'Aquila' Lost Off of New Caledonia - Any News ?

[Mimsy]

Originally Posted by sentientcj

a whale jumped on a boat? i've got to worry about whales jumping on my boat now?!?!?

glad to hear this guy's okay.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ATof6Dw_V0

[sentientcj]

Originally Posted by Mimsy

sweet jesus mary and joseph that doesn't look good... won't play outside of the u.s., which is probably good for me. so how does one avoid these party poopin whales, is there a spray or something?

[DiverChick71]

You missed the whale jumping on the boat? That was quite a story...with pictures. A couple was whale watching off South Africa, and a whale breached right onto their deck. They estimated the whale to be longer than their craft, which was around 10 meters. They blamed themselves, as they felt that if they had been running the motor, the whale would have heard them and the incident would have been avoided. They didn't lose the boat, but lost the mast and were able to limp back to shore. Whales are scary. Amazing...but scary.

[sentientcj]

note to self: when rounding south africa, motor.

[cat man do]

Originally Posted by beowulfborealis

Yikes. In the past 2 days there has been a cat flip, a cruiser sinking, and a cruiser getting swamped out. We live life on the edge, I guess.

Sorry to hear about anyone losing a boat and certainly not trying to start an argument but if bobbing around in the ocean which of these pictures would you rather?

This



or this

[boatman61]

What a Bumma... glad he's alive n well...

[bstreep]

Originally Posted by cat man do

...certainly not trying to start an argument...

Uh... yeah, I think you are!

[hpeer]

Nice looking boat.

But I wonder if all that glass in the salon had anything to do with it.

[Khagan1227]

Originally Posted by sentientcj

a whale jumped on a boat? i've got to worry about whales jumping on my boat now?!?!?

glad to hear this guy's okay.

Somehow, I don't think that will be a problem in Berlin.

[Khagan1227]

Originally Posted by Boracay

The yacht Barakee also has sunk off Wollongong.

Anyone have any more details?

It would appear from the article they didn't have an emergency rudder.

Scary.

[maxingout]

I once broke off a through hull for the head intake. It made a nice arching column of water shoot into the air. Fortunately, I have bungs attached to each through hull, and I immediately steemed the flow of water into the yacht.

I like offshore adventures, and I have a pathological fear of sinking. That's why my last monohull was heavy displacement with an extremely strong hull - Westsail 32, and my present yacht is a catamaran which I don't worry about sinking. I do fear fire and explosion on my cat.

There's lots of ways to destroy a yacht no matter how many hulls you have.

I choose heavy displacement, steel, aluminum monohulls, or catamaran. That's my comfort zone.

My wife's comfort zone is catamaran.

[SaltyMonkey]

I dont think there is anything anyone can do. There are always risks the moment you get on a boat, and most are out of your control. They are real. They are not imaginary. I get a bit worn out by the naysayers who insist on every possible mitigation or the "experts" who quote statistics and say "me no worry".

We can try and put them in context to help with the psychology, or think "positively" or pretend via a role etc; however, they will not go away. And personally, I think that won't help much.

What does that mean? Ultimately, you either want that lifestyle and it suits you for a time or you do not. You'll see how far that takes you.

[Joli]

It must be my suspicious nature but when a boat takes an hour or hours (like the sunk Gozzard 44 that happened to be for sale) to sink I have this niggling thought in the back of my head. Hmm, I wonder..........

If a boat is properly fitted; the rig doesn't fall down, the keel doesn't fall off, the rudder doesn't float away, the sea cocks close, the hoses don't burst, the stuffing box stays stuffed and water stays out. Where does the water come from?

Just saying...

Originally Posted by rebel heart

I have no idea on the specifics of what happened to this guy but just in recent memory I've read about these events happening:

- a whale jumped on a guy's boat (south africa, this year)
- a guy hit a whale (baja haha, last year)
- dismasted, mast punched a hole in the boat (socal, last year)
- guy ran snubber through the bottom botstay fitting, ripped bobstay out of boat, boat sank (mexico, two years ago?)
- thru-hull corroded, not enough to allow you to remove it cleanly and place a stopper in, just enough to cause a lot of seepage around the hole (san diego)
- 10'x12" gash from a day marker post/pipe that was sheared off, ~5' submerged (last week on the icw)


I'm just giving the guy the benefit of the doubt that it wasn't as simple as turning a handle and letting the auto bilge pump do its thing.

[Pyrate]

In addition to the list rebel heart gave, here's a few more possibilities:

-Hit a log or some other floating debris that holes the hull (esp. at night).
-Rough weather kept water coming in through an above water through hull, such as a leaking hatch, a cockpit drain that fails below deck and drains into the bilge, etc.
-An injury that occured during the plug&pump process prevented further damage control.
-In any emergency situation, panic can blur critical thinking.

Pyrate

[JiffyLube]

We just got our first hint at what the problem could have been, based on a question the owner of Aquila asked the FOGgers.

"Would one of you be so kind as to take a picture of the drive train from the cutlass housing forward to packing gland. I need a visual and a correct name for that 10cm length of hose surrounding the shaft that failed."