Small boats, big water

[Nemrod]

This might be interesting to some.

Small Boat Safety at Sea: Boat Safety at Sea

I don't completely agree with nor think the article is complete but it is a good read. I would rather assume water will come in the boat and give it no place to go but back out using buoyancy and gravity to clear the water, not electric bilge pumps.

N

 

[Underwater Ogre]

Nothing better then having a boat you can fill completely and still float. I also wouldnt own anything that wasn't a self bailing deck.

Not a bad article.

U/O

 

[spoolin01]

It would be ideal not to take on water, but most boats are not built that way, certainly not small boats. They're also not outfitted for efficient dewatering, nor does the aftermarket equipment industry offer much assistance. They're made to float after foundering, so you're probably better off to plan for survival and communication under those conditions. Exposure suits, handheld radios, flares/smoke/mirrors, float-plans, satellite phones, buddy boats, and EPIRBS are your get home aces. A portable gas-powered dewatering pump the size of one of those small Honda generators would seem well-suited for small boat use, but I've never seen one so-equipped.

 

[Nemrod]

I never wear a LP unless we are expecting weather or some other emergency but you know. A boat does not just sink without a little, bitty, tiny, little warning. Something like, hey, the boat is filling with water and rolling over. I better put my PFD on!!!!! So, why do you think people wind up sitting on top of their boats or drowning with no PFD on?

I don't agree about the cutaway transom. It is true water can come in the transom notch but assuming the boat was designed not to hold more water than it can float, the notched transom becomes a large and effective drainage.

I see it two ways:

1) Design the boat with high freeboard, high transom, and equip with powerful pumps, in other words, design to keep water out.

2) Design the boat with lower free board, large notched transom and effective scuppers, sealed sole and no bilge. Therefore there is no need for a bilge pump and the inherent buoyancy de-waters the boat. In other words, design to allow water to escape the hull such that there is no way enough water could collect within the hull/cockpit to founder the boat.

There is no reason design strategy number one could not have a sealed sole/deck, no bilge and have effective scuppers also making it the best of both I suppose.

I understand how any boat can roll over, capsize, in rough conditions, get caught in a roller in an inlet etc but this helpless sinking things just does not compute.

N

 

[TSandM]

Thanks for the link. Definitely some food for thought there.

 

[captain]

It would be ideal not to take on water, but most boats are not built that way, certainly not small boats. They're also not outfitted for efficient dewatering, nor does the aftermarket equipment industry offer much assistance. They're made to float after foundering, so you're probably better off to plan for survival and communication under those conditions. Exposure suits, handheld radios, flares/smoke/mirrors, float-plans, satellite phones, buddy boats, and EPIRBS are your get home aces. A portable gas-powered dewatering pump the size of one of those small Honda generators would seem well-suited for small boat use, but I've never seen one so-equipped.

Having operated small boats on the ocean most of my life I have my opinions on what a boat should be.

Self bailing for the most part is for removing rain and spray without the need for pumps. Handy for mooring a boat and not having to worry about it sinking because the batteries ran down and the bilge pumps quit during a hard rain. As for de-watering a swamped boat you probably have greater problems than just the water in the boat or you would not be swamped to begin with..

Just as with diving bad outcomes on the water are usually the result of multiple things going wrong at the same time. The unexpected bad weather that would only be scary and uncomfortable turns into something worse if on top of it an engine or steering system fails and you don't have the equipment such as a sea anchor to deploy if the water depth is too deep for a regular ground anchor.

A completely seal bilge is a good thought but in a small boat you give up a lot of valuable storage space, this is also one of the reasons I don't care for foam filled boats along with the water absorption and associated weight gain issues and the inability to reach all parts of the interior of the hull for repairs or adding equipment.
I don't care for outboards or stern drives because of the weight aft which affects handling in big seas and the complication of the mechanical complexity.

My boat of choice has a centrally located straight inboard engine or engines. Simple, low and centrally located center of gravity. You would be surprised at the difference in ride and handling between two identical boats, one with outboard or stern drive and the other with a centrally located inboard. With the completely closed transom and no heavy engine hung on it the hull will react much better to a following sea and ride much smoother in a head sea.

I agree with spoolin01 that being well prepared for the worst and trying to avoid it is a good plan for anyone going off shore in a small boat. Sometimes you can't avoid it, my worst life time encounter was in tropical storm and hurricane force winds while piloting a 30 footer with twin inboards. Had anything broken that day I would have had much worse problems but I was prepared for it.

 

[Nemrod]

The article is controversial on several boating boards, the author is not universally seen as an expert, imagine that, an internet expert.

Old Chris Craft pic for Captain:

My favorite boat is (was) my dad's all wood lapstrake Lyman Islander, it was a sea skiff type design. It was outboard powered though most were inboard. We always preferred outboards for some reason. It had a single pump, we were poor people and barely had our dinner made, could not afford twin batteries and pumps. That old boat could take a licking though. Well, a Chevy did her in but I fondly remember diving the shallow Gulf grass beds from her deck. Still, had it filled with water, it would have deep sixed in a heart beat and came real close once to doing so. Something about that day made me appreciate foam and lot's of it, lol.

I wish the classic American designs would make a come back in modern materials.

N

 

[captain]

Nem, if you want classic lines and good sea keeping look for the downeast style boat. Although my Chris Craft lacks the full keel typical of a downeast style boat it's sea keeping characteristics are very close to a downeast boat and it is a fiberglass copy of a classic wooden Chris Craft.

Gulf Of Maine Yacht Sales (Falmouth, ME)

The Shamrocks are a good example of a downeast style boat

 

[rjack321]

Generally speaking I agree on one point in the article, small boats are way underequipped on the bilge pumps. I don't agree that you need massive 8D etc batteries since the engine should be running (if its not and you are at sea you're hosed in a big way that big batteries will not solve).

I have a small 600gph pump in my 16ft RIB, but its powerhead cannot submerge and it has a self-bailing valve/hole too. Non-inflatables in the 14 to 30ft range need much larger bilge pumps than are commonly supplied. My preferred apprach is one small pump in the deepest parts of the bilge for spray and "minor water" then 1 or 2 very large pumps mounted a little higher so they aren't constantly sitting in residual water (corroding into unreliableness). Those pumps and their float switches only get called upon is disaster strikes (e.g. failed thru hull or partial swamping).

ps Most boats sink at the dock anyway.

 

[Nemrod]

Last year we were about 12 miles offshore during a vacation trip chasing some King and as we came to a rest while rigging our lines my wife asked me why the bilge pump was running. I said, I don't know, what bilge pump? I figured she did not know what she was talking about and it was just the baitwell. In a little bit I heard it kick on again, on and off, on and off, what the h-----. I pulled up the access panel to the bilge, the bilge is about the size of a shoe box and --darn-----I forgot to put the plug in! Drats, where is the plug, it had rolled under the fuel tank and I could not get it. I told her what the issue was and she asked me if I had a spare, I said no. In a little bit she asked me what we were going to do, I told her we were going to catch some fish. Don't need no stink'n plug and I pulled the wire from the circuit panel so as to kill the pump, didn't want it to burn out. Next pass we had three on the rods, nice ones too. Does a surfboard have a bilge pump?

N