My Boat Sunk!!

[hp]

five people in a 20' sailboat???

My question is "was the boat seriously overloaded???"". Jerome mentions four passengers if we assume 5 adults at 150#s each we are talking 750#s or more. That's a lot on a 20' boat!!! My guess is that most of them were on one side and a sudden wind shift put all the weight on the downhill side. All that weight would contribute to the rapid flooding. As to staying with the boat I feel that depends on your chances of rescue. In cold water less than 60 you'll be dead pretty quick. If you can expect rescue before you freeze stay with the boat. I have experienced hypothermia. By the grace of God I got to shore but could not walk, after dragging myself out of the water after 10 minutes or so I warmed up enough to walk. It was in the spring , a warm sunny day but the water was still cold. If it had been a cold day I would have probably died. I was alone with almost no chance of rescue. Tom

 

[Paul Green]

Hi Henk, More Info

Good Morning all!Henk, She was a 42' custom bowed yawl designed by F. Spaulding Dunbar. A real beauty. I was motoring back to my marina, about 10 miles.Dark night, reasonably calm. Seems all I did was cut a turning possition a bit short which then through off my new coarse line and ran me right across one of three break waters. I motored along with a friend of mine in to the oh so familiar New Haven Harbour. Suddenly I noticed that the water had got very calm and the lights of morris cove off in the distance ahead were gone. They were there just a few minutes ago. All it took was a few moments of disorientation to realize something was drasticly wrong. Apparently we were motoring directly into the wall and the cove lights were blocked from view by it. Being a full keeled deep draft boat she took some time to come around even when thrown hard over. I believe Instinctivly shoved the throttle full head. That was a common practice along with some kicks into reverse to get her around in close quarters. There was a muffled crunching noise and she seemed to rise up abit suddenly before she settled. I put her into neutral and we just drifted for a momment. We were standing, she was floating and other than the lights on shore about 1.5 miles off there was nothing else to see. Probably a mimute had passed, I started below to fire up the electronics. (a little late now) I was Knee deep in water as I stepped off the companionway ladder. She was going down. It was a very surreal momment. I called mayday on channel 16 and Coast Guard station New Haven, Group Long Island Sound answered. We're sinking, I told them where I thought We were. My trusty old loran was not user friendly this evening.The four year old Autoflugg canister liferaft (X rental unit) on deck was thrown over the side and she exploded to life at the pull of the cord. We Stepped up and into the raft as the mid ship decks were now awash. She went down in about 35 feet of water, we spent a few minutes tangled in the rigging. It seemed like hours but the boat crew had us and the raft on their deck at 15 minutes. The top 15 feet of the mast was above water. A salvage crew arived 48 hours later. Divers afixed some slings and the crain raised her. They threw in trash pumps as she broke the surface. The divers then used assorted sized squares of wall panneling with roofing tar and a nail gun to afix them to the hull to cover all the areas where damage was apparent. They lowered her back down into the water and she floated. They towed her in. All the damage was to the port side below the waterline. Several ribs were cracked, fractured and sprung planks also. Not enough insurance to cover the repair so they totaled her, The marina bought the hull for salvage. They stripped her for parts, chainsawed the rest, then the burned her.To this day, boating at night, I still get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach untill I see the west break wall and then keep at least one eye on that bastard til I'm well clear.No one to blame but me.2003 is going to be a good year.Paul