Mariah

Hello: My first sailboat is in the mail and I can't wait for it to arrive so I can join all you happy sailors.

I do have one concern, other then learning to sail it, and that is the posibility of it sinking to the bottom of the lake. I read someone's post where they mentioned that they had a boat at the bottom of a lake and that comment has stuck with me ever since.

So, the question is does this happen a lot. What reasons would cause a boat to sink and how do you retrieve it.

I do have a Newfoundland named "Mariah" that probably could be trained to retrieve but only if it was on the surface.

I did not buy the boat so it could just sit on the shelf, but the thought of that much money sitting at the bottom of some lake can keep you awake at night.

Thanks in advance for the help.

Arthur Barnhart
Rock Falls, IL

MajorTomski

If it is water it can sink. Just take a lot of precautions to see that the probablilyt is minimized. Fill it with foam!

andy1499

As a general rule, the boats don't sink often. A couple of things to think about....

1. Have some sort of floatation inside the hull. Either a block of styrofoam or some sort of balloon--I use one of those shipping balloons used inside packages for my boat. That way if the hull takes on water for whatever reason, it shouldn't sink all the way underwater because of the floatation.

2. Make sure the waterproof hatch on your boat is as close to 'waterproof' as possible. On the Seawind, the boat I sail the stock gasket material is very porous and you have to replace it with something else for it to work. With other boats, people sometimes use vinyl tape that you can get from hobby stores to seal the hatch.

3. DON'T FORGET TO PUT YOUR DRAIN PLUG IN BEFORE SETTING SAIL! (hehe) Sounds like an obvious one, but I can tell you it happens to the best of us (the Seawind Region 4 champion accidentally let his boat sail off without the drainplug in, and he had to jump in and catch it before it got out of reach!).

Happy sailing!

Andy

Al Stein

The hatch should be narrow enough that its lower edge is above the water with the fully-ballasted boat laid over to the point where its mast is parallel with or touching the water. The top of the rudder tube (where the rudder post emerges and the tiller is attached) should be above the waterline. The hull should be free of cracks and holes.

Given those three conditions, there is no way to have any significant amount of water come in -- unless one of those conditions becomes no longer true. As long as there's no water in the boat, sinking is no worry.

I have two boats that are over 30 years old and neither has ever had more than a few drops of water inside... and that only from sloppy handling allowing it to drip in when the boat was back on dry land with the hatch open. (My new boat doesn't sount since it hasn't yet been in the water.)

LtDoc

Arthur,
Boats do sink, but it's not that often that it happens without something really, really bad happening. Common sense will prevent most sinkings (except when you do something really dumb, been there done that, learned from it too!).
If you follow 'normal' precautions, make sure the thing is 'right' to start with, you can leave Mariha at home, unless you just wanna bring here. (Dogs make very poor boat retrievers, by the way.)
- 'Doc

PS - Don't forget to turn the receiver on! lol

Larry Ludwig

In almost 30 years I know of only 2 boats that have sunk. One was in Houston, and it was a maiden voyage and it was deemed alright to sail the boat without the hatch cover..... hehehe... recipe for disaster as you can well imagine. One good gust of wind, the hatch opening was lowered to the water level, and then shortly there after the boat was lowered to the bottom of the pond. The 2nd was in Plantation FL... a Marblehead that was SO light... it was not structurally sound... and again... a strong gust caused a failure and the boat sank. So... it can happen.. sure... but for the most part... it doesn't.

andy1499

Last May a friend was racing his Victoria in strong winds. He had his hatch sealed (or so he thought) with packing tape. On the first downwind leg, a big gust came up causing his boat's bow to submarine. This isn't that uncommon in high winds, but what was really unusual, is instead of just popping back up or broaching (rounding up into the wind) the boat just kept submerging, until very quickly it was completely underwater! It just kept going down--there was no time to catch it because it happened so fast.

This is not meant to 'scare' newbies into thinking this is normal or anything. Apparently what happened was the tape didn't hold for whatever reason, so the force of the water over the deck caused the sliding hatch (Vics and CR-914's have these) to open at least slightly, and water began pouring in.

Here's the real important part. He HAD put a plastic balloon (like I mentioned in a previous post) in his boat when he built it for flotation, however, he had accidentally punctured it when drilling holes in the deck for fittings when he was constructing it. The bag was located in the bow section--so he couldn't see it. It is very likely the boat would NOT have completely sunk like that had the flotation been in tact.

THE GOOD NEWS... he was able to recover his boat, and it should live to race another day (they dragged the bottom of the pond with a rope and were able to find and raise it fortunately) with the addition of new electronics (they were ruined due to being completely flooded).

I just thought I'd share. Our local club (racing Seawinds) has held somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 heats in the past 2 seasons, and no boat has EVER sank or even came close. Several have lost control and washed up on shore eventually (usually on the other side of the pond), but never sank.

Andy

john j m

There is only one thing that will cause a boat to sink, and that is the hull filling with water to the point where all buoyancy is lost.
In other words the ambient pressure within the hull equals that of the water supporting it.

The main causes of water ingress to the hull are ……..

Faulty construction, pay particular to water tightness of the fin box and rudder, also the drain plug.
The deck hatches or patches are problem area, make sure that these are watertight.

Collisions, on a crowded lake or in racing conditions it is inevitable that at some point you will collide with another boat, in the event of this happening bring your boat to the shore and check for damage immediately.

Pay attention to these points and you will have done all that can be done to prevent the loss of your boat, the rest is in the lap of the gods.

Good sailing,
John [8D]

Mariah

Hey: Thank you all very much for the advice. Rest assurred I will do everything I can make my sailboat unsinkable.

I realize now that one of my concerns was unfounded. I thought that if a sudden gust of wind sent the boat over on its side it could not recover but from what everyone said that may not happen.

As you can tell I am really new at sailing.

Anyway, thanks again for the advice

Arthur Barnhart

Larry Ludwig

No that is not going to be a problem. In the first place you should have your boat set up in a nearly water tight condition. Most boats ship a little water, but more of an annoyance than anything else. Second, once the boat has heeled over far enough the breeze will simply spill off the the top of the rig and will heel no further. This is in the case of a fairly tender boat. The worst case scenario is running before the wind and driving the bow down under water, again... most boats simply pop back up and keep going... but this is the case where if you have taken more than a casual amount of water... the water will go forward and remain there, helping to prevent the bow from coming back up and possibly taking on more water which makes for a dangerous situation.

So the bottom line is just work to keep your boat (and electronics) dry. Some classes are not a problem, particularly as you get into the larger boats such as the EC-12 and Santa Barbara as they normally stay dry as a stone. The problems tend to be more in the smaller boats that can really take a beating if the winds come up strong. Take time and pay attention to your hatch cover which is the single greatest chance for water to get in and make yourself a leak proof hatch and you can sail in a hurricane.

Fairwind

We have never lost a boat at our pond, yet, from sinking. We have had a couple boats take on water. Most often the problems shows up in the keel trunk or the rudder tube not being complete sealed. Which has caused them to fill up with water. I attached a couple of pictures of a (water ballasted) Soling 1 meter that came out last month for the first time.

My America 3 had the same problem where the keel trunk wasn't sealed, and I have had a rudder tube that wasn't sealed tight on a Victoria. My friend Rob had a scratch built pram turn over on him but we were able to get it to shore before any real damage was done.

What fun.

Rick

ED MORALES

hi guys,
i've sailed my boats in rough conditions and have never experience sinking except for my seawind which now sleeps with the fishes.this was the result of a too eager and foolish decision to sail in heavy weather.the stock hatch did not hold up to the pounding. my other boats have since been re built with better hatches.
http://www.rcgroups.com/gallery/show...sort=1&cat=500
http://static.rcgroups.com/gallery/d...3downwind5.JPG
ed