Boat capsizes in San Diego halibut tournament

[16Pounder]

The large swells coming into Winter Harbour are usually not that steep as it is pretty deep (definitely not 24', yikes!) but they can easily be 20' or more. I only say that based on the weather I fish in because I am sure it could be much worse in nasty weather (think gale force). When the wind picks up I head for the dock but I have had some wild rides coming in when the wind came up faster than I planned. The wind almost always blows crossways to the swells so as you are trying to ride down the face of the swell it is blowing you off course. The best thing I have found to do was to slow down and not get going too fast going downhill. If you are going too fast crab walking down the swell, when you get to the bottom and hit the backside of the next swell, the boat wrenches sideways and tries to roll. Luckily, the hull on these boats is very forgiving on a roll due to the way the sides flare but I definitely try to slow down and slog my way through it without going into a roll. The hull reminds me of a river canoe hull with their flared sides that can lay pretty far on it's side and still be stable without capsizing.
Actually the worst condition I have been in was from a passing ship wake that had reflected off the shore and was coming at me. The water was like glass and I didn't notice it until it was right in front of me. It was about 4' high and straight up. Thought I was going to flip over!
In my mind, the 16' C-Dory has to be one of the safest 16' boats on the water but it is only 16' and can be sunk just as fast as any boat under the right conditions.

Al

[C-Val]

This thread has really inspired me to understand the nature of bar crossings.
This is a "steep" learning curve for me as my home entrance to the ocean is very sheltered. (Semiahmoo Bay in Blaine Wa.)

The You tube video "Crossing the bar the right way" part 2 is quite long and made for commercial vessels but very informative for me as to the nature and seriousness of bar crossings. The first one someone here recommended "crossing the bar the wrong way" is just plane scary!

[C-Hawk]

This is part of why I don't do tournament fishing. I have been asked to several times-- but it takes the fun out of fishing (in my humble opinion) it turns it into work, a job, a must do.
I enjoy fishing on my own terms, not someone's rules and time schedule.

[starcrafttom]

Well after letting this get kicker around a little and then reading most of the post I feel a few things need to be pointed out.

1) As roger pointed out wave height is not the whole story. I have been out of San Francisco in a friends open 20 ft boat in 15 ft swell and never felt in danger or even uncomfortable . They were 30 seconds apart. You go up you go down but the water itself is flat, no wind. I am constantly reminding people that when traveling around the puget sound and areas north you HAVE to know the wave height, current direction ( not just ebb and flood) and the wind direction and strength. Its not a simple "oh its only 2 ft at hein bank" I got news for you , if its 2 ft at hien bank on a 10ft drop out going tide with a wind out of the south to west and you are going thru cattle pass you are headed to trouble. I have been turned back from just that scene. We also saw a elephant seal at the pass that day so it was kind of neat.

2. If the wave length was long enough the day of this event I see no reason why the captain would not have gone out. He crossed the bar on a incoming tide with a wind in the same direction.

3. Getting a fishing line wrapped can happen to anyone and if you fish you should count on it happening to you at some point. So you should have a plan for that. My plan is that if its not dead flat out I spot fishing and go home or to a safe port.

4. His only really mistake was to not wait to go back in the harbor until the tide had changed to favorite conditions. A slack or in going tide. Yes it would have cost him a day fishing but he would have boat still.

5. I disagree with the idea that you should not wear a life jacket in the cabin. You can never plan where you are going to be on the boat when the shit hits the props so you are better off with it always on. I do understand that you could get pinned when the vest opens but that's why I carry a knife in all my vest. Better to have a vest you have to cut and deflate then not to have one as all.

6. Don't get caught up in the "Got too's". I do like to fish a few derby's every year but I just don't take them that serious. I do not fish the ones with "shoot gun" starts. Just to dangerous and it has no real point. Legal fishing starts at a set time and you might as well be on the water by then. No need for a drag race out of the harbor or marina, really kind of stupid and annoying to everyone around that is not fishing.

7. Safety is first. The first time Susan was really "getting into catching fish" we were out of Barkley sound about 4 miles on Amphitrite bank or light house bank depending on who you ask, when the wind started to come up. I told her we needed to start thinking about going in. She stated with the look in her eye " I don't have my limit yet!" I looked at her and then at the very black clouds that were bearing down on us and said " you can stay as long as you want honey, but the boat and I are headed back" We have a rule on board the "Susan E" , One captain one decision. Now does that mean we do not discuss everything first between us? No, it just means that in the end the Captain makes the call and the other one has to live with it. And I am not always the captain in command. That is decided before had. I like a chain of command. That's the chain I will hit you with if you don't follow my commands. (Name that quote for bonus points).

Be safe and only do what you feel is right, and let me do what I feel is right.

[thataway]

Here is the "wrong way"--very instructive also!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqgszN3bFtw
And the "right way"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Oh635OkzDk
Making the decision:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_95vq6BeWXA[url]

I have the greatest respect for those who cross these dangerous ocean bar on a regular basis.

The West Coast of Portugal is similar to the West Coast of the US, with many bars and similar wind patterns--maybe a bit more storms.

Twice as we worked out way up the Portguese coast, fishermen waited for us and indicated for us to follow them across the bars. Our boat was 65,000 lbs, and handle a lot different than the light weight C Dory. [/url]

[journey on]

Bob,

Those videos were impressive. Watched them all and came to the conclusion that the only way for me to cope with conditions like that is to not go out when surf's up. Love the naval architect discussing how it goes wrong.

First, C-Dorys don't have good cockpit drains. I appreciated the open cockpit in the Catalina 36; when a wave came in and filled the cockpit, out it went through the rear. Second, even though C-Dories are sturdy, they have no business being in those breakers, although some of the C-Dory factory guys showed how to handle a C-Dory on/in the Columbia bar. And last, I'm not that good.

Everyone should take a peek at those videos, just to get an awareness of what that situation means.

I'd like to mention that Mission Bay doesn't have a bar. Just waves hitting a narrow channel. there's no river coming out, just an open estuary.

Boris

[C-Val]

Just a random question but since our C-Dorys are not self draining cockpits does anyone use their canvas to cover their cockpit when water is really rough or do you just rely on your bilge pump?

[rogerbum]

A few comments on self-bailing cockpits (as I have learned from Les and now from practical experience). In order for a self bailing cockpit to work really well, the needs to be a fair amount of distance from the cockpit floor to the water level in order to produce the necessary head to make the water flow well. On most boats in the <26' range, the cockpit floor is 8-12" above the water line and that distance decreases with a full fuel load, ice and fish and with one or two waves worth of water in the cockpit. So in practice, self bailing cockpits work much better on larger boats where the drop to the water line is farther. In order for one to get a bigger drop to the water on a smaller boat, one has to build both the cockpit floor and the side walls higher. When that is done the proportions don't look pleasing to the eye so most small boats have self bailing cockpits that are marginal when it comes to rapidly emptying out a large amount of water.

They're great for rinsing fish blood out of the boat, great for allowing rain water to flow out but they won't drain a large amount of water quickly and the rate at which the drain decreases with increasing load in the cockpit. So, anyone who thinks that a self bailing cockpit will make a small boat a lot safer in following seas may be fooling themselves. It will help, but not near as much as one might think. So the bottom line is you want to stay out of conditions in which large amounts of water can enter the cockpit.

So to answer C-Vals question, provided you have good enough visibility out the back to manage the boat in the conditions and traffic you find yourself in, the canvas can help keep water out of the cockpit. Of course, the best course of action is to stay out of such situations. However, with the C-Dory's, I've found that as long as one doesn't get too far sideways to a wave or stuff the nose into the back side of the wave in front, the boat tends to ride like cork in big following seas.

[NORO LIM]

It seems to me, that once the weight of the water in the cockpit pushes the scuppers below the waterline . . . Well, you may just have a hole through which the sea is free to come and go. The pressure is equalized on both sides so that floats and flaps no longer provide one-way flow. Maybe a spring loaded flap system would allow the bilge pump to evacuate water faster than in comes in. As Roger says, I think "self-bailing" is a concept best left to big boats if what you're looking for is safety in conditions where you might get pooped. Stay in port!

I agree on the canvas comments, too. A camper back will certainly keep a lot of spray and rain out, and a certain amount of water over the gunnels, but I wouldn't count on it much as a safety factor. Better than nothing, and maybe at the margins of a particular situation a life saver, but if anything big comes over the side or stern, the canvas is not going to slow it down. And on the downside, in a blow, that canvas acts like a sail which can make control of the boat harder.

[starcrafttom]

I have the only( that I know of) cdory with large scuppers and a self bailing deck My 27 has four 6inch holes with screw on covers at the four corners of the back deck. I also have two small 1 inch hole's on each side of the deck and two 1 inch one way scupper valve thingys at the back of the deck.

So Love having all these drains and the big ones will handle a lot of water but when they are open and I corner tight at slow to medium speed water with shoot in thur the holes on the inside of the turn. They are great for draining up to 10 to 15 gallons of water very fast, 5 to 10 seconds but I doubt they would handle 50 plus gallons very well, but neither would a pump. Also note that when running on plane all the water would go to the back of the deck and only out two of the large holes.

So are they worth having to me in my boat? Yes. Depending on what I am doing I leave then open or cover them up. I like them open while fishing or crab,shrimping . It makes washing down the deck a snap even with a bucket.

[rogerbum]

A little more on self bailing decks. Just because the scupper is below water doesn't mean the deck isn't still above water. E.g. the deck loses all self bailing capability when the deck is even with the water line (but to be fair this can often be changed with a change in speed and trim). HOWEVER, in some boats (like the Tomcat) much of the bilge area (or other area)below the deck is below the waterline at all times. In the Tomcat and similar self bailing designs, the scuppers are connected to the cockpit drains with a hose that runs through the below deck area. If this hose comes loose or cracks, AND the scuppers go below the water line AND are stuck open, the self bailing deck turns into a self filling bilge. I had the cockpit drain on my Tomcat break last year in such a way that I couldn't see it easy from the cockpit. The hose to the scupper was hanging loose below the level of the scupper. In the wrong conditions, this could have been a MAJOR issue. I've since replaced both cockpit drains with a different design that I believe will be less prone to failure but I'd still recommend that Tomcat owners check the fittings on the drain and scupper end of that hose and check the hose for integrity on a regular basis.

[journey on]

Let me make it clear. The C-Dory 25 does not have a self bailing cockpit. Those scupper holes go below the waterline with more than 2 people aboard. In fact there are 2 tapered plugs on Journey On to plug those holes from the inside to keep the sea out. The only self bailing cockpits are those open to the rear, no matter what size boat. That's hard to do in an outboard powered boat.

Found this out at a C-Brats gathering when someone came aboard to admire the boat and drink beer. The water started coming in through the scuppers. I was embarrassed then but disgusted now.

I've found that the C-Dory will rise to all the waves we've been in as they come up and pass under the stern.. Have had green water come over the bow when we fell of a wave, though no water came into the cockpit. That episode was where the Sacrament River empties into Sisun Bay, wind against tyde. Came back through Montezuma Slough.

Boris

[thataway]

The assumption is being made that some of the C Dorys are not self bailing. Although this may be true when the boat is at a low speed, or still in the water, once the boat is up on a plane, the water will drain out.

Yes, I generally have the camper canvas up when it is rough. If properly done, the camper canvas can prevent the vast majority of spray and even some significant slaps from waves will be kept out.

Many planing boats, both sail and power, will allow water to run out of the transom scuppers once the boat is up on a plane. Although I am not a fan, there are a number of scupper devices, such as the "Bilge rat" and one of the rubber type joker valves which attach to even a transom bottom scupper and allow the water to run out when the boat is on a plane.

I grew up on a sailboat very similar to a c Dory 25. It had a "self bailing cockpit--if you kept enough weight out of the cockpit or kept the boat level. (It had an arc bottom, and under some conditions would plane). When the boat was heeled over, the water would come back in the cockpit--and we had the black chemistry type of flask stopper to go in the scupper tubes. When one of the tuna clippers would come by at 8 to 9 knots, it would throw a 4 foot wake, and almost aways cove over the side of the cockpit combing--so we pulled the plug and the water drained back out thru that scupper, even as the boat was heeling. A boat with a more confined cockpit--such as the Tom Cat, will self bail better, because there is more aft volume which will not fill with water. For example if the 25 does not have a full fuel tank and either water or waste tank aft--depending on what year, it will be lighter, and the scuppers will be higher from the water.

[thataway]

The assumption is being made that some of the C Dorys are not self bailing. Although this may be true when the boat is at a low speed, or still in the water, once the boat is up on a plane, the water will drain out.

Yes, I generally have the camper canvas up when it is rough. If properly done, the camper canvas can prevent the vast majority of spray and even some significant slaps from waves will be kept out.

Many planing boats, both sail and power, will allow water to run out of the transom scuppers once the boat is up on a plane. Although I am not a fan, there are a number of scupper devices, such as the "Bilge rat" and one of the rubber type joker valves which attach to even a transom bottom scupper and allow the water to run out when the boat is on a plane.

I grew up on a sailboat very similar to a c Dory 25. It had a "self bailing cockpit--if you kept enough weight out of the cockpit or kept the boat level. (It had an arc bottom, and under some conditions would plane). When the boat was heeled over, the water would come back in the cockpit--and we had the black chemistry type of flask stopper to go in the scupper tubes. When one of the tuna clippers would come by at 8 to 9 knots, it would throw a 4 foot wake, and almost aways cove over the side of the cockpit combing--so we pulled the plug and the water drained back out thru that scupper, even as the boat was heeling. A boat with a more confined cockpit--such as the Tom Cat, will self bail better, because there is more aft volume which will not fill with water. For example if the 25 does not have a full fuel tank and either water or waste tank aft--depending on what year, it will be lighter, and the scuppers will be higher from the water.

[rogerbum]