Unsafe At Any Speed - No, Not the Corvair

[agprice22]

First thing my wife said... This guy wanted that boat to sink.

 

[gettinthere]

If we had waited for the USCG to get there, the boat would have been on the bottom and there would have been a diesel sheen over the entire harbor. Some of us prefer to sit back and rubber-neck the train wreck others prefer to help out. I guess I am in the latter group, as were about ten others on Saturday night.

At the point where you went digging around in the bowels of the boat to find and fix the issue sounded to me from your description as a risky move. Getting trapped below deck when the boat suddenly goes down very fast would not be pretty. Perhaps I got the wrong impression from your description of how fast water was flooding and how precarious the situation was. There are plenty of accounts of how very fast a boat can sink with a relatively small hole.

 

[Gene Neill]

You had me at "frantically pumping away like a teenage boy with a Farrah Faucett poster".

 

[Skipper]

"frantically pumping away like a teenage boy with a Farrah Faucett poster".

I don't think so :-O

 

[FastOlson]

where to mount? think about the task. mount it in a location were you can man the pump for hours while trying to save the lives of your love one. lots of elbow room. standing comfortably is best. then go buy a second pump and install it. pumps are like fire extinguishers, when you really need it it's never enough.

i have mine mounted, one in the middle of the cockpit with lots of working room, the other on the steps to the companionway. the pump handle goes through the steps. the people will have good chance at doing this manual labor.

Note that while exact location of the pump will vary, the need for a cockpit-mounted pump is a long-established requirement in the Offshore Racing rules. The folks that built my boat factored that in when it was constructed.
(All of the 80's Ericson's and Olson's have a high capacity manual pump located where it can be worked from the helm area.
Idea being that the driver is pumping while someone else is locating/staunching the leak.
Last year I replaced the high-$$$ "Whale Gusher 10" and all the 1.5" hoses because the original check valves had totally hardened and the internal pump fastenings were solidly frozen in place -- been there since 1988. Original hose was stiff and brittle.
While I have not had to remove a lot of water due to a threat of sinking, that pump has proved that it can move LOTS of water quickly when tested.)

Aside: you can find a lot of proven and useful advice for assessing/equipping your boat from a study of the basics of the Offshore rules... from emergency dewatering to soft plugs to calculating the effectiveness of your cockpit drains.

 

[NotCook]

OK maybe I read too many adult mystery books last winter sitting under palm trees.

I thought I was reading a Stephen King novel there for a bit. Real horror story.

As previously noted, it is amazing how some people seem to be paralyzed during a crisis, and can only stand and watch with that "deer in the headlights" look. I've encountered this on more than one occasion, and I like the comment about, "help or move on." Personally, I'd rather die trying than live with not trying, particularly when someone else's safety is at stake.

Well done Maine. Carry on.

 

[CloudDiver]

If it weren't for the environmental damage that would be caused by oil, diesel and such as well as becoming a hazard to navigation... I would have let the POS sink (then dive on the sunken hull with tools to salvage any Gucci race hardware & winches).

 

[Parsons]

Since you all have covered the "congratulations for helping to save the boat" thread adequately, I would like to point out another valuable service that MaineSail has performed (once again!), but is often overlooked. He spent the time and energy to write this all down for our education. This is an invaluable service as he sparked thought and conversation on the dozens of people that have commented, and the hundreds that have ghosted on this thread. How many other boats has he saved by having some of us, me included, check that our manual pumps work or more frequently checking the shaft log. I am now planning to mount the manual handle in the locker next to the pump, rather than shoved in the chart-table junk drawer. Nice work, Maine! I would encourage each of you to write your experiences down as well (so I can find more boat projects).

 

[agprice22]

I think you do it because that is how the body and brain react. Humans are problem solvers. Show us a problem, and we react. Sometimes we solve them one at a time and miss the big picture. There is less choice in the matter sometimes than we would like in hindsight. Maybe that boat was going down whether anyone tried to save it. Maybe it could be saved. This time it was saved.
You yell, "duck!" and it is the one who rationalizes, "which species?" who gets clocked with the boom!
I bet more of us would be on that boat instantly trying to save it than not. I know I would.
Humans also have a survival instinct. Our internal alarm that says, "get off! Now!" so we do.
I was 5 years old when my father took us to Riviera Beach, Florida. Odd that Floridians who live on the beach went to another beach, but I digress. When we got to the beach, a barge was aground and had been rusting away. People were climbing on it and enjoying the spray of waves that were breaking on it broadside. My dad took all of us children onto the slanted deck. My 3 sisters and my dad's girlfriend climbed about halfway up. My dad, brother, and I climbed to the highside of the rusty hulk. I felt uneasy up there. Anyway, I spotted a wave coming that triggered me to run down the deck and right onto the beach. That wave triggered my survival instinct. The wave hit, washed over the railing, and swept the girlfriend and sisters down onto the deck where they suffered lacerations to their thighs and buttocks. They spent the night in the hospital getting treated.
They did not see the wave. I did.
MainSail would have gotten off that yacht. Trust him for that.