1986 22’ can it sink

1

1Wiley

New member
Hi all,
I’m the new owner of an ol’ classic 86’ and I’m wondering will it sink to the bottom or stay partially afloat in the worst of situations? I looked under the forward cushions and there’s no foam in there like I’ve read the newer ones have.
Thanks
 
Any boat can sink--and I have crossed oceans on boats which were "lead mines"==racing and cruising sailboats--with zero floatation.

Now, what are you going to do to keep your risk of sinking to a minimum?

I have heard of two C Dory's which got in trouble. One was anchored stern too some serious waves, and swamped over the transom/sides. If the boat had anchored by the bow, or been underway, even drifting, there would not have been an incident.

The second was one which was caught in the surf, and rolled. Just dumb decisions lead to these. If you want, buy some diver's air bags and a tank of air or CO2 to inflate them with. The foam in the bow in some boats (which some remove) will not keep the boat floating upright or in a position where it could be bailed out. An inflatable dinghy or life raft would be your "life boat" if the boat were to swamp or sink.

Don't sweat it. My 25 does not have the foam. I had wished that the 22's didn't when I owned them.
 
My concerns are in a dire situation would there be enough boat floating to hold onto ? See I had a near miss with a shark when I was a kid and it instilled a healthy fear into me. That being said I fish in great white territory and a rubber life boat just won’t do it for me. I’m hopeful of something to climb up on if needed.
Plus it’s Shark Week.! Not helping my fears.. but can’t stop watching, like a train wreck...
 
I have swum in waters where there were great white sharks. They don't come up and "grab you"--their preferred food is seals and fish. Most attacks of great whites are where a human is mistaken for a seal. (wet suit). I spent a lot of time (working at the summer camp, and in my own boats) in a cove at Catalina where there was a great white which spent a great deal of time off Long Point. We would row out to look at it. There were about 150 young tender kids swimming off the beach a few hundred yards away twice a day. The shark never came in that shallow. You are perfectly safe in an inflatable or life raft.

Have you ever tried to hang on the bottom of the bow of a boat capsized and barely floating? The best way to make the boat "unsinkable" would be inflation bags as I noted--or you can put foam under the gunnels, --up high in the forward cabin--and put in some foam under the bunk, if you really want to. I am not aware of any C Dory just "sinking"--One of the beauties is that there are no thru hulls (unless someone has put one in). The boats handle rough water well. But don't go out in gale force winds.

I am very familiar with Bay area waters--I have sailed up and down the coast during the last 50 years. Never worried about sharks--OK I hit a basking shark once, and was worried about how much damage I did to the shark...
 
1Wiley":27awaseh said:
My concerns are in a dire situation would there be enough boat floating to hold onto ? See I had a near miss with a shark when I was a kid and it instilled a healthy fear into me. That being said I fish in great white territory and a rubber life boat just won’t do it for me. I’m hopeful of something to climb up on if needed.
Plus it’s Shark Week.! Not helping my fears.. but can’t stop watching, like a train wreck...
Click to expand...

Even it there was something left for you to hold onto, it is unlikely to be large enough to let you get out of the water, so it wouldn't help your shark thing much. Best case would be that the boat floats level but awash and you could get on the cabin roof but that configuration is probably going to rely on air trapped by the cabin ceiling rather than any flotation in the boat itself.

You could get something like an inflatable double or queen size mattress and rig up a bottle supplied inflation system. If things got real bad, inflate the mattress at the ceiling of the cabin. It may displace enough water to keep the boat floating. The other thing to consider is that the cabin roof is applied as a separate piece. Is it attached well enough to hold the boat up if the mattress system is actually used?
 
Some years ago I was considering some kind of auto-inflating collar at the waterline. I found that someone else had come up with it - Yachtsaver - but they're out of business. There appears to be another company with a similar product - http://floatechmarine.com/products.html. Not sure if they're actually providing the product yet or not. Their last Facebood post was in 2014... I do like the idea of keeping the hull upright in the event of a remote mishap.
 
It looks like the inflation video is sped up a fair amount. Even then the floats take awhile to inflate. Might not be that helpful if you really need them if they take minutes to inflate. There should be some sort of fast inflation system like for aircraft escape slides or flotation bags on helicopters.
 
Inflation took around 30 seconds in a definitely sped-up video. Hard for me to judge how fast they really took. I'd hope they would inflate as quickly as a life raft.
Also, a better link: http://floatechmarine.com
 
You could make your own floatation system. I just got thru making a number of projects using ShelterRite material (this is a Poly Vinyl coating over Dacron Scrim--it is similar to inflatable boat material.) I used HH 66 Glue--and it give an airtight bond. Put in an inflatable boat valve, like Halkey-Roberts and attach a CO2 cylinder--manually operated. We used a CO2 cylinder with manual operation on our 13 foot Achillies HD inflatable as a back up for life raft on ocean crossings on our sailboat we cruised to Europe and back. It would inflate the boat in a minute.--in fact you had to watch out to be sure you didn't over inflate. You could make the floatation bag to fit any space--lets say the V bunk area--simple to make just two triangles, connected by a strip of the fabric all around its perimeter. Cost would be in the less than $200 category.
 
Perhaps there are some DIY instructions for the uninitiated... I was trying to calc. backing up from the estimated boat weight to the volume of air needed for support, to the amount of compressed air at a "standard" tank pressure needed to fill the bags; then onto a reasonable-looking, durable protective cover that would open under a certain amount of internal pressure (but how to stay closed...?), etc., etc., etc... All over my pay grade, but I did enjoy learning a bit about the process. If I could find good tech guidance it might get back into the picture on my already achingly long-term boat project... :roll: :roll:
 
thataway":malmcq3s said:
... It would inflate the boat in a minute.--in fact you had to watch out to be sure you didn't over inflate. ...
Click to expand...

They make relief valves for inflatable boats you could use to prevent over inflation.
 
Nice of you to say 1Wiley, but I'm a total novice at this. I've had guidance from two naval architects, a marine surveyor, several very experienced folks in boat rebuild/repair, and a small library of books on the subject. Sidelined by several surgeries, death in the family, and waning confidence in my ability, the project went dormant. Just finishing up a total redo of a West Wight Potter 19 my wife purchased I feel like I have the chops to get the C-Dory done. Hope to get it cranked back up in the next few months.

Back to the subject of your post, I'm still interested in the idea of a system to keep the boat afloat when the stuff hits the fan. That inflatable collar seems worth exploring, but I still have questions about how to deal with damage to the collar itself since it's mounted just above the waterline. The system I referenced earlier has a series of individual chambers, but I think there'd need to be some kind of one-way valve on the supply tubes at each chamber to stop backflow once the pressure air tank is empty. Otherwise it might just end up being an expensive bubble machine adding visual interest to the scene while the boat sinks...
 
I would think that a collar at the upper part of the hull, about the rub strip would be better. If you got to the point where you actually needed it, having the boat float awash would probably be more stable. Yeah, it might not be that comfortable, but it depends on whether you want to keep the boat floating at the normal waterline, or just afloat until a rescue.

The question is whether you'd need more flotation for the awash condition vs. the normal waterline or not.
 
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