Bar Crossing - Rescue

[Leo Reise]

IMO, the biggest failure of boaters is to recognize their limitations. The second biggest failure is to operate to a schedule. If one has to think about whether to go or not, reef or not, turnaround or not, it is generally too late.

 

[psneeld]

Wow...big difference in hogging and sagging ships and riding a sea anchor in 12 footers in a 50 something footer.


Sure both techniques are applicable...but not all the time and certainly not every vessel.


John...gotta tell you...have seen many a pleasure and small fishing boat lie directly ahull in beam seas where they are being blown downwind. I don't think I have ever seen the effect mitigate the waves.



Sure a huge ship creates a lee in waves up to a certain size....only makes sense that a 1100 foot ship, 60 feet deep is going to act like a breakwater in up tp 20 something waves....beyond that or steeper...doubt you will see many lie ahull.


Directly into breakers or at an angle is again going to be dependent on steepness, overall size compared to the vessel etc...etc.. also powering into waves is different than laying to a chute.


In this case, 10-15 foot waves...laying to a chute may have been the trick as it really wasn't survival tactics and may have allowed rest/recuperation of the crew...but alas we may never know near enough facts.

 

[Baker]

John...gotta tell you...have seen many a pleasure and small fishing boat lie directly ahull in beam seas where they are being blown downwind. I don't think I have ever seen the effect mitigate the waves.



In this case, 10-15 foot waves...laying to a chute may have been the trick as it really wasn't survival tactics and may have allowed rest/recuperation of the crew...but alas we may never know near enough facts.

I absolutely positively said nothing about lying directly ahull. That is about the worst thing to do. Lying ahull is synonmous with giving up and leaving the boat to fend for itself.

And I will agree with your last assessment....although lying to a chute at an angle.

And you are misunderstanding me. We are not talking about a lee BEHIND the ship. We are talking about a slick on the weather side of the ship. A vessel that is properly hove to will be making leeway only....and this creates a protective slick on the WEATHER side of the boat.

 

[psneeld]

I absolutely positively said nothing about lying directly ahull. That is about the worst thing to do. Lying ahull is synonmous with giving up and leaving the boat to fend for itself.

And I will agree with your last assessment....although lying to a chute at an angle.

I used ahull in my example as that would provide the maximum profile for a slick and also probably make the boat blow the fastest downwind.


I understand the concept of angling vessels over wave for various reasons...just not sure that lying on a sea anchor is one of them except when dead on the bow wasn't working either.



It would take some interesting conditions to angle a vessel so that it presented enough beam to the seas yet blow straight enough downwind that the combo of slick and sea anchor would effectively reduce the waves.

 

[Baker]

It would take some interesting conditions to angle a vessel so that it presented enough beam to the seas yet blow straight enough downwind that the combo of slick and sea anchor would effectively reduce the waves.

It would not take "interesting conditions"....only a seasoned prepared captain....

 

[angus99]

It will be interesting to find out is there were any underlying issues, the coast guard video of the rescue shows the boat had a list for some reason.
Also look at the pic of the boat on the beach it appears to be a boat that needed basic maintenance.

It's not a good idea be headed down the coast at this time of year unless the boat was pretty much perfect. The boat appears to have a dirty bottom, barnacle buildup on the shaft that can be seen and just appears to be a bit run down. As the couple found out that coast can be totally unforgiving.. especially in winter. Just the dirty bottom, props and shafts may have cost them a knot or two and put them off on their arrival time and into changing weather and tides. But.. if they were accepting of the conditions of the running gear they may have neglected common maintenance in the E.R. also.

I am definitely hypothesizing and I may be totally off base and the boat could be a goldplater in the engine room, time will tell.

On a side note, I have such deep respect for the West Coast , especially in winter that the week before last I turned down the delivery of a brand new fast power cat from the PNW to Ensenada. A respected skipper did the trip and made it from Bellingham to Ventura in 2.5 days with two enroute fuel stops!. He planned right and had flat water for the entire trip. As much as I love those trips.. my respect for that coast and being pushed up against a trip to Florida where I am now made it a easy trip to turn down.
HOLLYWOOD

Thanks for posting this; I was wondering if Island Fever was stabilized. (Apparently, she’s not.). A DF44 is very close to a full-displacement hull and without stabilizers can be rolly in moderate conditions. If this boat was stabilized, it might not have made much difference in a bar-crossing attempt, but might have allowed them to stay offshore more comfortably until conditions at the bar improved—assuming they still had propulsion. I’m also curious about the list to port. If they started out trimmed that way due to fuel/water imbalance that would be revealing.

I suspect they’d had more than enough and the forecast for deteriorating—not improving—conditions broke the camel’s back. But, with all respect, none of us know what we’re talking about in regard to their decision-making at this point, myself included.

 

[ghost]

Is it just me, or could that boat look a lot worse for what she just went through?

 

[rgano]

The fact that there is no obvious hull breach or ripped of canvas can be very deceiving. Lord knows what is going on with the port side running gear - it may be mangled and pushed through the hull when the boat landed on it, or not. It will be interesting to know how or if salvage will be possible. For instance is there access to the beach for a crane, or will it be possible to drag it back into the water via a dug channel in the sand?

 

[rslifkin]

There's most likely some kind of running gear damage on the port side. But from what I can tell in the small picture, that rudder is still in place and mostly at the correct angle.

For the most part, it looks like the thing was placed on the beach rather gracefully, all things considered.

 

[rgano]

There's most likely some kind of running gear damage on the port side. But from what I can tell in the small picture, that rudder is still in place and mostly at the correct angle.

For the most part, it looks like the thing was placed on the beach rather gracefully, all things considered.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that boat didn't get there "gracefully."

 

[Benthic2]

Psneeld: would the USCG ever evacuate the people and put a Coastie on board to drive the boat in ??

 

[psneeld]

Not sure if they would do both.

Yes Coasties have gone aboard to assist.

I volunteered many a time, just never worked out.

Remember a case in the middle of the Pacific where the USCG flew a SEAL team out with a medical kit to save a sailor and sail his boat to safety.

 

[Shrew]

Springing the anchor to a 45 degree angle is to INCREASE comfort. The idea being that the "slick" or "wake" of the boat to the WEATHER side of the boat produces a shadow where waves flatten and do not break. Large ships do this much like a sailboat....except they use rudder and a little steam. Just the right amount of rudder and throttle and the boat holds at an angle to the weather. The boat is still moving through the water due to leeway. And the subsequent "wake" smooths the water to weather. Have you ever followed someone close astern because they are breaking the weather/waves ahead....same deal here. The deeper the keel, the more the effect. Obviously a planing boat would not benefit much as it is mostly a flat bottom. But I boat like a Nordhavn with a deep keel, it will help. Google "heaving to" and read about it. It is a common storm tactic....granted, mostly used by sailboats. But it is 95% sailboats out the cruising the oceans.

There is no parallel between a sailboat heaving-to and a powerboat. When the sailboat heaves-to, the sail is backwinded and is balanced with the keel. The sailboat does not roll as a result. It simply rises and falls gently with the waves.

A powerboat, beam to, will roll mercilessly. The further from 0 degrees and the closer to 90 degrees the less the roll. However, as I was mentioning, at 90 degrees (bow into the waves), you risk stuffing the bow with a sea anchor, which is now decreasing safety.

Hence the balance between comfort and safety. At 45 degrees, the roll is less, the risk of capsize reduced, and the risk of stuffing the bow also reduced. The compromise is that there is SOME roll involved.

 

[Alaskan Sea-Duction]

So any updates on the reason of getting the boat off the beach?

 

[Baker]

There is no parallel between a sailboat heaving-to and a powerboat.

There is if there is a sea anchor/drogue involved.

 

[slowgoesit]

So any updates on the reason of getting the boat off the beach?

Facebook has some video of the boat with the tide in, getting bashed around, first on one side, then pivoting over the keel to the other side and back again, also turned around some by the wind/waves. Boat will probably have some major damage from battering around before they end up salvaging it. 2nd video shows them using a clamshell digger to dig around the boat to put it on an even keep in an attempt to get it onto a lowboy . . . No mention of how they actually want to PUT it on the lowboy. No crane in evidence, so how they get it on will probably do the rest of the damage, but at least it will be off the beach . . . sad

 

[angus99]

Well, they got it off the beach. Less visible damage than I might have expected but it will be interesting to see what they attribute to the grounding vs the removal. Totally arm-chair quarterbacking here, but the removal crew seems challenged by this job.

https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...0156918874285887&source=48&refid=13&__tn__=+=

 

[psneeld]

Hard to say....large boat removal from the beach is tricky as I have worked a few and for a company that did quite a few. Both by land and sea.


I know after a shoreline repair company watched one of their million dollar excavators slowly sink into the sand to the top of the exhaust stack for over a year before they got her out.....many of the beach working companies became very cautious.


A salvage like above would probably cost more than the boat was worth so totaling it in removal would certainly be an option.

 

[angus99]

Hard to say....

A salvage like above would probably cost more than the boat was worth so totaling it in removal would certainly be an option.

Yeah, you may be right. Seems like much will depend on things like water intrusion—damage to wiring and whether the engines were submerged—also bent running gear. Hope we learn the extent of the damage..

 

[OldDan1943]

Remain calm if at all possible because your dog will sense your fear and react. I wonder how the dog reacted to the hoist ride.

 

[FoxtrotCharlie]

Very painful to see large excavator buckets handling a DeFever 44

 

[OldDan1943]

First call .... to the insurance company. They may want to send a representative out to take pictures and interview the owner, his wife, his dog and the USCG.
Then, they will say, "Your coverage did not include beaching the boat."

 

[psneeld]

Yeah, you may be right. Seems like much will depend on things like water intrusion—damage to wiring and whether the engines were submerged—also bent running gear. Hope we learn the extent of the damage..

It may be possible that the salvage has already exceeded the value of the boat.... so no matter what the damage to the boat ... payment and the boat are already in the salvage companies pocket.

 

[angus99]

Very painful to see large excavator buckets handling a DeFever 44

 

[angus99]

Island Dream RIP

After enlarging one of the photos, I was able to pick out the name of the trucking company that hauled Island Dream away: Cunningham. The Yellow Pages found Cunningham Logging and Excavating in Astoria and, sure enough, their son had the contract to haul it.

Sadly, he said the hull had been compromised by surf pounding and she has been or soon will be scrapped. He had no other details about the damage but is meeting with the salvage company manager today and promised to give him my number. I’ll report what I learn.

 

[oscar]

When the sailboat heaves-to, the sail is backwinded and is balanced with the keel. The sailboat does not roll as a result. It simply rises and falls gently with the waves.

More specifically the HEAD sail is back winded, the MAIN sail is in tight on the correct side. The rudder is full to windward. The main with the help of the rudder wants to luff the boat, the headsail is stopping that. The keel works to slow the drift.

Those of you that ever learned to sail will remember not being able to come about due to lack of speed and/or improper timing of bringing the headsail across and may remember the term "being in irons". (The solution was to back wind the head sail, fall off, bring the headsail back to the leeward side, build speed, head up and try again.)

Hove-to is setting the boat up to be in irons and staying in irons.

The effect is very considerable. I used it several times not because the weather was exceeding our ability, but just to stop the motion and progress and tend to a situation.... like a puking child or the fridge door opening and the eggs flying through the cabin..... Like I said the calming is considerable

Used to call it the "freeze button".

I can't comment on how effective the drifting of a power boat with bow just off the wave direction is, as I have never tried it yet. Intuitively I'm gonna say it would bring considerable relief compared to beam and aft seas or pounding into a sea. With enough sea room it could be a very useful technique if waiting in place, more or less, is desired, or temporary relative calm is needed to tend to other matters.