Boat Capsize Evidence

Discussion in 'Stability' started by Sachi, Oct 10, 2009.

  1. Alik
    Joined: Jul 2003
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    Alik Senior Member

    Actually there should be safe loading instruction in Owner's manual, so the loading SHOULD start from the stern and passengers should be seated on cushions. I have a bowrider cat myself, so I never carry people on the front sofa unless stern seat is loaded. On wave, I used to move all passengers aft from midships.

    Then, on video the guys are sitting too high, so CG is really high that effects stability and ride. Visibility is poor also... This is definitely lack of boating culture.

    100% agreed. As I stated at the beginning of this thread, major part of all marine accidents is due to human factor.

    It is a case when monkey drives the boat, and then one claims the designer :D
     
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  2. PAR
    Joined: Nov 2003
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    PAR Yacht Designer/Builder

    Bingo!

    Over 80% of on water incidents are operator error (in this country).
     
  3. Loveofsea
    Joined: Jan 2007
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    Loveofsea New Member

    Sorry to overtly disagree with you, but a well designed boat hull simply would not be able to submerse itself no matter what the driver did--period!

    I can't help but think that part of the reason those inherently dangerous hulls are even on the market is because those who make the decisions are either driven by greed, or are overly compliant to those who are driven by greed. How someone could see what those hulls do and actually sign off on a design as abborant as that is beyond my comprehension. (no offense intended)

    Any hull that is capable of that stunt is unsafe, simple as that. It would be physically impossible for most hulls to do that--that should be proof enough that those hulls are flawed. Just because no one wants to inhibit the profitability of the corporation doesn't mean that their product is safe or even legitimate.


    A simple question: In what OTHER boat type would you tolerate this extraordinary hull charactoristic?
     
  4. souljour2000
    Joined: Aug 2009
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    souljour2000 Senior Member

    Almost to the day this time last year a Coast Guard search/rescue for 4 football players gone missing in a 21-foot Everglades cc fishing boat 50 miles off Clearwater,Fl had just wrapped up... Later, it was determined that the owner of the boat had recently lost a nice anchor on a previous trip so when NW winds started to pick up as a cold front moved in and it was time to go the owner decided not to cut the anchor line of the new anchor when it got stuck on a coral head... Instead, he decided to untie it and and re-tie it to a stern cleat and give her some power hoping to pull the stuck anchor off the coral in this fashion...by then I think there were at least 3-4 foot waves...(building to 12-15 feet later that night) ... The boat flipped ...one of these fellows was eventually rescued over a day later...the bodies of the other three men were never found. It was eventually determined that they had actually gone closer to 65 mi offshore trying to reach a prime fishing area well-known to many as the "middle grounds".They left that morning as winter cold front that had been forecasted for several days in advance was almost upon them...No epirb of course...I believe that they had only a handheld vhf and cell phones (both on their way to the fishes when the boat flipped...not sure who might have been in range by then if the VHF could have been utilized...probably no one.
    This type of seamanship cannot be eliminated without changing American boating substantially with required boating classes (maybe after they free the weed) or making boats that also have places to sit in them when they happen to be flipped (upside down lower units are not good handholds either for people hanging on back of a turtled boat hull...manufacturer law suit?) Anyways...a sad story but hopefully a highly educational one for the boating public as it was heavily covered by the media due to NFL players being involved.
    __________________
     
  5. apex1

    apex1 Guest

    Gawd.........................

    is it really so difficult for you to get the picture?

    Or is you Barber on holiday and we get the weekly drivel instead?

    Just agree, your statement was guesswork, or plain nonsense or out of the blue.

    You must not excuse to be born!


    though....................
     
  6. PAR
    Joined: Nov 2003
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    PAR Yacht Designer/Builder

    Loveofsea, you plainly don't have much experience in boats, on boats, in command of boats or any concept of design, it's concepts or basic principles. You're simply and clearly delusional interpretation is precisely why professionals such as myself, are required to make these decisions for you.

    You're are just like the idiots that stood around the day the first iron or concrete hulled vessel was launched. No concept of what you're talking about, but you sure can run your mouth. Then later in the local pub, you haven't anything to say because you were grossly wrong and it actually did float, in spite of your insistence it wouldn't

    And Souljour2000, you should be ashamed of yourself. Hand holds on an inverted boat, please. Would you like some pop up seats with 4" foam cushions with that request, please. Yes, the lower leg of and outboard or out drive is a great place for hand holds. I've used it as this and it's damn handy. In fact, it's usually one of the only ways to climb up on a inverted hull. But of course, you'd prefer the designer anticipate this and have some upside down steps molded into the hull.

    That boat the flipped and 3 where killed last summer, was broached in beam seas, from the pure lack of experience of it's skipper. It did everything it was supposed to do, it floated (inverted) and offered a raft that the 4 could have stayed with. According to the statement of the only survivor, the others swam or drifted off. My impression was they were attempting to swim for shore or had lost their will and were giving up. None of these thing were a result of any element of the boats design.

    Using this example to boost your case for safer boats is pure lunacy, as the whole event was operator error. In fact a series of errors (with is typically) and the boat did everything it was designed to do. It tolerated the conditions it was out in, even through it was never intended to be a blue water boat. It was rolled, but as a direct result of mistakes by the skipper.

    Mandating regulation isn't going to change anything about this event, except maybe the broach, though powering through 15' seas in that style of boat will test the best of the best and it may have broached anyway.

    There's an old saying; you never take a boat out into seas that are taller then the boat is long. On that unfortunate night, it's very probable that they found out what happens when you do venture into big seas with little boats.

    Restricting our freedoms will not prevent these sort of things, though a part of me does wish for better boat handling training, I don't think it should be mandated. I do think that a Power Squadron boat handling course should be required if you've never owned a boat before, maybe as part of the title transfer and tax package. You have to show successful completion, etc., though this smacks of more infringement on personal freedoms.

    This is the basic problem here. You think we are too stupid to be responsible for our own actions and as a result want to legislate a required response or force designers to make boats as boring as possible in an effort to protect ourselves from ourselves.

    I on the other hand will side with the framers of the constitution and permit people to accept responsibility for their own actions (regardless of how stupid they can be sometimes), so long as it's not intentionally attempting to injure or harm anyone.

    Nothing in any of the above incidents suggests these skippers were intentional setting out to hurt some one. Sure better judgment could have been used, but this argument can be used in any situation when you have the leisure of hind sight.

    So, the next chance I get at a chance at a SNAME or SBYD meeting, I'll think of your concerns and then laugh to myself, because I'm not going to bring up anything. Mostly because I like to see the boneheads of the world, remove themselves from the gene pool, purely through their own actions. It's mother nature's way of weeding out the garden so to speak.
     
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  7. apex1

    apex1 Guest

    Paul,

    I must spread some reputation around before giving it to you again............


    lol
     
  8. souljour2000
    Joined: Aug 2009
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    souljour2000 Senior Member

    Actually I agree with almost all your comments ...I was really being purely facetious about the handholds (ak.a.lower unit of their boat when flipped) being a less than desirable designed in safety feature...but in fact it is what saved the one guy and your right..they are handy in a fix.....the one about seats in a capsized hull especially...it was a poor example to employ a joking comment so my bad but my sarcastic comments I guess failed to show that I also believe you can't legislate intelliegence...I DO have a very different definition of immersed than you but you use the term perhaps as it is used in a naval architecture discussion or some nautical definiton of immersion...your absolutely right that the ski boat was never compromised from a stability point of view and it did its job as the designers could have only hoped quite well...it still was immersed though in my view..however briefly...but was it ever compromised stability-wise?...no...was the boat designed well..obviously yes I should say..I never disagreed with you there...just semantics-wise... your use of that word "immersed" which I thought maybe you could have used a better one....this isn't a forum of linguistics professors and english language usage...and it should remain thus...so my bad there.......I don't have a dog in this fight so I should have stayed out of it...especially since I haven't even bothered to look up the definition of immersed yet..:)
     
  9. Loveofsea
    Joined: Jan 2007
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    Loveofsea New Member

    For you to actually defend a boat hull that will completely submerse itself is absolutely absurd! If the bow diving below the surface for no good reason is not unsafe, then what the heck is??? You sound more like a shil for the industry than a real engineer--Pretty scary to think that you sit on some board and would approve of such a demonstratively DANGEROUS hull design :eek: Maybe that's where the money is, who knows. Regardless that's apparently the reason those dangerous boats are allowed to be marketed to an unsuspecting public.

    Or maybe in the glossy literature there is this warning: WARNING--Drive at your own risk! This craft may suddenly dive below the surface for no apparent reason! (four 2,000GPH bilge pumps --- standard equipment)


    Those boats have that fatal flaw precisely because design DID NOT FOLLOW FUNCTION! Design followed a marketing image instead. They wanted a slick, low profile boat and they failed to compensate for that "look "by inhancing the lift of the bow. Those boats should be rhetrofitted with a flare on the bow to prevent the hull from actually diving below the surface. Ya think?!

    As far as my experience goes, i've spent more nights alone 75-100nm offshore than you have on the couch in your livingroom :D .
     
  10. Tim B
    Joined: Jan 2003
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    Tim B Senior Member

    You know, hoax or not, the first few pages of this thread were quite an interesting insight into differing views on vessel stability, and the acceptable operational envelope. It's a shame that in the last few pages it's descended into a tantrum.

    LoveOfSea,
    So you've sailed 65,000nm in a boat that you designed and built. Well done, you must be quite a sailor. Unfortunately, since you didn't qualify it, this may have been a 20ft fishing boat sailed 60NM a weekend during the summer for 43 years. Ok, I'm being facetious, but there is a world of difference betwwen designing one (possibly very conservative boat) and designing many successfully. There are many people who have made that mistake, usually with life-threatening consequences.

    Pooping (where the vessel is flooded from intake of water over the stern is one of the hardest calculations to do on any vessel, and it's caused either by wave action, or by the wake catching up with the boat (which is actually a wave of short wavelength and large wave height). It's generally accepted that going from full ahead to full stop will cause the backend to get wet. Please note evidence in this clip... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1dzMoZk_9M

    The question of capsize due to loss of stability from bilge water, should never be a problem, as there should never be enough bilge water to make this happen. Capsize due to loss of GM after flooding is likely to occur, of course.

    So given that this thread has gone wildly off-topic, perhaps it would be better to continue it elsewhere. And for the time being, the designers will continue to issue operational envelopes with their designs.

    Tim B.
     
  11. PAR
    Joined: Nov 2003
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    PAR Yacht Designer/Builder

    Maybe you should look up immersed folks. The boat had a V shaped ring of water, maybe a few inches thick travel from bow and crashing amidship. From the side this looks like the boat is traveling through a wall of water, but it's hollow inside and you know this with some skiing, surfing or boarding experience. Does a surfer get "immersed" when he has a breaker curl over him? If he's got enough speed on and doesn't wipeout, he can exit the tunnel, literally dry as a bone, but it sure looks like he got dunked, but you don't know this unless you've piped one.

    As far as your experience Loveofsea, I can only imagine your lack of it. Your lack of design understanding is also that of a novice. You know they don't put excessive flare in the bow of boat like this for a reason Loveofsea. So, can you tell me why, it's a common design ploy and used nearly exclusively on this type of boat. You're literally are clueless in this regard, which is why you should stick with being scared and shivering from the possibilities you can bring on yourself.

    Again, just twist yourself up in a some heavy duty bubble wrap and hope the end comes quickly.
     
  12. souljour2000
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    souljour2000 Senior Member

    German u-boats and U.S. K-boats spent most of the time on top of the water..on the surface that is...their diesels needed air to run...so did the crews...but they were "boats" that could be fully submerged if only for short periods ...they performed well in their design envelope...not a great example maybe... but I will say in final that smart designers of small craft would do well to make sure their boats can do the opposite..that is..become submarines for very short periods...the ski boat designers apparently had that in mind...so do most competent designers...you could argue that half of your larger vessels get "submersed" or partially submerged at their very launching..of course any large wave will submerse alot of small boats in the right conditions...most ski boats and small pleasure craft probably have a large "dumbo" factor engineered into them...since the majority of U.S. marine fatalities are collision with obstacle or another boat and/or alcohol-related drownings I'd say most designers of these types of craft are doing a good job....always room for improvement especially the "dumbo factor" but you can only do so much as a designer..or a legislator..or a poster on a thread that has become very tired...submerged even...in a gyre of sargassum weed and circular reasoning I'd say....
     
  13. apex1

    apex1 Guest

    I would not bet on that! PAR is´nt a couch potatoe.

    And some around here have been at sea too! Not just you. I did in three years what you have under your belt! Others here did even more miles at sea.


    But what am I talking, you are one of the never comprehending sort. No matter what nonsense you are talking, you´re always right.

    Leave it.........
     
  14. Loveofsea
    Joined: Jan 2007
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    Loveofsea New Member

    pretty amazing-- That which is so apparent in your mind remains entirely unexplainable by word :rolleyes: You still have not explained how a boat traveling down the river and suddenly nose dives without warning is not a design flaw. This reminds me of conservative politics, let me guess :p

    Tim, i do underwater photography as a hobby here in So Cal. Over the years I have spent some 700 nights anchored at the most remote places off the coast. I don't do day trips and I haven't taken a trip less than 60nm out of port in a decade--over 300 nights on the water since then. My last trip was a couple of weeks ago. I spent two nights anchored on that incredible submerged mountain top situated 100 miles off the coast called the Cortes Bank. When the conditions are right, i like to swim out there alone at night :cool: The trip before that it was 3 nights at San Nicolas Island with a trip out to Begg Rock. I have been doing this year around since '91 in this boat.

    apex, the difference is i go alone, i don't need others in order to feel secure on the water.

    PAR, I'm getting tired of this also. I think that your ego is preventing you from just admitting what you must already know--a boat that suddenly dives below the surface for no apparent reason is a safety hazard. This is what happens when people put self-interest above all other considerations. How could anyone look at the video that i linked that showed the kid being thrown in the water and think that is acceptable for ANY boat? The truth is, you can't so you cling to your ideology :(

    "there is nothing like the feeling of utter security on a tumultuous sea" :D
     

  15. apex1

    apex1 Guest

    That is what I assumed!
    You should learn proper seamanship! Nobody can stand watch for 24hrs! And you probably will not survive tumultuous sea when in the bunk.
     
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