Lagoon 450 (Next Life) damaged in the Exuma, The Bahamas

[Fearnow]

It's a shame they couldn't get the air bags under it first. Or was that not an option? I'm a diver and know exactly what you mean about the reef.

[Fearnow]

Originally Posted by neilpride

I think i posted this before, a Light catamaran grounding in a reef can end far away in the midle of the reef due light weight and shallow draft making salvage a epic task , a monohull due draft have a better chance to be close to deep water , i see this before, a FP in Le Marin 300 meters away from deep water in the midle of the reef, waves send the cata to the midle, a monohull can be in their own side resting or at least moving slowy to the midle in the reef... So i guess a Nauticat in the same conditions as Next Life encounter will be floating again, big gas engine pumps can copy with a side holed boat but no way with a Catamaran without hull bottoms... just my opinion.

I assume you're talking Martinique? I would like to see the op and info about the reef.

[perchance]

Originally Posted by minaret

It's right there in the photo for everyone to see.

How much of that is actual glass and how much is core material?

[monte]

Sorry to see your misfortune Rolf. What are your plans? I hope insurance came through without leaving too much deficit. Are you off to Les Sables soon to pick up a replacement?

[Zanshin]

A similar incident happened late 2012 in the BVI, a brand-new Lagoon 450 was on the rocks at Sandy Spit. The waves kept on pounding the cat further onto the reef but the actual, horrible, damage happened during the salvage phase, there no way to crane the boat up and out, so it needed to be dragged. I posted some pictures of the underbody here. While the hull is by no means paper-thin, it isn't overbuilt by any means. A nauticat in that situation on that reef would undoubtedly have also ended up being a total-writeoff.

[neilpride]

Originally Posted by Fearnow

I assume you're talking Martinique? I would like to see the op and info about the reef.

Third green Light starboard side in the way out from the marina , a red light port side showing a isolate reef spot, me at the anchorage wachting the sunset, blowing 25 steady and squally at times , a FP leaving the inner harbour at full speed , choppy conditions at the inner harbour, he miss the Green light, Dam!!! Big crash sending a young girl catapulted to the water , she is in the trampolin, at this time the crew is in shock, i got my dingy in deck and after 15 minutes of wachting with the binocs i dont see any dingy around , no help, could be because from the distance the cata looks like its at anchor, but in the wrong way, i pull my dingy in the water and run to the spot to help , to shallow for the outboard prop , so i rise the engine and padle to the boat, later i take the skyper to the marina and found the charter company office closed , i ask the Skyper if he want a tow boat or more help to try to free the cata before the night, he say no, better to wait until morning and call the ofice , ok, next morning the boat is about 300 meters away from the green light in half foot of water , result: rudders gone, keels severe damaged and a saildrive toasted.

[Captain Bill]

I have just read this entire thread. I am in Georgetown, Exuma and just the other night went to a talk by Fabian Cousteau (the grandson of Jacques) with regards to grounding. I find it interesting that this thread has degenerated into a debate about the relative strength of the lagoon hull. The long and short of it was despite the opinions stated here, the Lagoon vs reef contest was decidedly won by the Lagoon. Despite the fact that the Lagoon will never fight again a very large section of the reef was pounded into oblivion by the lagoons hull. I dove this very beautiful and vibrant reef last year, now all that is left is bare rock over a very large area. I guess the owner can be thankful he did this in the Bahamas, because if he had done this in the keys his great great great grandchildren would still be paying the fine.

By the way, I have a older Ray marine chartplotter that uses C-map NT cards with Explorer data. Chartplotter data should not be confused with Electronic charts. Electronic charts are what you get from the(a) government and contain all the pertinant data. They are often quite large and must be displayed on an actual computer/nav system that can display all of the data. Chartplotter data has to be edited to fit in whatever memory chip the manufacturer chose to use when they built the chartplotter. I use electronic charts when I believe I can depend on the source and render them on a computer. I know that the charts in my chartplotter have only a subset of the actual data available on the paper/electronic charts. I use the chartplotter for steering and the true complete electronic charts for navigating. When I cannot depend on the source data or when an electronic government issued chart is not available, such as in the Bahamas, I get the best paper charts I can and use them in conjunction with the chartplotter charts to make my best estimates and the old eyeballs to confirm what the charts are telling me. If there's a disagreement I proceed cautiously or stop while I figure out what's going on. In the Bahamas I have the Explorer cmap charts in my chartplotter and the Explorer chartbooks in my hand.

I happened to have an acquaintance anchored near me yesterday who has a new Raymarine chartplotter that uses the Navionics charts. His chartplotter definitely showed a route between Guana and Fowl Cays. His cartridge was about 1 year old. If we are to take claims here are face value it would seem that the errors were introduced into this product sometime between 2006 and 2012.

I'm definitely sorry he hit the reef and very happy that no one was injured, but he will be back up and operating a new boat within a year, where as the reef will not. The Elizabeth Harbor Conservation Partnership, www.ehmegmt.com, is currently soliciting funds to attempt to restore the reef. They are have already salvaged a large amount of live broken coral fragments from the damaged area and are attempting to propagate the coral for replanting. It is their hope that their effort will reduce the recovery time from 50 to 100 years to 10 to 20.

[Group9]

Sooner or later, because of incidents like this, the Bahamas probably will start fining people like they do in the Keys.

On my last sail to the Bahamas, all the way down the Exumas from Miami,and back, with a five foot draft, I never touched bottom once. And, I'm sure not any kind of super navigator. Just cautious and careful. In fact, in all my boating trips to the Bahamas, I have only run aground once, about ten feet off the Bimini Big Game Club pier, when pulling away from the dock, in 1987.

We will get rules, dictated by our behavior, as well as the behavior of others.

[donradcliffe]

Originally Posted by Captain Bill

I have just read this entire thread. I am in Georgetown, Exuma and just the other night went to a talk by Fabian Cousteau (the grandson of Jacques) with regards to grounding. I find it interesting that this thread has degenerated into a debate about the relative strength of the lagoon hull. The long and short of it was despite the opinions stated here, the Lagoon vs reef contest was decidedly won by the Lagoon. Despite the fact that the Lagoon will never fight again a very large section of the reef was pounded into oblivion by the lagoons hull. I dove this very beautiful and vibrant reef last year, now all that is left is bare rock over a very large area. I guess the owner can be thankful he did this in the Bahamas, because if he had done this in the keys his great great great grandchildren would still be paying the fine.

What a load of crap! Just how big is that reef and how big was his boat??

After 20 years of snorkeling on reefs, my observations of what kills coral reefs are bleaching, storms,pollution, anchors, and groundings--a scientific study would probably assign the following weights to the damage caused by each source:

Bleaching---1000
Storms------100
Pollution-----100
Anchors------0.1
Grounding----0.0001

The very small patch of reef that the cat hit will regenerate just fine without help from the eco-terrorists.

[smj]

Captain Bill I completely agree with you. The damage to the coral wasn't something I thought of and is most definetly more of a travesty than the damage done to the boat. I'm sure the boat was insured and will be replaced, but the coral? Your also absolutely correct, if this had taken place in the Keys the owner would have been in serious debt due to the coral damage.

[s/v Jedi]

I think all the readers of this thread should file a claim with the insurance company of Next Life. I mean, we have had planted horrible images of loss of life and boats and now killed reefs into our minds, leading to sleepless nights and lifelong damaged souls.

[Captain Bill]

Originally Posted by donradcliffe

The very small patch of reef that the cat hit will regenerate just fine without help from the eco-terrorists.

Now people who are trying to restore a damaged coral reef are terrorists and here all this time I thought they were naive do-gooders, but terrorists? People with your point of view are so lucky compared to the rest of us. Think of how much money you'll save on colonoscopies just by keeping your eyes open.

[malbert73]

Originally Posted by donradcliffe

What a load of crap! Just how big is that reef and how big was his boat??

After 20 years of snorkeling on reefs, my observations of what kills coral reefs are bleaching, storms,pollution, anchors, and groundings--a scientific study would probably assign the following weights to the damage caused by each source:

Bleaching---1000
Storms------100
Pollution-----100
Anchors------0.1
Grounding----0.0001

The very small patch of reef that the cat hit will regenerate just fine without help from the eco-terrorists.

Really? Nice low impact attitude. I am not sure the other power boaters on the forum will want to be lumped in with you.

[dougdaniel]

Originally Posted by roetter

Please only speak if you know what you are talking about. I know exactly what I am doing and know how to read charts. I was not the person you are talking about in your message. I have done almost 20,000 Nm cruising, including doing the inside passage to Alaska, Bay of Biscay, all of the Med, crossing the Atlantic and Pacific, cruising almost all islands of the Caribbean. It have done about 100 sailing races in difficult navigation areas with plenty of rocky islands and passes with currents flowing up to 10 knots. I wonder what you have to your credit to speak in such a way about me?

The Navionics charts clearly indicate that this is "Centreline of recommended route". See pictures,

We ran aground at a position that shows 9 feet of water. We draw 4 feet. We has checked the Navionics charts two days before against the full length inside of the reef of Mayaguana Cay Abrahams Town. We found every sandbar and coral head in place and all the deep spots too. We found an offset of about 60 feet to the GPS location a,thing easily corrected for by eyeball when near shore lines. We did this very carefully when the sun was high. We felt we can trust the charts in this situation. Two cays nearby that confirm your position is correct. We aim for the middle with a slight offset to starboard between the two cays.

Another couple we met in the morning had independently plotted the same course using the same material. They later said that they would have run aground had we not passed them. I tried to get the Explorer Charts in the USVI but could not find them in the chandlery.

We sailed into the sun. Not a good thing to do. There were no breaking waves at that time. There was no reason to go slow with that much water reported and dead on a recommeneds route.

I am not saying I did everything right, but I am not an idiot either.

You have my sympathy, not just for hitting the uncharted reef, but for enduring the insensitive comments from the insecure sailors. As I was reading through this thread, I kept waiting for the "I would have never done that" comments. I knew they would come. They always do, as do the "Everyone knows" comments.

I am grateful to you for sharing the details. I certainly will be extra careful in a similar situation. No doubt there is some hazard that I have never thought of that do me in. If I am lucky, I'll be able to blog about it.

Take care and better luck with your next boat. It's another 450, isn't it?

[dougdaniel]

Originally Posted by cwyckham

Mr. Carnev,

It is both good and courageous that you decided to join us here. Thank you.

I work in the aviation industry. Contrary to your original post, it is in fact routine for aircraft to both navigate and land with low visibility using nothing but their GPS systems. This is possible due to the excellent quality of the mapping availble in areas around airports and due to the fact that aircraft land on a designated path, exactly like an older ILS system, but described wholly within the database of the GPS. Each of these routes is carefully tested and certified before being approved and released. So it is possible, but clearly aviation and marine GPS are two different markets with different needs and working within different realities.

In the aviation industry, we take all accidents or near accidents very seriously and work to learn from the mistakes of the past. In this case, a boat was lost due, in part, to the fact that your product was simply incorrect. It is easy to say that the skipper should always be aware of possible errors, but mariners have relied on accurate charts for centuries, and there's a reason for that. Underwater obstructions are really hard to see because of all the water on them.

Not only did your company not clearly show reefs that other companies seemed to know were there, but you actually recommended a route through the area, straight onto a reef that you should have known was there. Whether the line was dashed or solid is irrelelvent (especially since neither is standard charting practice), the label said it was recommended.

All companies make mistakes. The difference comes in how they respond to it. Making a fix to the chart is nice. Talking to the community about it is nice too. The important thing, though, is to understand the route cause and prevent further accidents.

My question to you is whether your company has embarked on a formal route cause analysis to understand how these charting errors occured? If so, would you be willing share with the community an "approved for release" version of your findings?

To whom it may concern,

As an instrument flight instructor, let me assure you that no one lands an airplane only with a GPS. We can get very close to the ground in very poor visibility before we are required to see the 'airport environment' and to land visually. I think that Mr. Carny makes a very valid point, one that is clearly correct, that a map, a compass, a depth sounder, a radar set, etc. are all aids to navigation, just tools in the skipper's tool box.

I am certain that if Rolf knew then what he knows now, he would have done things differently.

I am certain that if I had had Rolf's experiences entering that passage, I would have made exactly the same decision he did and lost my boat, too.

In my humble opinion, trying to find a villain is counterproductive. Bashing Mr. Carny because he facilitates sharing user input and clearly marks it as user input is counterproductive. Ridiculing skippers who choose to follow skippers with local knowledge through a dangerous passage is certainly hard for me to understand.

I think we owe a big thanks to Rolf for sharing his painful, embarrassing, and costly experience with us. Clearly his motive was to help us avoid the same tragedy, not to make excuses or to find someone to blame. I also think we owe Mr. Carney both thanks and civil treatment for so clearly stating his position.