that time, they'd have been miles away. Our free board, being far higher than the little boats also made us more usuitable for the job. In any case, they got there a couple of seconds before us.
 
I thought this had been done before?

Anyway this is very hard becuase it depends on the behaviour of the dinghy and each of us has a different mental picture of that. My mental picture says it's a 3m with a 10hp on the back etc. My first action would be to prevent them being run over, not worry about hypothermia. I would get close and shout at them (loudhailer maybe) to huddle close to capsized dingy, near the transom, to give em protection (they could go either deck side or keelside, depending on the inflatable's approach) in case inflatable comes at them. Next, it might well be feasible to intercept and catch the inflatable and if it were I'd do that, then rescue them. Otherwise I'd get my bathing platform right up to the kids and drag em on board, yell at them to climb aboard, and have the whole crew ready to deflect the inflatable or just move out of the way if it came at them/us whilst hauling the casualties on board. I wouldn't be concerned about stnading on bathing platform with a 3m RIB and 10hp coming at me, in these circumstnaces

I wouldn't mayday as it wastes time. If other crew persons can summon help then I'd get them to do it
 
Not this forum

"Then give the two yobs a good kick up the ass while waiting for the police to arrest them"

No chance........not on here

Expect 25 outraged posts defending the yobbos right to speed,especially through any handy nearbye moorings and then promptly blame the raggies for everthing that happened including the fact that your pension has vanished.
 
oldgit said:
"Then give the two yobs a good kick up the ass while waiting for the police to arrest them"

No chance........not on here

Expect 25 outraged posts defending the yobbos right to speed,especially through any handy nearbye moorings and then promptly blame the raggies for everthing that happened including the fact that your pension has vanished.
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laugh.gif


Good one!
 
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