Loss of the RedSky

[Dhillen]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Yes, we were very lucky, I think.

It was a day full of mishaps -- I wrote about it here: http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ain-86277.html You can tell from the title that the rope in the rudder was by no means the greatest mishap of the day!

What is really bizarre is that we turned out to be in the same anchorage as Kenomac -- what a small world. Didn't know him at the time, and only found out later, unfortunately.

I read your description of what happened: what a day!

"To his credit, our crewman forgot all about our guest at this moment and tried frantically to get me out."

Good crew like that are hard to find...

As far as not meeting Kenomac it was probably just as well. Those Oyster owners are crazy (and he carries RPGs on board).

Cheers.

Dhillen

[DumnMad]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Yes, we were very lucky, I think.
It was a day full of mishaps -- I wrote about it here: http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ain-86277.html You can tell from the title that the rope in the rudder was by no means the greatest mishap of the day! .

Great story Dockhead and some good lessons.

Lots of bilge-pumps not much help in this case.

[Jim Cate]

Re Dockheads comments:

Well, I guess that one must agree that Red Sky wasn't really "lost", but I bet that both her owners and her insurers will reckon that there is only a semantic difference. For me, the best thing about her survival (for it may not be economically feasible to recover and restore her) is that a good investigation of the nature of the damage can be mounted and we can learn from that.

And I agree that any rudder can suffer similarly extensive damage given bad enough treatment. The inclusion of an aft crash bulkhead, separating the steering gear from the main hull volume is not difficult to engineer as DH points out and should be a feature in any thoughtful design. One wonders why the CE folks haven't included such for their "A" classification?

The gap inherent in partial skeg rudders is a worry, but can be worked around quite simply: on ours, the builder employed a short bit of 10 mm stainless rod that is seated in the skeg and extends downward past the gap a bit, blocking access for any stray rope or net and deflecting it safely on past. Has worked so far...

I find it remarkable that the boat did continue to float long enough to get to the beach. It will be interesting to learn more about the extent of the damage and level of flooding when abandoned.

Finally, folks here on CF often advise against teh purchase of a one-off vessel. One of the reasons we did buy such a boat was that it not only had the little rudder protector thingy, but two crash bulkheads forward and the very one aft that DH thinks should have been part of his beloved's design as well as an incredibly robust skeg design. These are features that could easily be incorporated into a production boat's design but seldom are.

I hope that recovery of Red Sky is possible... she's had a hard life!


Jim

[TheThunderbird]

An hollow skeg is way all worse than any spade rudder.

Mine, has a 2" diam.

Anyway, a good boat should sail also w/o rudder!!!
2nd lesxon, abandon a boat only for fire or explosion3rd point, an engine driven extra pump is being made mandatory in Europa

For ocean crossing, i'd make my bow section water-tight, with proper door and dedicated pump...

[neilpride]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Ah, take it easy on Smack, Robert, give him a break. He was obviously traumatized by someone posting photos of broken Hunters, and nowadays it makes him feel better to post thousands of photos of supposedly better boats which also get broken.

Of course no one ever argued that expensive boats never break or can't be broken. But that's not the point.

As to this case, the title is wrong, since the boat was not lost. But still very chilling case. I think there are three important things to take away:

1. Those of us who are paranoid about running into semi-submerged containers or drifting fishing gear at night (and I am one of those!) are not completely crazy. It's a real problem which can have serious consequences. A good radar and close-in guard zone would prevent many of these incidents in reasonable weather, but when the sea's up, as it was in this case, I guess all bets are off.

2. I wish boat designers would think about protecting the stern of the boat, and not just the bow, from flooding . The Moody 54 has a massive watertight collision bulkhead in the bow. Even the bow thruster is mounted in a caisson, so that a blown seal won't flood the boat. But at the stern? Although there's another very sturdy bulkhead between the lazarette and the main hull volume, it's open through the bilge! . How hard would it have been to extend that bulkhead another 200mm deeper, tab it to the bottom of the boat, and put in a sump with another bilge pump there? . This -- I can't call it anything other than a design flaw -- is common to virtually all cruising boats, except only Dashew's magnificent Sundeers and some Amels, as far as I know. This situation would not have caused a crisis in a Sundeer or an Amel, at least, not a flooding crisis.

3. The saddest fact of all, is that Red Sky was abandoned but didn't sink. Well, it's not sad at all, because she will be repaired and put back into commission -- no Moody 54 has ever been lost. But sad because something as simple as adequate bilge pumps could have saved this situation. 99.9% of cruising boats do not have bilge pumps capable of keeping up with even minor flooding. Cruising boats, especially those which don't have extensive watertight compartments, should have serious crash pumps fitted as standard equipment.

I have a pair of Rule 4000's pumping out through 2" hoses, which I added (I am paranoid about flooding, as well as floating containers), for a total of four electric and one manual pump.

But normal bilge pumps are nearly useless in a flooding situation -- because the high water stirs up debris and clogs the strainers.

What you really need to control flooding is a high volume trash pump which will not get clogged -- something like this: HondaWSP100 Model Info | Submersible Water Pump | Honda Pumps

You can store it in the bilge with a folding firehose-type discharge hose.

Some people like the Jabsco engine-driven pumps for this -- I don't like them as much, because (a) they are subject to clogging; (b) the engine must be working for them to work (note that in the Red Sky case the water had disabled the main engine); (c) they are not such big capacity; (d) they are very expensive. For me the electric pump is better because my generator is mounted far above the waterline so should work even with severe flooding.

Agree,, really sad to see a nice moody in the beach, by the way, the gap between the skeg and the rudder is not a problem whit a easy trick, in my rudder , the gap is huge, what i do is to fit tubulators in both sides of the skeg, they close the gap and allow the turbulences from the prop to slide by the blade sides really easy, in the bottom i have a SS plate screwed to the bottom of the skeg closing the gap in the bottom to, no rope or wire can foul there ... i recommend to close this gap if you own a skeg rudder boat... just for full skeg rudders...

For partial skeg rudders you can fit to the heel shoe a FG half round tube long enough to clse the gap to.

Cheers...

[neilpride]

You can see here in this 2 pictures what i do in my rudder, both pictures come from 2 diferents CSY 44 ..

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Re Dockheads comments:

Well, I guess that one must agree that Red Sky wasn't really "lost", but I bet that both her owners and her insurers will reckon that there is only a semantic difference. For me, the best thing about her survival (for it may not be economically feasible to recover and restore her) is that a good investigation of the nature of the damage can be mounted and we can learn from that.

No one can say for sure at this point, but I will bet dollars to donuts that getting her back into commission will be well worth it. She came ashore on a sandy beach and will not likely have any major hull issues. The rig looks fine. Will need the rudder (if that's what it really was!) repaired and water damage repaired and she should be fine. The biggest expense is likely to be joinery and electrical wiring, but all of that it pretty small potatoes compared to the value of the boat in working condition.

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

The gap inherent in partial skeg rudders is a worry, but can be worked around quite simply: on ours, the builder employed a short bit of 10 mm stainless rod that is seated in the skeg and extends downward past the gap a bit, blocking access for any stray rope or net and deflecting it safely on past. Has worked so far...

That's a good idea. I thought about mounting a serrated blade there on my boat. . . I'll rethink all that in April when I'm on the hard, and do something about it.

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

I find it remarkable that the boat did continue to float long enough to get to the beach. It will be interesting to learn more about the extent of the damage and level of flooding when abandoned.

Obviously not such a huge leak. A real shame she didn't have a proper crash pump.

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Finally, folks here on CF often advise against teh purchase of a one-off vessel. One of the reasons we did buy such a boat was that it not only had the little rudder protector thingy, but two crash bulkheads forward and the very one aft that DH thinks should have been part of his beloved's design as well as an incredibly robust skeg design. These are features that could easily be incorporated into a production boat's design but seldom are.

A very good design feature! That makes yours only one of three (with Amel and Sundeer) cruising boats I've ever heard of with this feature.

The only reason I can think of that this is not done more often is that designers don't want to deal with another sump, another pump, etc. But the aft watertight compartment is simple -- lead the discharge hose straight out the transom.

The other drawback will be running wires and hoses through, but this can be done either at a higher level, or through glands -- also does not seem to me to be the end of the world.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by neilpride

You can see here in this 2 pictures what i do in my rudder, both pictures come from 2 diferents CSY 44 ..

Interesting -- thanks.

And very nice looking work

[europaflyer]

What an unfortunate tale - but I suppose it just goes to show once again that sinking boats often aren't in the sort of imminent peril that the crew think they are.

As for these FADs, I suppose I'm displaying my nautical ignorance by never having heard of them.
My first thought is that they are just further evidence that the ocean is being trawled bare - when the fisheries are depleted to the point that you have to trick the remaining fish in to congregating in one spot before hoovering them up, surely this cannot be a good sign?

My second thought follows pretty much everyone else - that these things look absolutely bloody lethal! Either like uncharted buoys (apparently often made of steel, with a steel chain to boot), or drifting debris known only to the fishermen in some sort radio contact with it. How can it be legal?!







I honestly believe that what with these FAD things, the who-knows-how-many (and presumably ever increasing number of) containers lost every year, tsunami debris and just good old junk, that ocean sailing will soon be a 'go steel or go home' game... or at least adopting the rather wasteful mindset that by sailing a boat which isn't designed with various collision scenarios in mind a hull loss is something to be insured against rather than prevented. But perhaps I have a pessimistic outlook.

Now for the thread drift...

I remember reading a thread a few months ago about a sailor making a passage through the pacific tsunami debris field, who found that hearing things bump against the hull just became another of the routine sounds of sailing. I was sceptical about it at the time, but I think that was more because I didn't want to accept it than anything else. I have definitely come round to the mindset that there is a problem, and a big one.

The ocean is broken | Newcastle Herald

Ivan MacFadyen's sea odyssey | Newcastle Herald

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...en-113714.html

Funnelweb | High Performance Sailing…. where fast just ain't fast enough!

Human nature and the ways of our somewhat irresponsible society won't change, as any individual who contributes to this sort of pollution (and I think I now include FADs in that category) isn't going to be affected by their own actions, even if they are feeling the effects of the similar actions of others.

I feel it is time for a paradigm shift in the approach of boatbuilders and sailors to strengthening boats for collisions. The mass-production yards might never change, but as Dockhead has pointed out for the likes of Moodey not to take simple steps to, in this case, prevent rudder loss from compromising watertight integrity is pretty poor practice. There are too many people accepting that just letting resources (of time and effort as much as material) sink to the bottom is fine as long as the insurance pays out, but I hope many sailors are more in tune with this sort of thing and are better than that...?

OK - rant over! and sorry for the thread drift...

[bigman1]

Very sad but if a floatation bag system had been fitted she would not have sunk
or rather have been in danger of. Google Turtle-pac they have been around for a while (absolutely no connection with this company) i do admire their products but don't need the floatation bags as i don't go offshore.

[robert sailor]

Such an interesting choice of words, ie: would not have sunk followed by something closer to what happened, only on a forum.

[admiralslater]

There is a fad to the east of PSV and it is a lot larger than a buoy and moored in very deep water

[a64pilot]

At some point, do we need to design to and pay for and accept the shortcomings of one in a million occurences?

It wouldn't be hard to make any mono un-sinkable. All it would take would be an inflatable collar around the boat foe example. probably be expensive and ugly

[sardinebreath]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

At some point, do we need to design to and pay for and accept the shortcomings of one in a million occurences?

It wouldn't be hard to make any mono un-sinkable. All it would take would be an inflatable collar around the boat foe example. probably be expensive and ugly

I think the point is that it's become much more likely than one in a million, and will probably become more likely in the future rather than less.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

At some point, do we need to design to and pay for and accept the shortcomings of one in a million occurences?

It wouldn't be hard to make any mono un-sinkable. All it would take would be an inflatable collar around the boat foe example. probably be expensive and ugly

Well, we do of course, and no one seems to demand a completely unsinkable boat. There are unsinkable cruising boats -- some cats (where it's easier since they have no ballast), and some smaller boat (can't remember what it was called) which had a lot of buoyancy built into it. The fact that we happily sail sinkable boats when we could have unsinkable ones proves your point that we take on board this risk.

But that doesn't mean that it's not worthwhile to make the boat a little more unsinkable, where the cost/benefit ratio is reasonable.

I've said it before, but I really like Dashew's approach, which was to get all the through-hulls into watertight compartments fore and aft, leaving the main hull volume entirely free of penetrations, making flooding of the main hull volume and thus sinking almost impossible. A brilliant solution; incredible no one has copied it.