Sunk Boat - Lessons Learned

[Begester]

Last weekend was Seafair here in Seattle, which basically is a large airshow/hydroboat races that always draws huge crowds of boats. On our way home, I was approaching the north end of the lake and saw what appeared to be a bunch of debris in the water. After a second glance I saw a guy in the water waving his hands. I motored over to him and he told me that his boat had just sunk. I immediately assumed alcohol or a hit-and-run was the cause but took the guy on board at risk as he was obviously in a state of shock.

After a few minutes I realized that alcohol was no factor (I pulled his cooler out of the lake, and after talking with him we ruled out this possibility) and this was just a freak accident. Below are my lessons learned:

1. If there's a large event on one side of the lake and you have an emergency on the other side, expect a delayed response from law enforcement. It took the Sherriff 30 minutes to show up on a lake that is usually crawling with all sorts of law enforcement.

2. His boat was a 2008 wakeboard style boat. He said that his engine stalled out, and when he pulled the engine cover, it was full of water and the boat began to go down, stern first. He also said he had a of problem including structural issues and had to send the boat back to the manufacturer last season for warranty repair. While we were waiting I was looking all over for something he may have ran over, but I didn?t see anything. According to the owner, he didn?t hit anything.

3. Staying calm helped a lot. Needless to say it was a stressful situation with 8 passengers on board my boat pulling seat cushions and boat parts out of the lake while waiting for help to arrive.

My questions:

1. Have you ever been in this situation? If so, what are your lessons learned?
2. What sort of warning signs are there if a boat is taking on water while underway?

 

[Brewman61]

Re: Sunk Boat - Lessons Learned

Lessons I've learned, and they apply to many emergencies:


When seconds count, the police are minutes away!
(learn to fend for yourself as much as possible)
Keep your life preservers handy- Handy means handy, not stowed.
Learn basic first aid, and get a first aid kit. Including basic CPR
Dont' forget about emergency items like flares, noise signal, etc...
You can never have too much spare line on board.
Keep your cell phone charged or even a 12V power cord for it on board.
Let someone on shore know you're going out, where you expect to go and when you expect to return.
Reach, Row, Throw, Go: In this order-
Reach for someone struggling in the water
Row to them
Throw something to them that floats
Swim out only as a last resort
Stuff is just stuff and it is replaceable. People are not.
Keep the saftey of yourself and passengers in mind at all times.
You can go days without food, but only so many hours without drinking water

 

[The Famous Grouse]

Re: Sunk Boat - Lessons Learned

It's very interesting to know that a modern boat could completely sink. I was under the impression that USCG requirements mandated that all boats today contain enough flotation foam to keep the hull from sinking, but obviously I'm wrong. No idea how I got that in my head.

Very interesting also about the delayed law enforcement response. Had you relayed to them that everything was under control and to essentially take their time?

I guesss even if you had, that's an embarrasingly slow response and something must have been very wrong with how the law enforcement was deployed to manage this event. Obviously a major failure on their part.

It's good for everyone to ask the "What would I do?" question if faced with a situation like this.

I would add one item to the list:

As soon as one survivor is rescued, immediately ask how many more were on the boat. This is critical, there could be more surviors in the water and it's urgent to know right away if this is the case so you can both issue a mayday call AND begin the search yourself.

Grouse

 

[jmarty10]

Re: Sunk Boat - Lessons Learned

Wow!

1. I have never been in that situation. I saw a sunk boat last year at a dock after flooding. Tied up to tight to dock and as water flooded dock it went into boat. But, I have never seen one go down with 8 on board.

2. I think the best thing to do is check the bilge while in the water at the dock and make sure bellows and what are not letting water into bilge. Make sure cooling system is not leaking water from engine. Generally, if youre not leaking from the drive area you should be ok. Also, if youve been out for an hour or so and anchor or dock, check again. If no water you're probably good to go for the day. You can also periodically run your bilge pump if youre nervous. Another thing is a periodic check around the bottom of the boat to look for cracks or holes causing leaks.

As far as the boat owner, stuff happens I guess. Just look at what happened to captain Smith on the Titanic?!?!

 

[TJDave]

Re: Sunk Boat - Lessons Learned

I have been to Seafair many times on a boat, and I am not at all suprised by the delayed response time. They have more patrol boats on Lake Washington than any other time of the year for the event. Maybe they should of have kept a few boats patrolling other areas of the lake just should a rare situation like this should occur.

Lucky for the the sunken boat owner that you were there to help.

 

[Begester]

Re: Sunk Boat - Lessons Learned

*Minor Clarification, I had 8 onboard my boat, he was out by himself. We did confirm this as soon as we pulled up out of the water, good call.

The law enforcement response also had me a little confused as well, one other question I had (and I'll save it for the next time I see Coast Guard) is should I 1) call 911, or 2) use Channel 16? Its a lake, but its attached to Puget Sound and the Coast Guard frequently patrols (we were about 1.5 miles north of a NOAA facility as well). The 911 operators seemed a little confused but ended up getting us to the right people after a few minutes. I did make a point to say that the guy we rescued didn't have life threatening injuries but that there was a good bit of debris in the water.

 

[The Famous Grouse]

Re: Sunk Boat - Lessons Learned

Personally, I'd say that if you had a VHF radio, you should have made a call on that first. It isn't just the CG who monitors the VHF, all law enforcement on the water should be tuned in to 16 as well.

My logic behind making a call on 16 first is that the radio would most likely put you in direct communication with potential rescue assitance. 911 will have to relay your call to someone else, and that produces delays and as you have seen, obvious errors in how the response is handled.

Since you had the survivor on board and found out there were no additional persons missing, it's not a mayday call of course. But certainly local law enforcement should have gotten there in less than 30 minutes. The fact that there was a debris field makes the situation an ongoing hazzard to navigation at the very least and besides that checking the health of the survivor should be their responsibility, not yours.

Grouse

 

[bowman316]

Re: Sunk Boat - Lessons Learned

it WAS a mayday for him, before he got picked up from the drink.

 

[45Auto]

Re: Sunk Boat - Lessons Learned

But certainly local law enforcement should have gotten there in less than 30 minutes.

Let's say a typical law enforcement boat will do 60 MPH. You really think that there's some type of law enforcement boat ready for immediate response within 30 miles of everyone on the water?

Just like Brewman61 said, always remember that when seconds count, the police are at least minutes away!

 

[Tig]

Re: Sunk Boat - Lessons Learned

Living on the water most of my life I have seen all sorts of accidents. Police usually only get called in cases of personal injury or death. They have little capability to respond on the water. For life saving we have coast guard as well as military search and rescue near by.
I once got back from a rescue involving a runaway boat to find the police in my yard. They were ticked off that I did not see them waving road flares from a half mile away and they asked me if I had been drinking. It was just before noon on Sunday by this time.
Lessons learned;
1) I did wish I had a spare life jacket when I got to the scene. Had the fellow been panicking, he could have capsized the tiny boat I arrived in.
2) Never assume the police will understand a situation just by looking at it. Although several laws were broken during this incident the police missed them all.

 

[duped]

Re: Sunk Boat - Lessons Learned

Never been in the situation exactly. Everyone has a taking on water story though, I'm sure.

BUT

Two batteries
Two bilge pumps, an auto and a manual one. Having a hand pump too wont kill you
Inspect bellows and thru hulls frequently. Broken plastic thru hulls sink a lot of boats.
Life jackets and flares where you can reach them quickly. Not stuffed under a cushion in the cabin.

This is all cheap insurance.

 

[Isaacm1986]

Re: Sunk Boat - Lessons Learned

I live up north of seattle about 1 hour. I have been to seafair a couple time and It is a very cool event. That being said, Lake Washington is one of the few lakes I know in washington state that are regularly patrolled. Lake Goodwin (the biggest lake in my area) is only patrolled on weekends when it is busiest. The fire station has a rescue boat on hand, but they are 3 miles from the boat launch and will take them at least 15 min before they are on the water. I don't like to fight the crowds, so I am normally out during the week. In the event of a emergency, I have always planned to be on my own for the first little while.

All that said, it is always good to be as prepared as possible for emergency's. These things can happen so fast.

You did the right thing by helping out. I have heard of people who would just keep going without a second glance.

Continue to be safe on the water, and have fun out there!

 

[reelfishin]

Re: Sunk Boat - Lessons Learned

First off, how big was the boat that sunk?

From ABYC Section H8:

Federal Regulations - 33CFR Part 133, Subparts F, G, H, and N require flotation for monohull boats less that 20 feet in length except for sailboats, canoes and kayaks, inflatable boats, submersibles, surface effect vessels, amphibious vessels, and raceboats.

With this fact in mind, I have seen boats over the 20' mark that do not have sufficient foam flotation to remain buoyant, however I've also seen 30+ foot boats with full flotation installed as well.

What brand was the sunk boat? How old? Was it recovered?
I think this info may certainly be of interest to anyone currently purchasing a new boat.
If the boat was older, then I'd say there was a pretty good chance that the foam if equipped could also have already been water logged when the boat swamped. Especially if its had water intrusion or leaking issues in the past.

 

[BoatNoobie]

Re: Sunk Boat - Lessons Learned

sucks for that guy, hopefully he's covered with insurance.

That's why I always check the bilge within a few mins of sitting in the water.

Here's what I do.
Back boat into water. Tie off on dock. Park trailer. Hope in boat and check bilge.

 

[RickJ6956]

Re: Sunk Boat - Lessons Learned

The boat may have "sunk" but I'll go out on a limb here and say that it was probably full of water and still floating.

As for pre-launch checks, I'm surprised that more people don't do it. It takes only a couple of minutes to make sure everything is in order, before and after starting the engine.

 

[MPII]

Re: Sunk Boat - Lessons Learned

Never been in the situation exactly. Everyone has a taking on water story though, I'm sure.

BUT

Two batteries
Two bilge pumps, an auto and a manual one. Having a hand pump too wont kill you
Inspect bellows and thru hulls frequently. Broken plastic thru hulls sink a lot of boats.
Life jackets and flares where you can reach them quickly. Not stuffed under a cushion in the cabin.

This is all cheap insurance.

This is great advice! I never used to have a manual bildge, had an exhuast y pipe crack and the bildge kept up with the water until we made it back to launh. Since that time, I have had a manual pump as well. I also installed a Perko Dual Batter switch and installed a second battery. Got a good 25 Watt VHF. We primarily boat on Lake Cumberland, KY and from where we put in, you can go hours either direction on the water. There is a really good private service on this lake called "Marine Assist." It is a AAA type of service. The guy that runs it has had to pull several boats off the floor, 80 feet down.

 

[reelfishin]

Re: Sunk Boat - Lessons Learned

The boat may have "sunk" but I'll go out on a limb here and say that it was probably full of water and still floating.

As for pre-launch checks, I'm surprised that more people don't do it. It takes only a couple of minutes to make sure everything is in order, before and after starting the engine.

You would think that a simple "Pre-Launch Check" would also keep most people from forgetting the drain plug. I was out in the river today and found a guy waving his arms over on the bank about a mile from the boat ramp. He had forgot his drain plug in his truck, he didn't realize it till he got way down stream. He beached the boat when he realized water was rising faster than the bilge pump could pump it back out. I tossed him one of about 5 old drain plugs I had laying in my splashwell, a few minutes later and he was back afloat.
I think he was alright so long as he didn't stop but had stopped to fish and started to sink.

His boat had about 15" of water in it above the deck in the back when I pulled up.

If I wasn't also trolling the same area for fish, I'd have never spotted him in that cove.

The first thing I check is that not only is the drain plug in, but I look to make sure it's not leaking. I've seen all too many plugs leak too.

 

[MPII]

Re: Sunk Boat - Lessons Learned

I was out in the river today and found a guy waving his arms over on the bank about a mile from the boat ramp. He had forgot his drain plug in his truck, he didn't realize it till he got way down stream.

I am guilty of this, unfortunately. I had the plug and the three spairs that I have in my "boat box" and was able to get it in right away.

This is why I started the thread "Stupid Things I've Done Why Boating." I guess I'm the only one that's one something stupid, there are 83 views but no responses.

 

[adam7]

Re: Sunk Boat - Lessons Learned

You can't count on the authorities to respond. When we ran out of fuel we were within eyesight of TWO DNR boats who took an hour to finally come over to see why we were waving, lighting flares, and firing 12 rounds of .38 into the air.

Yesterday we found someone in almost the same spot with engine trouble who had been sitting there for a while. We towed them back to the landing ourselves and saw no DNR or coast guard anywhere. Actually, we did see a small coast guard vessel, after we were already towing the guy. This is right near a bridge next to a marina. You would think people would be around to help.

 

[bowman316]

Re: Sunk Boat - Lessons Learned

when i'm on plane, my drain plug is above the waterline.
i pulled it out once in the water to drain it.