I am curious too, Joli

[Steve Rust]

Scenario: Joli is sailing a Catalina 42, Beneteau 411, or something similar in the Atlantic. He is somewhere between Bermuda and Sopers Hole. The wind is 25-30 knots with waves about 8-12 feet and he is making about 7 knots. It is a dark nite and coming down a large wave the boat hits some floating debris and punches a hole the size of his head in the hull below the waterline.

Question: Is the hole big enough to sink the boat and if so will Joli be:

(A) Treading water
(B) Bobbibg around in a lifejacket
(c) Drifting about the Atlantic in a liferaft

Not bashing monohulls just curious Joli.

[delmarrey]

He should be out there putting a tarp or sail over the hole and working his way to shore.
When a good monohull hits something it shouldn't be too bad. It's when something hits the monohull, then it becomes a problem even for Cats........................_/)

[Joli]

Try to stem the flow as Delmarrey says but if that is not possible then it off the boat we go. Grab the ditch bag and the Eprib and wait for the pick up.

Kind of like all the multi hull sailors leaving their boats when the wind pipes up. See Lats and Atts Issue #79 December 2006 Page 76.

The difference is it will take a catastrophic event for us to abandon the boat not just a bit of wind.

[Tropic Cat]

See:

Multihull storm tactics?

[Ram]

If you had 12 ft seas going at 7 knots with a hole the size of your head , I think the boat would go down in about 5 min. it would happen so fast you may not even have time to get out of the boat because so much water would rush in,
Im haveing crash compartments built on my boat for this reason, (Cat)
Ram

[Holding Pattern]

I am quite frustrated with the recent rash of Multi vs Mono as they're getting nasty. Cruising and sailing is supposed to be the idea - escaping the majority of this keeping up with the Joneses, jockeying for superiority, and biting at each other about whose is bigger and better.
There is always a catastrophe scenario that will sink any boat. I've known as many multihull sailors go to mono as vice versa.
If you want to circumnavigate in a cat, live your dream.
If you want to gunkhole with a 6' draft in the E. US, go for it.
Everyone has a different idea of ideal.

But don't believe that your boat is impenetrable and invincible no matter how many hulls, bulkheads, etc.

There is my two cents worth.

[colemj]

Yeah, I've been keeping my mouth shut and simply ignoring certain threads, but I agree with Holding Pattern in that I don't see much constructiveness to the recent mono/multi arguments and I am particularly embarrassed to be among the multi crowd when sentiments implying "they are living in the past" or "can't see the light" or similar start flying. I certainly don't see any point in this thread, and it seems like an exercise in baiting to me - which finally prompted this reply.

However, I could be wrong and have missed an earlier exchange where it was agreed to start this thread or maybe I don't know that the people posting here are good friends and neighbors who are simply having a cut-up with one another (something I am partial to!).

Mark

[swagman]

Agree 100% with the above two messages.

Horses for courses etc. Both types of vessel are sailboats and the users should have more in common with each other than with say non-users or do I say it (shhh .... power boat owners).
So lets all agree anyone who has purchased any type of sail boat is a clever so and so and made the right choice - and lets leave it at that.....
Cheers
JOHN

[MysticGringo]

OK... so Multi-vs-Mono arguement aside. If you really are only going to have 5 minutes, what sort of preps should have been done before you left in order to survive. Are the people who feel their boats are more indestructable getting lazy about preparing for catastrophy?

You have a ditch bag obviously... is it where you can get to it quickly enough. What about a life raft... if you don't have one, is your dinghy able to be free'd fast enough, in these sorts of conditions.

OK... now for a crazy idea... has anybody ever thought of putting airbags in a boat, tied to a button in the cockpit. Given this sort of situation, you can hit the button, and boom, airbags deploy inside the boat... making a mess (and possibly killing anybody near them... theory not fully thought out), but keeping the boat afloat. Now, you can ride out the storm in your dinghy, or on the boat... and effect repairs when things chill out. Deflate the bags, and tada... cruising away.

Ofcourse, the bags will need to of strong rubber stuff, and not deploy so fast as to blow the boat up. Seems like a fun idea anyway... doesn't it, or am I crazy?

[delmarrey]

Originally Posted by MysticGringo

OK... now for a crazy idea... has anybody ever thought of putting airbags in a boat, tied to a button in the cockpit. Given this sort of situation, you can hit the button, and boom, airbags deploy inside the boat... making a mess (and possibly killing anybody near them... theory not fully thought out), but keeping the boat afloat. Now, you can ride out the storm in your dinghy, or on the boat... and effect repairs when things chill out. Deflate the bags, and tada... cruising away.

Ofcourse, the bags will need to of strong rubber stuff, and not deploy so fast as to blow the boat up. Seems like a fun idea anyway... doesn't it, or am I crazy?

Yeah! It has been thought of. The problem being that most offshore boats, being heavy and not much spare room inside, would have trouble staying afloat even if a air bag were to fill the whole compartment. It's all those little voids that fill up in and around the storage areas. It would be better to fill external floats. But who has room to carry around such stuff.

The object is to stop the water from entering the boat and pump out what you can. And there are many ways that can be done. Tarps, sails, plywood, compartment covers, buckets, pillows and even your thumb.

With the modern glass boats of today it would take one hell of a catastrophic hit to hole a boat bad enough to sink quickly, unlike the ole wood boats of yester year. Its getting run over by a freighter is my worries.

BTW they are experimenting with attaching ballons to the mast of cats for righting after a turtle.

Delmar Van Cleeve............................_/)

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by delmarrey

With the modern glass boats of today it would take one hell of a catastrophic hit to hole a boat bad enough to sink quickly, unlike the ole wood boats of yester year. Its getting run over by a freighter is my worries.

Delmar Van Cleeve............................_/)

Have a look here. http://www.f-boat.com/pdf/YachtSinkingMay05.pdf

This boat didn't even hit anything, and it sank quite quickly. It was very fortunate that another boat was nearby, or loss of life could very easily have occurred.

[delmarrey]

Originally Posted by 44'cruisingcat

This boat didn't even hit anything, and it sank quite quickly. It was very fortunate that another boat was nearby, or loss of life could very easily have occurred.

60 minutes? You call that quickly. A lot of shoring can be done in 60 minutes just not with a rudder sticking thru the hole. Besides that was a rudder/hull failure not a hole from hitting something. Good reason not to buy an f-boat....................._/)

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by delmarrey

60 minutes? You call that quickly. A lot of shoring can be done in 60 minutes just not with a rudder sticking thru the hole. Besides that was a rudder/hull failure not a hole from hitting something. Good reason not to buy an f-boat....................._/)

That's right, the boat never even hit anything, but it's still down there with the fishes. It took about an hour from when the rudder post broke, but it was some time after that that they realised they were sinking - they didn't know until the water level was above the floors. They could have been in serious trouble with a faulty life raft, if the other boat hadn't been nearby.

[muskoka]

Gringo,

There was a system I'd seen about 10 years ago which was exactly what you'd described. It seemed kind of sensible in a weird fashion.

On the other hand, monohull sailors wishing to refute a multihullers argument should simply purchase an Etap. Their 46 is gorgeous and will sail with all the seacocks open and the hull flooded. They've achieved this through a double hulled construction (foam filled) and bouyancy compartments (likewise foam filled). The boat is insulated, designed by Bertone and sails well! And, on the inside you're none the wiser - it looks like any other 45 footer.

I think they're on to something with their focus on producing a wonderful monohull with an incredible safety feature.

[defjef]

There is one approach to make a boat unsinkable as an after market product called YachtSaver which are inflatable bags which are kept inside the cabin and provide flotation. They would make movement within the cabin pertty difficult, but it beats sinking!

I "invented" in my mind not as an actual product... an inflated floatation device which could be integrated into a rubbing strake and inflate providing two long air bags on each side of the hull to add enough bouancy to keep a breached hull from sinking. I never did any calcs or engineering, but conceptually it seems like a workable idea.

A hole the size of one's head seems like a sinker to me in the conditions described let alone in a flat calm when you minght be able to rig a patch from the inside.

How many sailors keep some thin sheets of plywood or bending board to screw to the hull from the inside for an emergency repair?

Jef
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