Disney Cruise ship rescues stranded boaters off Bermuda

[JPA Cate]

Originally Posted by leecea

Hypothetical question: If the crew want to abandon the vessel but the owner/captain wants to try and save it, how does that play out? I assume anyone can make a mayday call or activate an EPIRB.

Well, put yourself in the position of the skipper. If you're sailing with friends, would it ruin a friendship if you were refused the effort to help and your guest ran for the EPIRB? Or, if you were in terror, would you betray the skipper in that way, because of the fear? I'd say overall, the skipper doesn't have the right to risk their lives: the skipper has the responsibility for the welfare of the vessel and the crew. So, the skipper would have to make the decision, and one is supposed to let the vessel go and save the crew. We don't know in this case if the crew were already exhausted from bailing; if efforts to slow the leak had made the situation worse. 230 n. mi. is a long way from safety.

One usually has an agreement, even with dear friends, about who the skipper will be, and our friends have always done pretty much as requested. But, it is tough if the crew and the skipper cannot work together. Can the skipper calm a frightened crew? Some friends of ours accidentally set their sail drive down on a rock in their catamaran. Two aboard. They used a big beach towel, between the hull and the sail drive, and he drove the boat, and she pumped, constantly for 12 hrs, and they were able to get to a haulout facility, coastal, in NZ. It was a harrowing incident, and they sold the boat and returned to their country of national origin.

Other factors would come in, too: insurance, financial capability (were they seriously stretched to buy a 50 ft. cat? or is another, newer boat just writing a check away?), personality (are they the type of people who can generate ideas about how to fix something? are they easily frightened and cannot think clearly?), inventive? or do they think hands on work is beneath them?

It's an interesting thing to think about on long night watches.

Ann

[Cheyne]

We removed our hatches after we had a gasket fail on the way from Charleston to St. Augustine 4 years ago. Water was coming in like a river. We had never opened the hatches, but they were 16 years old at that time and a version that Lagoon stopped using to move to the ones that later got recalled. When it happened we were about 20 miles from St. Augustine entrance and we put a couple of tubes of 4200 around it which helped a little. Our emergancy pump was able to keep the hull from filling up. After talking to Lagoon about options we just glassed them in since they are not required. Lagoon told me they have had more boats sink because of them than have been used because the boat got upside down. Most problems happen on anchor when people make the mistake of opening them for ventalation and then leave the boat. On the 380 they are only 6 inches above the water line. It wouldn't take much to flood the boat.

Cheyne

[daydreamer]

Here is a photo of an escape hatch on a Voyage 50. If that is not the exact boat, it is probably pretty close to the boat involved.

Zoom in on the left side. The hatch is just a few inches above the waterline.

Some catamarans, like our Privilege 42, have the escape hatches mounted horizontally in the bridgedeck. They would be overhead in the photo. And in the floor of the saloon; covered by a teak grate on our boat.

[carstenb]

Originally Posted by yalla

holey sheet!

and I'm freaked out about my (3 year old) dripless shaft seal!

don't be - you change that while the boat is still in the water - we did off costa rica., read our blog about how to do it

https://svcapri.com/2024/05/15/costa-rica/

[Johan Leopard51]

Originally Posted by mbianka

Did a charter out of Belize a number of years ago on a catamaran and was convinced to keep my monohull after watching this scene

That is nuts!

It is pretty hard to flip a cat in the first place and if caught in weather that poses such risk, everybody onboard would anyway (on my yacht) already be in life jackets and definitely not in cabins. Even people that train for upside down in water (like the cargo and oil rig choppers) would battle to get out of a capsized yacht.

A while back a cat took a lightning strike that knocked some of the protrusions below water line clean out. That hull flooded faster than electric and manual bilge pumps could cope with but the cat never sank. The damaged hull went down to almost deck height and then stopped sinking - probably because of buoyancy in other hull and under saloon and trigonometry.

[daydreamer]

I think there needs to be a distinction between sinking at sea snd breaking apart on a reef. The two disasters seem to me to chave completely different causes and completely different results. There is no reason to lump these two disasters together, as they have nothing essential in common.

In the reef scenario, any fiberglass catamaran, cored or solid, is likely to be broken into various size pieces. Some of these pieces will float, some of them will sink. In this regard, catamarans are no different than monohulls. I doubt even the catamaran fanboys would disagree with this conclusion. You can argue about whether cats or monos would break apart first, but that is a different discussion than whether catamarans are sinkable.

I considered the reef scenario a straw-man argument with regards to sinking; the reef scenario is about breaking apart, not about sinking. Only if we limit ourselves to the at-sea scenario, can we have a meaningful discussion about sinking.

[daydreamer]

Even when limited to discussing sinking at sea, there are two aspects to the discussion. First, how likely is the boat to fill with water? Second, what happens when the boat is filled with water? To learn very much, you will have to keep these two points separate, at least in your own mind.

[Johan Leopard51]

Originally Posted by leecea

Hypothetical question: If the crew want to abandon the vessel but the owner/captain wants to try and save it, how does that play out? I assume anyone can make a mayday call or activate an EPIRB.

If the owner decides to stay onboard he has two chances:

He gets help that can fix the leak, supply power to pump water out and then tow him in case he is now electrically disabled. 230nm from land = improbable.

He figures out how to fix the leak and all the rest. If he can do that alone, then he wouldn’t have done the mayday to start with.

All he achieves staying onboard is not opening the boat to risk of salvage guy doing the above.

[Breaking Waves]

Originally Posted by leecea

Hypothetical question: If the crew want to abandon the vessel but the owner/captain wants to try and save it, how does that play out? I assume anyone can make a mayday call or activate an EPIRB.

The Skipper is the final arbiter in any decision regarding the safe operation and use of the vessel.

IF the captain wants to stay and the crew wants to abandon and the captain agrees with that plan - then all ok.

However, if the Captain wants to stay and he wants the crew to stay also and help, then it is his decision, and the crew does not technically have the authority to make mayday. It would be 'mutiny' to call a mayday against the captain's express command.

There are potential consequences to calling a mayday either too late or too early and the Captain is (hopefully) in a much better position to understand and make that decision than a crew.

If you get on a boat as crew, you should understand this is a hierarchical environment.

[Snore]

Originally Posted by leecea

Hypothetical question: If the crew want to abandon the vessel but the owner/captain wants to try and save it, how does that play out?

That is why you only head offshore with someone you trust. Crew has to trust the master and the master has to have people he trusts. Crew signed on for a voyage. Bad, scary things happen on an ocean voyage, they are best dealt with by a master and crew who trust each other and act as a team. If one person is scared, sorry- this is blue water, not bay sailing! When 'stuff' happened we discussed the situation and the best way to deal with it. This action also provide a level of comfort to all aboard.

As I told one owner who was crewing a delivery, "This ain't f#ck'n Disney!".

Originally Posted by leecea

I assume anyone can make a mayday call or activate an EPIRB.

You assume wrong! The decision that the vessel is in terminal distress lies with the master. If the master is incapacitated, then the senior most crewman. On my boats we have had some truly gnarly stuff. We discussed the situation as a TEAM and developed a solution to get the boat someplace safe.

If one of my crew activated an EPRIB without my approval, the issue with boat would be the least of thier problems (See not Disney comment). If they radioed a MAYDAY, and I thought the boat was still operable, I would cancel the radio call and downgrade it to a PAN-PAN, placing the boat on regular check-ins with the local coast guard.

[CrispyCringle]

I agree with snore. The one in command is always the final word. If someone on board just unilaterally decided to pop the EPIRB or make a mayday call or throw the life raft over without asking Id be pissed. But the flip side is, if you have an itchy crew or passengers you need to communicate.

[Leadfree]

Originally Posted by Snore

That is why you only head offshore with someone you trust. Crew has to trust the master and the master has to have people he trusts. Crew signed on for a voyage. Bad, scary things happen on an ocean voyage, they are best dealt with by a master and crew who trust each other and act as a team. If one person is scared, sorry- this is blue water, not bay sailing! When 'stuff' happened we discussed the situation and the best way to deal with it. This action also provide a level of comfort to all aboard.

As I told one owner who was crewing a delivery, "This ain't f#ck'n Disney!".

Have you by chance read the accounts of the sinking of the EL FARO, or for that matter of the BOUNTY (recent, not the Bligh)?

[Snore]

Originally Posted by Leadfree

Have you by chance read the accounts of the sinking of the EL FARO, or for that matter of the BOUNTY (recent, not the Bligh)?

Yes, and knew someone who was on the Bounty. Both had masters who made errors. El Faro was a merchant vessel, and merchant mariners don’t get to pick who they work for. Bounty had some paid and some unpaid crew. Most were more excited to be aboard than anything else.

[Chotu]

that is one thing I did not allow into my design. No way. I would rather take my chances attempting swims out of an overturned hull than have these escape hatches.

as to the sinkability side of the thread, it comes down to maths. to determine if your boat will sink or not, you need to know:

1) weight of the boat
2) volume of hull laminate and bulkhead, cabin soles, deck
3) volume of any watertight compartments

From this information, you can calculate if your boat will sink or not.

Mine can't. It'll settle lower in the water and flood inside, but won't go under. And if it got smashed into pieces, those pieces would float away (other than mast, engines, windows, anchor, crossbeam

one interesting thing I never expected when building the boat. I had put these great strong rings in my dagger boards so that I could haul them up as needed to adjust the depth they are at. Well, I had that completely wrong. I should have installed rings to haul them down. If you throw them in the trunk, they just float very high. They don’t stick out below the boat. You have to force them down into the water. Buoyancy.

[Hoodsail]

Cat was floating pretty dang high in the water to me....so sinking?
Like the fix it idea of cushion over escape hatch previously mentioned...would add under water epoxy...used it to mount a bilge pump and hardened in 15 minutes...

That's a big boat to abandon...anybody get the lat/lon??? Always wanted to own one for a season...

And if my mono turtles, just hold my breath until she rights herself...