I do have to wonder, however, folks, because on my trip up the
ICW this last spring, I saw literally dozens of direlect craft along the way, very few actually sunk in the water, most up on the Western side of the
ICW, assumedly from storm surge (and likely too complicated to remove). I saw no holes on the hulls of those vessels, where the hulls were visible. I also saw that many still had various forms of
rigging on board (too bad it is illegal here to
salvage that stuff on those apparently abandoned vessels, I actually could have used some of the things I saw even as I meandered my way North).
I also have been considering how many vessels are on CraigsList, eBay, and the like, and would pose the question, just how likely is it that you would even be aboard when a vessel went down, given that they generally do not get holed at sea, more often they simply have
deck leaks or other surface above the waterline issues that get neglected or hoses that fall off while the vessel is tied to a pier or anchored with nobody aboard? Far more vessels sink at the
dock than do at sea, especially since the days of
fiberglass hulls and in many cases, flotation qualities of things installed and even stored on board most vessels.
When in Daytona taking
delivery, I noted what I considered a (to me) large recreational yacht that was something like 65-70 feet in length. She was docked in a covered bay of a very large structure over the
dock section that seemed to be the "preferred" area of the dock berths (pass code gated and all), and her pumps opened up every few minutes with what must have been 50 gallons or more of water at a time. Then they would turn off for perhaps two or three minutes, and back on again. Continuously cycling.
I cannot imagine how much water was coming into that vessel, but it was tied securely to the dock, and if power failed, with her size, she would surely have been the new furniture there because she was so wide that she would have wedged in alongside the vessel she shared her berth with tightly enough to damage them both had one been able to escape the other's crushing weight pinned against her.
I was told by several live-aboards there that this was not unusual for this large vessel, that it was normal for her to keep dumping this volume and that they were also concerned that her pumps may one day lose power. The boat was barely a few years old, too, and in otherwise apparent pristine condition. Sad. My bilge was dry and dusty, and mine is a tiny 27 ft 1978 sailboat with leaky windows that the PO had silicone caulked closed, and that million plus dollar boat cannot keep water out while berthed UNDER A DRIP FREE ROOF!
I guess my question is whether
boats that leak like a sieve through the hull should even be allowed to take up otherwise useful space at
marinas for longer than required to effect
repairs sufficiently to get the vessel to a shipyard due to the hazards those vessels represent to other customers when they do lose power and sink while tied to the dock, often taking other also costly (or even
cheap like mine) vessels at the dock with them into the briny (as this vessel would potentially have done).
If such a vessel destroyed yours through this sort of event, what is your thought about it being tied alongside your vessel/home? Would you want to be anchored near such a potential reef and risk swinging into it when the tide changed post-sinking, or would you be happier if
marinas refused to allow such vessels to remain beyond X days/hours/conditions? And if yours
were the vessel in point, what would you expect others to do when you were in this situation and placed them in same?
I have often thought about that ship, and wondered how, with the seadoos and speedboat on her stern, she should be so leaky that the owner could not afford to liquidate a side asset and fix that hose/hole/seam/crack/mount/seal/gasket/etc.. and prevent this sort of issue from concerning others nearby.
I had never been in that situation before, and have always been around vessels that were either
seaworthy enough to float without mandating constant bilge pumping or they were repaired so that they WERE
seaworthy enough to float without that level of constant bilge pumping, especially when the vessel was that new.
The USS Forrestal (CV-59) was commissioned about 1955 and in 1989 she did not leak like this
newish recreational vessel did, and the Forrestal was 1039 feet long, with 4 acres of flight
deck and as wide as a WW2 destroyer was long. She was maintained to be sure, but there was a LOT more area that could have been leaking and 80,000 tons of
displacement to the carrier, so more force to get water pushing inside any available hole. But she did not leak like that the entire 4 years I was aboard her.
Linear Mode
Recent Discussions