Nordhavn salvage

psneeld said:

Please correct me if I am wrong as I rarely use vector charts seriously...

But isn't that the issue beep ween the 2 types of charts for the most part?

Too often detail is lost on vector charts if not zoomed in enough where most of the time the raster has the detail but may be an awkward chart to use on a small screen?

If not I am sorry to mislead anyone, but that was true in the earlier years and why I stick with raster charts. I might be behind now, bUT the raster charts are what I am most comfortable with.

So in answering the paper chart vs electronic chart question....maybe.

And maybe if raster charts were used and not vector, maybe the dike would have been more apparent.

But all a guess.....

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I just took a look at the NOAA vector charts for the area. The dyke shows at all scales up to 1:150,000. Above that it doesn't show.

On the raster charts, there is one at 1:40,000 which shows the dyke. Then it jumps to 1:1,200,00 and does not show the dyke.

And the symbology is identical between the raster and vector charts.

It just goes to show that if you pick the wrong scale chart, paper, raster, or vector, you can miss vital detail. Turning it into a paper vs electronic debate, or a raster vs vector debate misses and confuses the real issue. It's about the inherent difference between charts at different scales, and making sure you are checking the full spectrum. In this case it was a non-issue, but in other disasters it was very much the issue.

Coast Pilots let alone cruising guides can be a good backup before entering any area....Coast Pilot....

" Reedy Island, Mile 48W, is the site of a former
Federal quarantine and detention station. The pier on the
channel side of the island has a depth of 10 feet at the
outer end; the current velocity is about 2.5 knots off the
pier. A submerged dike extends 3 miles southward from
Reedy Island and roughly parallels the western shore; the
dike is marked by lights, and unlighted seasonal warning
buoys.
(260) Port Penn is a village on the western shore opposite
Reedy Island. The best approach to the village is through
an opening in the Reedy Island dike; the opening, 0.2 mile
south of the island, is 5 feet deep and 150 feet wide, and
marked on each side by a daybeacon. Approaches to the
village from north of Reedy Island or from south of the
dike are over flats with depths of 2 feet. Anchorage depths......"

Even Active Captain gives a sense of caution for going there....while not huge...an elevated sense of risk management is/was demanded.

Obviously, you aren't. Your view of this could even be dangerous. There has to be somewhere in your mind where you could piece together a chain of events that could lead to you making the same mistake. Or at the very least, when the facts do come out on this one, you can understand how it could have happened and why it happened.

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I already understand how it could happen, because it did, and this is not the first time it has been hit either. And I would wager that there almost as many "why it happened's" as there have been incidents. I have enough screw ups (which are largely the basis for any claim to being experienced I may have) to understand the effects of ADD, dyslexia, fatigue, improper (or lack of) command to crew and simple neglect, all of which I have managed to bring into play at one time or another. And I don't regard a single one of them as an excuse for my errors. There's a difference in my lexicon as to what constitutes an "excuse", and that being different from a "reason".

So maybe we just have a semantical argument here and not a substantive one. Believe me I still replay various faux pas of ours from 7 years ago and more over and over to better understand more so than to flail myself with guilt.

I just took a look at the NOAA vector charts for the area. The dyke shows at all scales up to 1:150,000. Above that it doesn't show.

On the raster charts, there is one at 1:40,000 which shows the dyke. Then it jumps to 1:1,200,00 and does not show the dyke.

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At those scales you are going to run into a whole bunch of other things... channel markers, lighthouses, etc if you are using them for navigation.

caltexflanc said:

I already understand how it could happen, because it did, and this is not the first time it has been hit either. And I would wager that there almost as many "why it happened's" as there have been incidents. I have enough screw ups (which are largely the basis for any claim to being experienced I may have) to understand the effects of ADD, dyslexia, fatigue, improper (or lack of) command to crew and simple neglect, all of which I have managed to bring into play at one time or another. And I don't regard a single one of them as an excuse for my errors. There's a difference in my lexicon as to what constitutes an "excuse", and that being different from a "reason".

So maybe we just have a semantical argument here and not a substantive one. Believe me I still replay various faux pas of ours from 7 years ago and more over and over to better understand more so than to flail myself with guilt.



At those scales you are going to run into a whole bunch of other things... channel markers, lighthouses, etc if you are using them for navigation.

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Semantics it is I reckon!!!...

psneeld said:

I think if you had extensive training like Baker and a few others have had in human factors and accidents...you might think a bit differently.

When I was leaving USCG safety....the military was about to condemn the word accident as it was archaic in situation where injury, loss or damage was unacceptable.

Zero accidents is the goal, probably not attainable, but the recent study of human factors in "accidents" over the last 30 years has made great advances in reducing them.

A great example was (at least in the early years) was vector charts. Cheap, easy to use...but the downside was zooming out and losing important detail. Without a mechanism to overcome that, a helmsman might miss something that had been on paper nautical charts for decades. Training, awareness, double checking, secondary automation, etc are all tools to help.

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Wifey B: Did you ever see where I said training doesn't help and accidents can't be reduced? I don't think so. I said you'd still have some regardless. I also said, having paper charts wasn't going to eliminate them. There is human error. Pilots are well trained. Yet, we still see pilot error. Professional mariners still screw up. Always will. My hubby is big on zero lost days in business. Then somebody does something just insanely stupid. The lady who insists on a warning sign to watch your head when taking the steps over the converyor then hits her head crossing the next day after the sign is put up. They put dual hand controls on fabric pressing equipment so you had to have both hands on it to operate it and couldn't get burned. They didn't anticipate someone somehow hoisting themselves to sit on the open press and burning their backside bad. Had this boat operator been better trained and more experienced, it probably wouldn't have happened but whether the chart was paper or plastic or electronic wasn't going to prevent the possibility.

And my favorite injury I saw not long ago on one of our store reports. "Injured shutting drawer to cabinet. Injured left breast." Fortunately no lost time.

I appreciate safety training and emphasis. I just thought we were getting a bit far fetched in paper vs. electronic and vector vs raster as having anything to do with this specific accident. The operator just screwed up.

In other situations the chart quality could well be a factor. I see people using microscopically mini little screens sometimes and I see people with 40 year old charts. I heard a captain tell a boater one day, not all that politely and in language I'm far too much of a lady to use (well, not really but can't here), "Those %%! charts belong either in the trash or hanging on a wall as an antique. You see that bridge (he pointed in the distance)? Of course you don't see the ^&@ bridge, it wasn't built until 20 years after this chart. This inlet showing 12' is shoaled halfway across and doesn't have more than 6' even in what's left of the channel." It's also one thing to use your cell phone for your gps, but I heard about someone using their smartphone (not even a tablet or laptop) for their navigation software. I would like to say I didn't believe it, but I do. I've seen stoopid.

I believe in training, that's why I've gotten what I have, and equipment, we have it all. But none of it makes a mistake impossible.

Baker said:

Just add fatigue and night time and you have a good start on this one.

I have an acquaintance that landed an airplane and when he cleared the runway, he (purposely) ran right off into the grass/mud. Why in the hell would he do that??? Because it was night time and all of the lights lined up to look like a taxiway. His brain played a trick on him. Add in some fatigue...some time compression...and poor lighting combined with poor visibility and you have your recipe.

.

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Wifey B: And how often do we see skilled, trained, professional pilots land at the wrong airport?

psneeld said:

Practice and verification through AIS, RADAR, chartplotter, etc does sharpen those skills.

I have been doing it most of my adult life and people are amazed at my interpretation of distances and use of peripheral vision skills. Even night vision is enhanced by search skills over plain old retina rods and cones explanation.

Often my "seeing" things long before others is because I have experience in extrapolating the shadowing or loss of light from distant light sources that places objects in a field my field of view that are yet unseen.

People who have done this kind of operations at night are probably familiar with the basics...it only gets you stares of disbelief from others not a quainted with it....

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You are talking about the difference between sight, and vision.

Sight is explained by the interplay of biology/chemestry/physics and is pretty simple. Vision is the process of gaining and interpreting information from sight. Much more complex and is something that is learned. Your sight is likely no better than others as you indicated. Your vision and perception is much better based on your experience.

Even after 50 years of experience on the water, I am really bad at judging distance on the water. I can judge relative motion, rates of approach, course drift etc... pretty well. However, if you ask me how far away a boat or point of land is in nm, I will have absolutely no idea.

cardude01 said:

Do yall think he hit the levee (or whatever it was) because he was relying only on electronic charts? Would paper charts have made a difference?

I don't have any paper charts to speak of, so that's why I'm wondering. If I have a question with something on my elec Garmin chart I'm usually able to get more info using Active Captain, but if I had to pull out a paper chart I would be pretty lost I think.

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I have and use paper charts as a backup and adjunct to my Raymarine plotter. Having said that, I don't think that in most cases the use of a paper chart would have helped UNLESS he was zoomed so far out on an electronic chart that he lost the detail.

On the sea trial for my current boat, Trevor Brice showed me how he likes to setup his chart plotter. He uses a vertical split screen, with the left hand side being zoomed and the right hand side giving a larger overview. I have the same plotter on my sailboat and never thought of doing that. It makes a huge different is how easy it is to not only see the detail but to simultaneously see the bigger picture without messing around with the zoom. I do this now routinely even though I have two displays. My second display is generally used for camera, track, depth, radar, weather etc... depending on the situation.

I wonder why this was not included in the charts to indicate the obstruction

That is the chart standard for rocks,covered and uncovered.If this was between the dotted lines,it might have been more apparent what it was.

Good discussion. I generally agree that bad things cqn happen to sharp, well prepared people. We are human.

I don't have any paper charts. All electronic. I study areas I am not familiar with in advance, but try to use a few different sources.

If the satellites go down, we have bigger issues to deal with.

Lastly, I don't think there are many people around these days who can take fixes, and dead reckon on a paper chart. And if there is fog, or night, then it doesn't matter how skilled a navigator someone is with the old tools.

After reading a fair bit if this argument it's pretty clear that there was a chain of mistakes made by that boat pilot and some of the folks here who haven't had military or aviation training call it an accident whereas those who have see the chain of events that led to an unfortunate ending (ie: an accident)...Having had the benefit of both as a layman (civil aviation, gov't employee, all around journeyman) I can see both sides and I'm glad the owners have been honest a felt that the event was likely avoidable in the right circumstances..

Ch

man n black said:

After reading a fair bit if this argument it's pretty clear that there was a chain of mistakes made by that boat pilot and some of the folks here who haven't had military or aviation training call it an accident whereas those who have see the chain of events that led to an unfortunate ending (ie: an accident)...Having had the benefit of both as a layman (civil aviation, gov't employee, all around journeyman) I can see both sides and I'm glad the owners have been honest a felt that the event was likely avoidable in the right circumstances..

Ch

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Did I miss a link or a tidbit that explained the sequence of events leading up to the grounding?

Is there a good source to read it someplace?

I just scanned back through all the posts and didn't see anything that suggested a chain of events that led to the accident.

When Twisted posted about the blog, I went to it but couldn't find any real info of the day of the accident.

cardude01 said:

Do yall think he hit the levee (or whatever it was) because he was relying only on electronic charts? Would paper charts have made a difference?

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Maybe, but an early question might be whether he was using vector or raster charts. If vector, next question might be about whether the dike is there at all... and then follow on questions might be about zoom levels.

psneeld said:

Please correct me if I am wrong as I rarely use vector charts seriously...

But isn't that the issue beep ween the 2 types of charts for the most part?

And maybe if raster charts were used and not vector, maybe the dike would have been more apparent.

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The dike is dead obvious on our raster charts.

Capt.Bill11 said:

Yes the detail issue at different zoom levels still exists.

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In this case, and on our raster charts, the dike is easily noticeable at all zoom scales that are useful on our size monitor and obviously something worth checking more closely. The labeling isn't legible when we're zoomed out enough to see from south end of dike to the C&D inlet...

-Chris

This the area we are discussing, yes?

Over view

Zoomed in detail of the markers to get you behind the dike and island.

ranger42c said:

Maybe, but an early question might be whether he was using vector or raster charts. If vector, next question might be about whether the dike is there at all... and then follow on questions might be about zoom levels.




The dike is dead obvious on our raster charts.




In this case, and on our raster charts, the dike is easily noticeable at all zoom scales that are useful on our size monitor and obviously something worth checking more closely. The labeling isn't legible when we're zoomed out enough to see from south end of dike to the C&D inlet...

-Chris

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Please see post #91 regarding raster, vector, paper charts for the area. It's simply a non-issue in this case.

Zoomed in detail of the markers marking the dike itself and the area near the dike.

I am guessing...the short paragraph from the owner just said "south of Reedy Island" I think....


I am assuming it wasn't an issue with Raster versus Vector....but who knows what chart he was using, what brand, what year...etc...etc...


Cant imagine that boat was using ancient plotters and charts....


soooooo......this is a good mystery till more info comes out.

psneeld said:

Did I miss a link or a tidbit that explained the sequence of events leading up to the grounding?

Is there a good source to read it someplace?

I just scanned back through all the posts and didn't see anything that suggested a chain of events that led to the accident.

When Twisted posted about the blog, I went to it but couldn't find any real info of the day of the accident.

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Right. The last entry in the blog reads something like "we turned to head to our anchorage, then things deteriorated very rapidly". That is consistent with the spot tracking (sounds like it's not visible any more), where the tracking ended, and the location of the dyke. And Rick (the boat owner) has publicly said that they hit a submerged jetty, and that after 16hrs trying, they lost the boat.

Weird...I had posted the other day about a 40 something Silverton motoryacht that left the marina and sank within 10 miles down the beach.


It was a blustery day with I am sure a nasty short chop...somehow they plunged the bow into enough waves to rip the duckbill like bowsprit away from the hull and take on enough water to sink.


So despite the usual boating safety reports that say how few large recreational boats actually sink, here are 2 back to back in my backyard, very close in time.


Both sort of freakish....the Nordhavn grounding wasn't but the ultimate sinking by wakes was...


Weird.

psneeld said:

Weird...I had posted the other day about a 40 something Silverton motoryacht that left the marina and sank within 10 miles down the beach.


It was a blustery day with I am sure a nasty short chop...somehow they plunged the bow into enough waves to rip the duckbill like bowsprit away from the hull and take on enough water to sink.


So despite the usual boating safety reports that say how few large recreational boats actually sink, here are 2 back to back in my backyard, very close in time.


Both sort of freakish....the Nordhavn grounding wasn't but the ultimate sinking by wakes was...


Weird.

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The Silverton one seems odd but the Nordhavn one doesnt.

If the boat was holed and had water ingress when it was on the rocks and the first set of "tanker waves" dislodged it from the jetty.. and the boat drifted off the jetty.. then a second set of waves swamped the boat from the stern.. and the doors and hatches were open the boat could easily roll enough to take massive water on instantly and go down like a brick.

As far as the operator making the error in the first place.. sometimes a set of MINOR mistakes ends in major consequences. I have a very close personal friend that slammed into a buoy that is big as a bus in broad daylight.. and he knew it was there. They were going 9kts at the time, phone rang below decks, boat was on auto pilot, he took bearings.. figured they had it cleared by a long shot.. and went below to check his phone.. figuring his first mate heard the phone and would spot him on deck. He checked the phone, then figured he had time for a quick head call and was mid stream when his boat center punched a massive yellow steel buoy at 9kts. The damage to the boat was significant... his pride catastrophic for a time.

This was two people that are by far the most seasoned offshore cruisers and sailing racers I know ( and I have a bunch of friends that have at least circumnavigated)

In the above case it was the Ebb tide that was the real culprit that caused the biggest percentage of the problem.. it can happen to ANYBODY, ANYTIME, ANYWHERE. In flying circles it is the rule of threes that causes most incidents.. take any one out of the sequence and the incedent would not occur.

I may stand alone here as one not to vilify the Nordy skipper for his action, he has had enough bad recently.. he doesn't need a bunch of armchair captains ripping him a new one for his mistake.

All that being said my bud who center punched the buoy got epic amounts of ribbing until the day he witnessed me hit a submerged rock as I did a flyby off his stern. In the dawn hours I departed an anchorage we were sharing at the time.. it was very early.. I didn't wake the family.. pulled the anchor and didn't have the plotter spooled up yet and didn't see the stick marking the rocks.

His comment on the vhf after my indecent was " now were even.. we will never speak of our transgressions again".

The Admiral has not been as kind.

HOLLYWOOD

psneeld said:

So despite the usual boating safety reports that say how few large recreational boats actually sink, here are 2 back to back in my backyard, very close in time.


Both sort of freakish.


Weird.

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Wifey B: Whooooaaa.....now we have a common component for the investigation. Psneeld....or rather, his backyard.

hollywood8118 said:

I may stand alone here as one not to vilify the Nordy skipper for his action, he has had enough bad recently.. he doesn't need a bunch of armchair captains ripping him a new one for his mistake.


HOLLYWOOD

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You don't stand alone. I feel the same way. And we really don't even know anything other than he admits to the incident and infers a mistake. I would like to hear what happened though. Hopefully he will speak up. ANd he just might not. There may be legal or insurance issues involved. Who knows at this point.....

Let's head a different direction for a reason for the sinking.
Until you experience fatigue at the helm for yourself, you cannot appreciate or explain very well to others the effects the condition has on your senses. But after you suffer fatigue at the helm and live to tell about it you garner empathy for those not as lucky.
We were 10 hours from our home dock at 5 pm when the weather forecast drastically changed to 40 knots of wind for the next morning. My wife wanted to get home so we left. The route home was one that we have taken over 25 times. And, thank God, I had established routes on my chart plotter for the journey. When we rounded the last turn off the ICW into wide open Charlotte Harbor everything I was seeing was digital. The horizon was make up of little square blocks of light. I was completely disoriented as to seeing anything familiar, except my established route. So I let the Chart Plotter tell the autopilot how to get home and we did. But until you experience fatigue at the helm you will not understand the catastrophic consequences you are just one move away from making.
Moral of the story. Never continue traveling when you think you are tired. If you know you are tired it is already too late.

Baker said:

You don't stand alone. I feel the same way. And we really don't even know anything other than he admits to the incident and infers a mistake. I would like to hear what happened though. Hopefully he will speak up. ANd he just might not. There may be legal or insurance issues involved. Who knows at this point.....

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Kinda feels like we are all rubber neckin an accident on the opposite side of the freeway.

This is an excellent post below, been in that situation a number of times, sometimes its unavoidable like a multi-day fishing tournament. My closes mistake came when I was complacent and thought I knew the area well (even though I was only through there once before) and almost ran up on a submerged rock outcrop, thankfully a fisherman waved me down and the clear water made it stand out, but later in the evening I would have wrecked the boat, very lucky and valuable lesson.

Pgitug said:

Let's head a different direction for a reason for the sinking.
Until you experience fatigue at the helm for yourself, you cannot appreciate or explain very well to others the effects the condition has on your senses. But after you suffer fatigue at the helm and live to tell about it you garner empathy for those not as lucky.
We were 10 hours from our home dock at 5 pm when the weather forecast drastically changed to 40 knots of wind for the next morning. My wife wanted to get home so we left. The route home was one that we have taken over 25 times. And, thank God, I had established routes on my chart plotter for the journey. When we rounded the last turn off the ICW into wide open Charlotte Harbor everything I was seeing was digital. The horizon was make up of little square blocks of light. I was completely disoriented as to seeing anything familiar, except my established route. So I let the Chart Plotter tell the autopilot how to get home and we did. But until you experience fatigue at the helm you will not understand the catastrophic consequences you are just one move away from making.
Moral of the story. Never continue traveling when you think you are tired. If you know you are tired it is already too late.

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While I am well versed in fatigued operations...and fatigue is insidious...


not sure this would be a fatigue related incident...could be...but doesn't sound like it.....


from the blog, the owner slept in late, drove a very easy 12 miles to the dike entrance from mid to late afternoon.


it will be interesting to learn of the contributing factors.

I just recently had a fatigue near incident. I got home from a trip at almost midnight. Lil mama was on the boat and could not get rid of the boat neighbors. So basically I had been flying since 8 that morning and coming home to a party on my boat at near midnight. I was irritated to say the least. Irritated enough that it affected my sleep that night. We were departing for galveston in the morning. I got about 5 hours sleep compounded on top of being gone for 4 days on a grueling trip. So off we went to Galveston. I knew that there was very little fuel in the main tanks and that I would have to switch tanks somewhere along the way before we get there. Well, we get there. Have a nice afternoon and night and I am cooking breakfast the next morning and the generator dies!!!!! I knew immediately why!!!! I had forgot to switch tanks on the way down and had run a tank dry.

Why is this an issue. I run in the ICW for the last stretch of that trip. It is narrow. And loaded with barges. I probably passed 5 barges in that 5 mile stretch. I run at 17 knots. Imagine the engine closest to the barge quits due to fuel starvation and the boat turns into the barge!!!....no really an impossible scenario. I can only hope I could figure out what was going on and gather up the boat before impact....or worse, a perfectly timed involuntary turn just ahead of the barge and end up in FRONT OF IT!!! Anyway, I do not know how controllable my boat is with one engine at cruise speed and the other, dead.

Anyway, this all went thru my head after the generator very harmlessly quit. And it was directly fatigue related. I was whooped at the beginning.

Pgitug said:

We were 10 hours from our home dock at 5 pm when the weather forecast drastically changed to 40 knots of wind for the next morning. My wife wanted to get home so we left.

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In my opinion, that was your biggest mistake. Not criticizing....it was just that all of it was totally avoidable had you not chosen to go...especially knowing the weather was gonna be snotty.

I had a similar incident where we chose to "stick our nose out" knowing that the weather was bad. It was upper 30s gusting into the 50s but straight on the nose. The idea being if it was too bad, we would turn around. Well the weather was so bad that when we decided to turn around, we broached and the boat almost capsized(Prairie 29...very top heavy). So at that point, turning around was no longer an option. We had to head back up into the weather and continue somewhat involuntarily. Going downwind in 3-4 foot extremely short steep seas was not possible. The only safe "point of sail" was directly into it...which is where our destination was. SO even "seemingly sound" judgement was not sound in this case.