105' yacht sinks off Fort Lauderdale

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timjet said:
If a raw water hose completely failed down stream of the raw water pump there is no way my 3 bilge pumps could handle that much water. Maybe with the engine at idle but even then I doubt it.
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My little John Deere has a raw water flow rate of 35 GPM at WOT. After derating the bilge pumps for head pressure, I theoretically am still over 125 GPM (know it will be significantly less than that). Nice to have a small engine with 1.25" raw water hose. Happiness is when your bilge pump hoses are bigger in diameter than the engines raw water hose. :)

Ted
 
Even then...if you have a problem with raw engine water exiting the vessel...it would have to be after the injection point by quite a bit if you have an exhaust alarm.


Then there are high water alarms or just the unusual motion of the boat is noticeable....enging raw water related sinkings are rare...because they are self correcting for the most part...the engine gets wet enough and shuts down or signals in other ways...the operator pulls the engine to idle to see what is up (eventually) and the problem is all but corrected.


I have hovered over a couple boats knowing by their description this or taking water over the bow into bad hatch covers or anchor lockers that they weren't going to sink (no I didn't wait till they were treading water...comes from knowing boats and experience) and saved the boat and at least damage or injury from trying to deliver a pump or complete personnel evacuation.


My biggest fear would be a failure of the exhaust flange where water could slosh back in and now where I have to work to plug the hole is either on the swim platform and it is rough or the inside full of exhaust.


Not sure if the boat in the OP is water exhaust or dry stacked at that size.
 
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One of the keys for the NTSB, CG and others is the term "major accident." The sinking of one boat with no loss of life isn't one.

As to the insurer, this isn't a huge claim but isn't insignificant either. There will be plenty of investigation, just not of the sunken vessel. They will talk to crew and trace the most recent activities of the boat. The obvious thing they would look for would be any action on the part of others such as the work of a recent shipyard visited that they might attribute the accident to. Not being able to examine the boat would make that more difficult however. They'd also look for any known problems neglected by the owner. Still the basic questions such as why weren't the alarms sounding and why weren't the pumps pumping (if they weren't)? They will look for something to jump out at them.

If it doesn't, then they'll proceed to settlement negotiations. Could all be resolved in 6 weeks or could take years.
 
Having spent time Involved with vessels in this size range, a failed hose should not cause flooding unless the sea cock is inoperable or no attention is being paid to ER happenings. A more catastrophic event is suggested. The crew has already said a cogent thought or two I betcha.
 
If their sea water flow alarms were installed where the water enters the exhaust (most including Aqualarm are rated for hot water) then a blown seawater hose shows up as a no-flow alarm. I have always found this reassuring on my installations.
 
Read somewhere?? they may have dropped a stabilizer fin. That could leave a big hole.
 
RT Firefly said:
Greetings,
Having transited Port Everglades countless times I know it is well marked, well lit, deep and wide. One would have to be way off the channel to ding anything even on a 105' vessel.
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I remember visiting the USS Abe Lincoln at Port Everglades. One of my many thoughts was how in the heck did they get that big, huge, ship in this little space?!!! :eek::rofl: Figured the captain had to replace his under pants both arriving and leaving port. :socool::D

Later,
Dan
 
dannc said:
I remember visiting the USS Abe Lincoln at Port Everglades. One of my many thoughts was how in the heck did they get that big, huge, ship in this little space?!!! :eek::rofl: Figured the captain had to replace his under pants both arriving and leaving port. :socool::D

Later,
Dan
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tugs...the Navy loves them...even now the USCG employs outfits like Sea Tow to push/pull them in tight spaces after decades of denting ships because of egos.

It is amazing what you can do with multiple, moveable thrusters.
 
caltexflanc said:
You guys talking about raw water flow seem to ignore the other end of the system: the intake through hull and attached hose. The further below the waterline a hole is, the more it admits into the boat.
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The deeper the hole in the hull, the higher pressure it has trying to get in.

It would take quite a while for engine cooling water to fill an engine room and then the boat.

but, a 4" hole 10' below the waterline, that's over 1000 gallons a minute, every minute. Some say it slows down, but as the boat fills with water, it gets deeper, so the rate of flooding is just about constant. Unless you have shaft driven bilge pumps, you're gone before you can do much about it.

Even if they had a half dozen high output Rule pumps, it's a losing battle. Once the electrical system gets wet, they go down too.

http://www.bethandevans.com/pdf/HoleSizeandFloodingtable.pdf
 
OC-you have raised an interesting point. Does any builder estimate potential water inflow from various holes in the hull when sizing dewatering pump capacity? Also, a hose failure downstream of a seawater pump actually may one of the better places to have a hose failure. If my input to an online water flow calculator I found is correct, the inflow is pretty scary. At sea level water pressure of about 14.5 PSI, a 4" hole will flow at over 68,000 gallons per hour! That does not sound right to me, but that is what the engineering site came up with! The seawater pump will actually function to limit the seawater intake if the hose breaks downstream. Water cannot flow freely through the pump. If your pump is 35 GPM, that is 2,100 GPH. An amount that certainly can be handled by a decent bilge pump system. In comparison, one 4" hole, unnoticed for 30 minutes, can get close to 35,000 gallons in your boat. BTW-I hope I got the water flow wrong somehow, now I have scared myself.
 
At this point, we know two things. One is that the First Officer believes they might have grounded coming out of the Bahia Mar area. Second, that he says the first they realized they had a problem was when the boat was listing. A boat that size and classed previously would typically have something in the range of 10 pumps and alarms. Two for every bulkhead area. It also would have several emergency systems including a couple 110 and/or 24 V with 1 1/2" or so pipes plus a very strong emergency system engine driven. The other thing they should have aboard is an emergency patch kit.

Not knowing the nature of the water ingress we can't know if everything had gone right whether or not they could have kept afloat. We also don't know the systems they had. But in a classed boat with even a 4" hole, alarms, pumps and patching should have given them a good change of keeping things afloat.

Now, if it was the stabilizer from grounding, had they detected that problem on it's own, that would have given them good odds. At the very least that should have sent someone to the engine room to keep an eye on things in case anything beneath the boat hit and caused a leak. You can check those things from inside. Now, they also could have dived or used a camera to check externally.

The key to defending against any breach is detecting it the earliest possible. From their statements, they appeared not to detect it until quite a while after it happened.
 
THD said:
At sea level water pressure of about 14.5 PSI, a 4" hole will flow at over 68,000 gallons per hour! That does not sound right to me, .
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It isn't right, so you can be less scared. Try about 0.43 psi per foot of head.
 
http://www.bethandevans.com/pdf/HoleSizeandFloodingtable.pdf

not sure if accurate but have no reason to doubt....


5 inch hole 4 feet under water is 60,000 gallons per hour.


Most vessels where a listing is noticed has enough water in it that unless absolutely flat water would have a noticeable "different" motion to it...THT is really strange that it wouldn't be investigated.
 
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THD said:
OC-you have raised an interesting point. Does any builder estimate potential water inflow from various holes in the hull when sizing dewatering pump capacity? Also, a hose failure downstream of a seawater pump actually may one of the better places to have a hose failure. If my input to an online water flow calculator I found is correct, the inflow is pretty scary. At sea level water pressure of about 14.5 PSI, a 4" hole will flow at over 68,000 gallons per hour! That does not sound right to me, but that is what the engineering site came up with! The seawater pump will actually function to limit the seawater intake if the hose breaks downstream. Water cannot flow freely through the pump. If your pump is 35 GPM, that is 2,100 GPH. An amount that certainly can be handled by a decent bilge pump system. In comparison, one 4" hole, unnoticed for 30 minutes, can get close to 35,000 gallons in your boat. BTW-I hope I got the water flow wrong somehow, now I have scared myself.
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Absolutely builders estimate that. Class societies do as well to varying degrees. Boats are equipped to fight such a breach. Crew is trained to do so.
 
PSN

All of which points out the nicety of bulk headed stabilizers. I've seen two setups on recreational boats, one an older DeFever and the other on the Dashew FPB series. I have seen some well hidden stabilizer installations on a few larger yachts, not very accessible in the event of a shaft coming out for pounding in a plug.

Again all this is speculation.
 
BandB said:
Absolutely builders estimate that. Class societies do as well to varying degrees. Boats are equipped to fight such a breach. Crew is trained to do so.
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Not production vessels under 65 feet...not sure I have ever seem a factory boat with enough bilge pumping capacity to actually handle an engine intake completely gone and the derated for head/voltage capacity match. That's for us poorer guys....

But class vessels and the better boats maybe/probably.....
 
sunchaser said:
PSN

All of which points out the nicety of bulk headed stabilizers. I've seen two setups on recreational boats, one an older DeFever and the other on the Dashew FPB series. I have seen some well hidden stabilizer installations on a few larger yachts, not very accessible in the event of a shaft coming out for pounding in a plug.

Again all this is speculation.
Click to expand...

I have seen some great setups on all kinds of boats...rarely do I ever see all the good put into one boat.

Of course I tend to worry a bit...flew single engine helicopters in places no one should so it's been beaten into me to worry a little about a few things....but most boaters tend to overworry the basics that are easy to check/correct and miss the stuff that can haunt them at the wrong time.

Like everything...if you have the basics in good order... you should be good to go. But run a boat aground and ignore potential damage, take it to sea, ignore a list (if any of these tidbits are true)...then being on a sinking boat shouldn't be a surprise.
 
psneeld said:
Not production vessels under 65 feet...not sure I have ever seem a factory boat with enough bilge pumping capacity to actually handle an engine intake completely gone and the derated for head/voltage capacity match. That's for us poorer guys....

But class vessels and the better boats maybe/probably.....
Click to expand...

I agree with that. Most builders way under size the capacity of the pumps they put in.
 
I agree most boats don't have what I described, but a 120' classed vessel should. I was describing what I felt the boat in question should have had based on boats in that size range I'm familiar with. There just should have been many alarms going off much sooner than they detected a problem.

It's also my understanding that some of the class societies require stabilizers to be installed watertight while others don't require that. I haven't checked it myself, but was told ABS doesn't require it.
 
BandB said:
It's also my understanding that some of the class societies require stabilizers to be installed watertight while others don't require that. I haven't checked it myself, but was told ABS doesn't require it.
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Stabilizers should break the fin way before they endanger the hull mounting.

Same with pod drives... but there are cases where things don't break where engineers say they should.

Wait and see.

I found the rate of flooding computation formula:

the formula to compute the flood rate is as follows:
gpm = 5.67 x diameter of the penetration squared multiplied by the square root of the depth below the waterline.
 
That flooding formula seems quite a bit higher than the chart I posted and a couple other sources I just looked up.


Not that it is all that important...just curious whose formula?
 
stubones99 said:
the formula to compute the flood rate is as follows:
gpm = 5.67 x diameter of the penetration squared multiplied by the square root of the depth below the waterline.
Click to expand...

So, 5.67 x 4 x 4 x 3.16 or so.

287 gpm

16,680 per hour. The bethanddevans chart shows 1,012 per minute. So this formula is considerably less if my math is correct.

Is it 5.67 x (diameter squared) or (5.67 x diameter) squared.

I assumed the former. The second interpretation would give 1,625 gpm so much higher.
 
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Thanks for that post and link stubones; I was searching for that chart in vain.

I remember being scoffed at here for having 8 bilge pumps. And a large dewatering pump.
 
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And with credit to a quiet forum member, as to the question of whether ABS has the same rules as Lloyd on stabilizers. Posted on another forum.

So does ABS. The rules for yachts follow the "standard" IACS wording that the stabilizer be fitted in a watertight compartment or if damaged cannot lead to flooding of auxiliaries or other necessary equipment or create progressive flooding.
 
BandB said:
And with credit to a quiet forum member, as to the question of whether ABS has the same rules as Lloyd on stabilizers. Posted on another forum.

So does ABS. The rules for yachts follow the "standard" IACS wording that the stabilizer be fitted in a watertight compartment or if damaged cannot lead to flooding of auxiliaries or other necessary equipment or create progressive flooding.
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Most of the boats at FLIBS had a bunk over the stabilizers.

That's another problem with standards if they let you inspect and grade your own work. I guess the bunk occupant is the early warning system.
 
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