boat just fell over

[kloudie1]

Ouch!.. several years back, my brother in Mobile, Alabama, had his Pearson 303 pushed over by a bodacious thunderstorm while up for a bottom job.. His insurance covered it all .. but he had checked the correct box when purchasing his insurance.. The two biggest things were, the side was cracked in a big oval where it hit the ground (think boiled egg dropped on a countertop from about a foot) and the batteries popped loose. The acid got on a lot of the interior, especially the cushions.. Good fiberglass folks there, so after the repair, and a lot of interior work, the boat looked better than it did prior to the damage.. Engine and bed were fine but the bump had shifted the alignment pretty bad.

 

[JollyRogers]

I've just received a call from my marina. Our boat has been blown over, it was on it's stand. Must have been a hell of a wind!! This is a longweek end up here and nobody in the insuranace office. Not sure if it's covered? Is this an act of God? It's about an 1.5 hr drive down to the marina so I will be going down tomorrow to check for damage. Sounds like it's on it's port side. Any guesses what I should document for the insurance company?
Thanks

Photogragh boat from all angles before and after salvage, The boat will have to be lifted very carefully. Your best bet would be to call a vehicle towing service. They may be able to lift it with air bags. If this doesn't work you will have to use the marina gantry crane. Use extreme caution when placing the slings. I would discuss lifting the rack and boat together. Hopefully the boat will come up squarely on the rack. Let me know how it goes. ~ JollyRogers~

 

[rpell1@msn.com]

Our un-named Hurricane....

This past March, the NY area was hit with a storm that boasted sustained winds of 65 mph with up to 80 mph gusts!! We have seen nothing like this in over 40 years. In Sheepshead Bay, boats pulled their moorings, broke mooring chains and we lost 8 boats. The Gateway Marina inside Jamaica Bay, lost 7 boats off their stands. We recently heard, (second hand), that West Marine Insurance was contending that they might not cover the loss, because the masts on these boats were not un-stepped, causing them to be more suseptable to toppling. At our Club, all of the boats on the hard, have their stands chained underneath the boats. This prevents them from sliding out and away from the boats. We all unstep our masts, not because we necessarily want to, but because we use a forklift with a twin strap rig to lift the boats and cannot lift with a stepped mast. On the hard, we had NO casualties at all. My 30' Catalina was in a slip and sustained a twisted and broken out stern cleat, along with a mangled swim ladder. Our little "protected" bay looked more like Victory at Sea, and our slip fingers were destroyed. The one thing we all learned from this experience is that you can take all the precautions you want, necessary or not. But, if Mother Nature decides you're it.....Just hang on and hope for the best. Boats can be repaired or even replaced. Good luck. =kloudie1;718789]Ouch!.. several years back, my brother in Mobile, Alabama, had his Pearson 303 pushed over by a bodacious thunderstorm while up for a bottom job.. His insurance covered it all .. but he had checked the correct box when purchasing his insurance.. The two biggest things were, the side was cracked in a big oval where it hit the ground (think boiled egg dropped on a countertop from about a foot) and the batteries popped loose. The acid got on a lot of the interior, especially the cushions.. Good fiberglass folks there, so after the repair, and a lot of interior work, the boat looked better than it did prior to the damage.. Engine and bed were fine but the bump had shifted the alignment pretty bad. [/quote]

 

[James DAddio]

I've just received a call from my marina. Our boat has been blown over, it was on it's stand. Must have been a hell of a wind!! This is a longweek end up here and nobody in the insuranace office. Not sure if it's covered? Is this an act of God? It's about an 1.5 hr drive down to the marina so I will be going down tomorrow to check for damage. Sounds like it's on it's port side. Any guesses what I should document for the insurance company?
Thanks

Wow Don sorry about that I always wondered if that could happen..I would think there was a problem with the stands or the way it was stored..marina issue but could be completely wrong we have sustained crazy storms in Maine.

 

[Capn Bill]

We had a 50 + knot wind-storm here on May 7th. In the past - we have had two wind-storms that toppled boats. I commissioned a much stronger metal cradle for my O'day 30 that I'm confident in. Cost me $3,000 - but the peace-of-mind is worth it! Bill on STARGAZER

 

[zeehag]

make sure the hull isnt eggshelled--if it is is total write off..goood luck--get a goood surveyor in on this....

 

[Roger Long]

What do you think?

This is one of the several reasons why my mast comes down every year and gets stored separately. The more experience marinas in this part of the world will not store boats of this size with the mast up.

 

[themadscientist]

This is terrible, those pictures make me sick.
Where I am, we get a lot of typhoons and I worried about this sort of thing if I got a boat big enough to need a haul out. Seeing a tip over like this just confirms what a terrible tragedy it is.
I hope there is no damage to your boat; keep us posted.

 

[Don Crowther]

Well here's a couple of pictures. We got down to the boat about noon and had a crane truck meet us there. Before we started the lift we got a few more pictures. I'm not sure if it will show up. It seems like to me there is quite a bit of damage. There are at least 2 ribs involved, the nav station on the inside has been pushed away from the wall. The fiberglass is cracked/broken almost from the keel to the rubrail. Will be calling the insurance co. in the morning.
Not sure what else I can tell you at the moment. It was just bad luck that I had moved the boat last week to step the mast and we had sooo much rain and wind. It would appear that the one corner of the cradle was in a softer area of the lot and the wind pushing from the other side didn't help.:cry:

Don

 

[Steve Dion]

Don:

This is sure a lot more damage that I would have imagined. I would not be too suprised if they just total the boat. These boats are worth about $20-25k here in the states.

Hopefully the insurance company will treat you well. Do you have any feelings about how you would like them to determine?

 

[Ross]

That does not look like good news. You have about 15 square feet of broken fiberglass in that dent. Repairing it will involve stripping the interior out to a bare hull on the port side. If you had no insurance and good skills you could repair it for less than 3 thousand dollars plus an awful lot of your labor. But on a 25 year old boat I don't expect the insurance company to repair it.

 

[txtowman]

No offense intended, but that cradle is too skinny for a boat that wide. It is just my opinion but I think the cradle should be wide enough that the whole thing would slide before it was turned over by wind. That said. You may have experienced a wind sheer or similar disturbance. May affect how you are paid for the damage. Hoping you have replacement value policy.

Also hoping it comes out roses for you.

Sid

 

[Banooma]

Cradle size

I'm really sorry to see the damage and know that all of us can feel your pain. At the end of the winter, I noticed that my boat and cradle, which had been sitting on gravel was tilted a couple inches, presumably due to a few Noreasters' wind and rain. Just wondering about the cradle you used. You mention there are not a lot of other sailboats in your area, so a sufficient cradle may have been hard to come by. Who designed and built your cradle? Is it made to the specifications of the manufacturer? The mechanic and owner of my marina built all of the ones used there, and they all seem to have a wider stance. I know my Catalina Owners Manual includes specifications for the appropriate cradle... I'm pretty sure sure they are not one-size-fits-all designs.

 

[Ross]

Re: Cradle size

If the concerns about the width of the cradle are valid then bolt it to some heavy, long timbers. The width only matters as the foot print on the ground. The boat and cradle stayed together.

 

[txtowman]

I guess I did not clarify that the base was not wide enough. that is the part that keeps it from toppling over. Sorry, I am not an engineer or an English teacher, But I did stay in a holiday inn express one time!

 

[tomc]

Our H-356 went over in the marina 3 years ago, along with 5 other boats when a bulkhead gave way in a storm. The hull was not damaged but the mast buckled when the stays hit the rail of another boat. The forestay snapped and lifelines were damaged. Total was almost $ 40,000.

Take close look to see if the mast shows any signs of stress.

Tom C.

 

[alexco38]

Blocking cradles

From the picture it looks like there are only one block of timber for each corner. There is no timber or plank underneath the keel.

Normally there should be a 2x10 plank under the length of the keel to transfer the weight. There should be at least two timber blocks at least 8x8 under the keel. The center line of the cradle should support over 70% of the weight. The pads are there to keep her up right.

Looks like the four corners of the cradle taking 25% of the total weight each. If the keel is not sitting on the center plank, she is "hanging" by the 4 pads. Yes, in that case, wind can blow her and shifted the weight more to one corner which led to the tipping over. The pressure per square must exceed the load carry capacity of the softer ground.

My cradle has 6 pads so that I can remove one pad at a time to paint underneath it. We also has minimum of 6 x welded steel blocks underneath the cradle. So even if the weight shifted, she can still sit tight.

She's fixable, Good luck.

 

[LloydB]

Suspect that ground looked soft because 51%+ of displacement applied to aft port pad and cradle pushed the block into ground just before craft went over.
I would expect a similar result to aft starboard had wind been comming from port.(or with more solid ground had wind gust been10 knots stronger) Keel weight would have made no difference because starboard weight was entirely off cradle so would have keel weight. Sorry to hear of your problem even after making it safely through winter as this is the end of May not the begining of March after all. Good luck

 

[Nicholson58]

You may get lucky regarding damage. The 15,000 disp Heratage One-Ton I raced years ago fell from its cradle in a gravel parking lot. Very little damage past scratches.

 

[Don Crowther]

Well the verdict is in and the insurance company wrote the boat off.
So now it's back to searching for a new boat.
I would like to thank all of you who responded to my many questions about repairs to this boat.
Hopefully it won't be long before I'm back with more questions.
Thanks
Don