Unsinkable boats realy?

Agree, there is no such thing as unsinkable especially if a boat breaks up. "Occupant survivability rating" would appear to be more important than whether the boat sinks or not.

PC

 

I agree. Just look at the "life jackets" you get to buy ("legal" ones), they're not life jackets, they're float jackets (for corpses). More people die from hypothermia than from drowning. Drowning is only the eventual result.

Seems we have to (yet again) go to the Chinese to get something decent

 

Paradoxically, the safest survivable spot under the most dire conditions (hurricane, etc.) might be in a sinkable boat with the provisions of submersible design. Submariners have been known to remark on such, as they took pity on the poor surface boats caught in a storm above. Good survival suits with a beacon, assuming you can get them on, are as good as an unsinkable boat >IMHO<. You can always sit in your swamped unsinkable boat with your survival suit on and be more comfortable .

PC

 

So if your boat cannot sink you are at greater risk

 

Have you set fire to foam supplied for boat flotation,if you do most of it burns like a flare?
I prefer air bags preferably deflatable ones or plastic containers filled with air like the ones used for caravan water supply and they are pretty solid and light and can make great seats. I found foam is messy and it crumbles and gets smelly if set in plastic sheeting.
My life jackets (which I realy wore because they made swimming and everything difficult to do) and survival jackets double as extra flotation.

 

PU foam smoke is deadly, remember the Bali disco fire... it was the PU foam smoke that caused the deaths. If your boat catches fire you abandon ship and swim like hell - upwind. Hopefully the boat will eventually sink and automatic put the fire out. I was wondering about the claims they made for "self extinguishing foams", now we know Yes it absorbs water, it cracks and becomes powder eventually, the idea is probably most never go out that much so it seldom becomes a problem.

If I remember right there was a bank robbery in Japan where the robbers set fire to the PU foam used as insulation in the underground train tunnels, they put masks on and did what they did.

Ah, the oh oh oh Oros man syndrome. The boat is going to run right into the rocks because you cannot move with the life jacket on. How about a simple comfortable life jacket which can be worn like a full jacket, with minimum flotation and with inflatable bladders. These you can inflate breathing out - you can end up like the bloke in the balloon, at least you will get picked up

Since most of your body heat is lost through your neck and head, how about a zipper in the collar with a hood. I have a rain jacket like that, it's brilliant. You can even have sleeves and long pants you can pull on stored in the life jacket... it gives you something to do other than panic and shouting "oh sh3t I'm gonna die". If the boat's not back by the time you're comfortable and dressed up floating, you take out the OBS flask (some will MOB just for this) and get heated up, and you take out the mini fishing rig and fish for your next meal. At least the boat returning for you will have you put food on the table as a reward for their effort. Least you can do... and show a bit of survival spirit will you ? With all the debris floating around you may even have assembled a raft with sails - and worst case you get your own container full of Chinese floating foam sandals.

Imagine standing ankle deep on that container when the boat approaches...they're gonna shout "Jesus, look, he's walking on water !"

These horseshoe pick-up jackets are for the tough manly guys who is above using a toilet and have to pss off the boat. They all slip with the second swell, fall with the back of the heads on the gun-whale and are unconscious before they hit the water, hence the jacket have to float them on their backs so the sea water can rinse into their airways drowning them over a longer period. Horseshoe pick-up jackets are for the tough guys waving their dciks at the fish. But hey, these jackets sport a nice handle, you can pull the guy right out the water into a body bag without touching the slimy bugger.

I also offered an emergency flasher which if you turn it upright makes a powerful continuous flash so the boat can find the MOB. Nobody was interested because they can't make money out of it.

 

Ah yes the mates down under there between the sharks. This is fun. When a shark comes up to you, you stick the battery in the pocket's probes in the water. It makes the shark go cross-eyed and he always bites to the left or right of you.

You really can't blame the sharks for wanting to bite you Aussies. Firstly YOUR sharks have bad taste and no pride

If we get in or on the water, our sharks flee, they have a fear of getting caught AGAIN

 

I disagree, boats these days typically don't break up unless run down by a ship or making contact with land, of course its possible but more likely than not when a boat gets abandoned and does not sink it remains intact, so if you make staying afloat AND HABITABLE a priority it is a much better option than getting off into a life raft or in the case of most coastal cruisers your dinghy if you have one, most people I see out daysailing don't have anything to get off into. Fire is a different situation where it really makes no difference if you have floatation or not, if you cant get it under control you will be getting off, so i personally am not concerned about having my floatation foam give off poisonous gas. I would agree that boats that rely on air tanks for floatation are not truly unsinkable unless they are filled with ping pong balls or pop bottles. Foam filled cavities are another story and do provide reliable floatation and if placed correctly.

 

Empty beer cans stuck end to end with silicon sealer make great flotation and you can add to them while you wait for rescue.

 

Actually tom, hat has been done on a few boats. One guy built the entire hull out beer cans laid end to end and wrapped in fiberglass. It would take a lot of hoel in that hull and it probably still wouldn't sink.

 

I wouldn't trust my life to beer cans unless you are operating in fresh water, that aluminum is so thin it would corrode in short order in seawater. No problem with pop bottles though.

Steve.

 

Seems to me that it does little good for a boat to survive break up or be unsinkable, if occupants don't survive due to trauma injuries. Such injuries might be the case for storms with very high wind speeds and huge waves, perhaps boat is not habitable? Would soft cushioned interiors/seat belts/air bags help? Would the other choices or a survival suit with beacon be any better though?

PC

 

I'm not really sure what Tom is after, but it sounds more like a life boat or survival craft than a pleasure boat. You can have ridiculously over done boats, that can hold occupants (not crew or skippers, just those seasick folks along for the ride), after surviving nearly any situation, but the burden this places on the design, destroys any idea of it being a pleasure craft. A boat like this is usually massively built, so there goes it's performance potential and build budget, is equipped with things it'll never need (more stuff to buy and install) and though you can tolerate repeated roll overs in 30' seas, there's nothing enjoyable about being in one, unless you have a serious case of emetophilia. These "appliances" and "features" decrease the usable volume internally, so you're paying more for less, which plainly doesn't do well in the marketplace, so finding a nitch to move them in, would prove difficult to say the least.

 

Once again, modern boats don't typically break up, even when abandoned at sea and afloat for months, even years. Most potential sinkings are not necessarily due to massive storms and the like but rather, you hit a deadhead and poke a hole in the hull or the prop shaft comes out or a hose fails or ?? Where i sail, on lake superior the water is cold, putting on your lifejacket and getting in the water is not a great option, most just out fishing or daysailing do not have a raft or dinghy of any sort so a boat that will not sink is a totally practical option, and is not a difficult design exercise for certain types of boat, obviously you are not going to make a Westsail 32 unsinkable and it is much easier at the design stage where it is a total concept. Like the Etaps, if my sons boat, or my old Macgregor 36 cat were to "sink" you would just sail home with wet feet. A whole lot better than dying from hypothermia in the water, a life jacket just makes the body easier to find.

Steve.

 

Put a little dry ice into the bottles so they stay firm.
Got idea for adding cheap flotation to your current boat or even make the entire boat possibly unsinkable.