Re: Video of boat sinking
I bet on a through-hull failure, at the livewell/wash down pump. No way it was a plug out; a bilge pump can handle that, and you can run the water out.
Here's what the Monday-morning quarterbacks don't know: on a 30' center console (so described in the mayday call) bailing the top deck is a useless exercise. All of the water, by then, is below the deck. Same goes with running the water out of the scuppers, unless you have a way to get the water from below decks to topside. For this reason, too, when you are drifting, you are not as likely to notice that you are flooded below deck (unless you have an alarm, or otherwise notice, that your bilge pump is running). if the live well through hull is broken, running the boat is likely to force in more water. So no one I could see was being stupid, nor were they videotaping for fun (the guy just left his mask camera on) nor were they sinking for insurance. That's just ignorant to say that.
There are two troubling aspects, though, which I would attribute to inexperience or panic: Once they found water on the deck they should have pulled the diver up (maybe they did, or maybe they hadn't arranged a signal in advance). They should have tried to run towards shore (30 miles out). But more important: why not have the diver who was down, or one of the others, see what's going on? A piece of cloth even over the hole would have stopped it--the water pressure holds it tight.
Good idea to carry bung plugs and there is a "peanut butter" plug that stops anything. From the comment "what is making us sink" they didn't look in the hatch (access over the through-hull where you close the seacock) to see what is going on.
Winter before last a 22' sank like a stone due to a broken seacock/pump assembly, probably froze/cracked while on the trailer. This was in december. the guy stopped to fish and found himself going down. Luckily a marine patrol was a couple hundred yards away.
