If your sailboat swamped, would it sink?

[rgranger]

Back to Sail123's original query.

I think the bottle idea is not going to work too well. They won't stay where you put them in the event of a flood. On my boats I've always jammed pieces of those pink styrofoam foundation boards you can get at Home Depot. And on my most recent boat I took some garbage bags, poured in some expanding foam (2 part stuff) and then shoved the bag into odd places. The foam fills to the exact shape of the space. The bag keeps it from sticking to the hull if you ever want to work in that area again. I've been very happy with it. I can get a lot more foam into the same spaces because I don't have the gaps between the "jammed" in pieces. And I can really make good use of those small "useless" spaces.

It seems that the two competing variables are total floatation vs. storage space on your boat. You could split the difference and just fill in those spaces that you don't use for storage. Some foam is better than none and if it isn't getting in you way, why not have it?

 

[Scott T-Bird]

Why the concern anyway?

I know that tornados are common in Nebraska, but other than a tornado (and I would expect that you wouldn't be sailing in one), I can't imagine a situation where wind and waves would hold your boat over long enough for the cabin to flood. It's just not going to happen. But let's just say for argument that for whatever reason, your boat sank in the middle of the lake. Your mast would be sticking out of the water for easy location and recovery. You should have no problem swimming to shore, or somebody else on the lake would surely come to your rescue without there being a need to rely on the flotation of the boat.

If you did happen to trailer your boat to the Great Lakes, it is undestandable to be concerned about such things, but don't compare your boat to a MacGregor for safety because the comparisons are apples and oranges.

That photo of a MacGregor with 4 people standing on the deck of a flooded but floating boat is a marketing photo that is intended to give somebody a false sense of security. The flotation is really there to keep a boat that capsizes easily afloat for recovery. There may be some benefit for the passengers to be able to cling to a flooded boat until help arrives, but if a MacGegor capsized in the turbulent waters of the Great Lakes or an ocean during storm conditions, do you really think that it would float upright? I don't ... I think the boat would be rolling around in the waves and the passengers would be subjected to the dangers of hypothermia pretty rapidly.

In short, a MacGregor is not designed to avoid capsizing and flooding. The manufacturer designs the boat for ease of trailering and for profitability at very low cost of production and price point. Putting flotation in the boat and publishing that photo is just their marketing ploy to sell safety when everything else about the boat screams that it isn't made for safety or designed to avoid capsizing and flooding.

Your boat, with a keel, is designed to stay afloat and right itself even if knocked down in a broach. To sink your boat, it would have to be holed or a thru-hull would have to fail catastrophically. I wouldn't put any more thought into trying to put flotation in place than I would trying to figure out how to power it to motor along at 30 knots.

 

[Dogleg]

Lets say your sail boat weighed 2000lbs in air (26s w/ some gear some of which may float.) and its average density was 15 #/gal just guessing for example fresh water weighs 8.34 lbs per gal. so under water your boat weighs 888lbs divided by 8.34 equals 106.5 gals or 14 ft3 of extra water you would have to displace with stirofome to make it neutral boyancy. Any more and it floats. Does this look right?

 

[Chris Patterson]

Wow. This has sure gone on about making a sinkable boat "unsinkable". I venture, that 95%+ boats will sink if catastrophically holed/swamped, etc. The equations are too variable. An ounce here, a pound there, and all the math is subjective. (Which is disconcerting because I like math, the universal language).
If I beat my boat up, and it sank; I would truly hate that. The same if I wrecked my truck, or caught the house on fire, (or caught the BOAT on fire), but I can not make my truck un-wreckable, nor the house flame proof. I can make it less likely to occur, but not run on the absolute conviction that it can't happen. Drive safer. Don't smoke in the house.

And don't crash the boat.

Or just buy a Triumph, or Carolina Skiff..

(My sincerest of apologies, I'm just trying to clear my mind of a thousand empty bottles on a boat; and a maniacal banned entity).

 

[Dogleg]

Titantic just did not have enough stirofome ............ Bottomline,..case closed

 

[Sail123]

Update:

The season went well, and the 32 aft cabin floats without foam or rum bottles. In fact, bilge stayed dry all season.

The oxidation came off with the application of 400 dollars to the right hands.

She is back on the trailer again for winter storage.

The problem is not water swamping the boat, it is water absent from the lake. When I pulled her this fall, I was an inch from the bottom in my slip.

Hoping for a wet winter.

 

[GeorgiaBII]

But let's just say for argument that for whatever reason, your boat sank in the middle of the lake. Your mast would be sticking out of the water for easy location and recovery. You should have no problem swimming to shore, or somebody else on the lake would surely come to your rescue without there being a need to rely on the flotation of the boat.

Wow you guys sail in some shallow lakes.

I sail on lake martin and in some spots it's well over 199 ft deep. Or at least that is what my sonar says.

My average sailing area depth is 60 to 90ft deep. If I go down nobody will ever see a thing.

 

[caguy]

On the Mac 25 the bow is stuffed with Styrofoam blocks. Some are large and others are smaller so that every nook and cranny are filled. In the aft end the port side is similarly packed with less on the starboard side. Again there they used various sizes and shaped to fill the voids. As pointed out in a previous post they did come in handy to plug a through hole that broke loose. There was room for more blocks in the aft end when I got the boat so I went to Lowes and found some in the parking lot, used to ship small utility trailers. I asked the guy about them and he told me to help myself, so I did.
Another time I used one of their blocks to shape into a Viagra pill, glassed it, painted it blue and used it as a mast float on my Hobie Cat.
Another source is a couple of miles from my house. There are a couple of packing and shipping companies that mold their own Styrofoam. They always have a trash bin full of large pieces of Styrofoam. Its amazing what you can find with a little dumpster diving.

 

[Kermit]

Another time I used one of their blocks to shape into a Viagra pill, glassed it, painted it blue and used it as a mast float on my Hobie Cat.

No idea what Viagra looks like...

 

[caguy]

Have you heard of the expression "horny toad," Kermit?
Consider this a public service anouncement, It is now a recreational drug.

 

[Kermit]

I suppose my day will come.

 

[rgranger]

... It is now a recreational drug.

So what happens if you mix extacy with Viagra?:dance:

I'm thinking there is an oxymoron in there someplace ... or maybe leave the oxy out

 

[Merlin Clark]

A guy I used to work with drank redbull and vodka while taking those blue pills.
I'd leave the "oxy" out of his obit too.

 

[Dogleg]

I know what happens when you mix a laxitive with a sleeping pill.

 

[pcrabtree]

I have a water ballasted Macgregor 26 that, according to sales literature, will still float fully filled with water and still support a full crew, if you can believe that! It also is supposed to right itself after a 110 degree knockdown. I have absolutely no intention of testing either claim.

 

[rgranger]

I have a water ballasted Macgregor 26 that, according to sales literature, will still float fully filled with water and still support a full crew, if you can believe that!

Yes I can believe that

The water in your tank has the same density as the water your boat is sitting in. So submerged it does not add to the displacement of your boat. So if your boat swamped, the amount of buoyancy needed to keep from sinking is DRASTICALLY less than for a traditionally ballasted boat. Another "safety feature" of water ballasted boats is the fact that if you got holled, it would most likely rupture your ballast tank and you would still be "okay".