Boat capsizes in San Diego halibut tournament

I agree with most of the comments, but I think many of you mss the point. Even the most skilled people in their field of endeavor make mistakes. Often, accidents are not the result of one error, but a combination of factors that include misjudgment, a serious of coincidents, or just a string of bad luck. It's so easy to sit back and criticize others for their stupidity, but it really is not about stupidity -- it's about complacency. I admire this man for admitting his mistakes, and for giving his account so that others may learn from those mistakes. But anyone who thinks they will never make a stupid mistake that could lead to serious injury or death -- you should reconsider that view, because with that attitude, you are on a path to complacency that could lead you to a similar fate.

Rich
 
You can put any kind of spin on anything. I wonder what you call folks that in a lifetime of boating never capsize, sink, run a boat hard aground etc. Lucky, smarter, prudent, more focused, less traveled or candy asses or all the above. Some folks have to learn the hard way. It's serious business, I'm not perfect by any means. My thing is you have to take responsibility for your actions especially when other people are involved. Part of that that is calling a spade a spade. At best in my opinion this event was caused by a serious lapse in judgment. The event came close to being a real tragedy for all the families involved. When I have kids mine or someone else's on my boat I'm especially focused on making them as safe as possible. You can call what happened a collection of unfortunate events but I don't think so. Just my opinion others are free to come to their own conclusions. Pilots have a saying that goes something like this, there are bold pilots and old pilots but not too many old and bold pilots.
D.D.
 
I believe the decision to go out in the conditions mentioned was overly agressive, bordering on foolhardy. Perhaps influenced by an egoic desire to show that Defiance boats can take anything, or perhaps the next incremental step in a lifetime of increasingly rough seas navigated. As with a 4x4 vehicle: do you have the 4x4 for an extra margin of safety while still driving conservatively, or do you let the extra traction get you into even greater trouble? However, the same catastrophe could have happened at a river bar in far less rough conditions. If you can't stay on the backside of the wave you're following in and thusly allow youself to be overtaken by the wave behind you FOR ANY REASON then you are in trouble. At least the captain has his "hat in hand" and is willing to help others avoid his fate. Mike
PS: anyone pick up on the irony that the rescue boat was a little Montauk, safely piloted?
 
After reading this thread, it seems to me that the boat may have pitch-poled (end over end). One of the issues that I haven't seen mentioned is the fact that all 6 people crowded into the pilot house. Assuming these are all adults, that could be 1,200 pounds or more. Add in the weight of the pilot house, tuna tower on top and God knows what else was in the cuddy and you now have a very unbalanced boat for the condition it was exposed too. The guy running the boat said he had the tabs up to lift the bow (which is good) but I suspect all the weight forward prevented the bow from being lifted. Given that he didn't have enough power to stay on the back of the swell, the size and steepness of the swell, and all the weight forward, it's not surprising that it capsized. They were very lucky that no one drowned. Of course, if the swells were big enough and steep enough the position of the weight in the boat wouldn't matter but you need all the help you can get under those conditions.
I have been down 20' swells several times at the inlet to Winter Harbour off Vancouver Island in my little 16 footer and if I have a lot of fish in the fish boxes, I move one to the back and have my 300# brother stand behind the cabin to keep the bow up. It's kind of like a big surf board for him. I was never able to keep up with the swells and stay on the back side so over the top we would go.
So I suppose the point I would make for C-Dory owners would be that if you are in a similar situation, move weight to the back of the boat even if it means someone has to sit back there and get wet. It could mean the difference between an exciting ride or a tradgedy.

Al
 
The description is far more than compatible with a broach than a pitch pole, which is true end over end. Part of this is due to unequal power between the engines, which would turn the boat sideways. This all happened in 2009. The "Tower" was not a large tower for that size and beam of boat--which is about the minimal size I think a tower should be on. I believe the skippers decision to have the crew inside of the cabin was correct; going into a inlet under those conditions there is more likely hood of a person being thrown out of the boat, than the boat broaching and rolling over.

The entrance to Mission Bay is shoal, and true 20 foot waves there are very unusual. (The ocean floor right before the jetties is at a depth of about 24 feet, with channel far less depending on when it was dredged. I can remember it being shoal enough in the past to be a problem for my sailboats at low tide.) I believe that although there can easily be 20 foot swells which may break on shoals on the entrance to Winter Harbor, there is a deep channel into the fjord type area of Winter Harbor. (Again I don't know exactly where 16 pounder is referring to specifically) I would hate to be in a 16 in 20 foot breaking seas--there a true pitch pole would be possible--and the inability to stay on the top of a wave could be fatal.

As for C Nile's comments--yes, we hear more about those who make the huge errors--some out of ignorance, and some out of lack of paying attention. The true mariners who do not have any accidents are mostly professionals or semi professionals with a lot of experience, and a high situational awareness. This awareness of both the sea state, the boat's capability, the crews capability, and options available--plus mitigating circumstances--in this case the line wrapped around the prop which did not allow full thrust from the one engine.
 
16Pounder":2h3y66lh said:
After reading this thread, it seems to me that the boat may have pitch-poled (end over end). One of the issues that I haven't seen mentioned is the fact that all 6 people crowded into the pilot house. Assuming these are all adults, that could be 1,200 pounds or more. Add in the weight of the pilot house, tuna tower on top and God knows what else was in the cuddy and you now have a very unbalanced boat for the condition it was exposed too. The guy running the boat said he had the tabs up to lift the bow (which is good) but I suspect all the weight forward prevented the bow from being lifted. Given that he didn't have enough power to stay on the back of the swell, the size and steepness of the swell, and all the weight forward, it's not surprising that it capsized. They were very lucky that no one drowned. Of course, if the swells were big enough and steep enough the position of the weight in the boat wouldn't matter but you need all the help you can get under those conditions.
I have been down 20' swells several times at the inlet to Winter Harbour off Vancouver Island in my little 16 footer and if I have a lot of fish in the fish boxes, I move one to the back and have my 300# brother stand behind the cabin to keep the bow up. It's kind of like a big surf board for him. I was never able to keep up with the swells and stay on the back side so over the top we would go.
So I suppose the point I would make for C-Dory owners would be that if you are in a similar situation, move weight to the back of the boat even if it means someone has to sit back there and get wet. It could mean the difference between an exciting ride or a tradgedy.

Al
Click to expand...
I asked a question on a 16' C-Dory thread about the worse conditions encounter on a 16 footer C-Dory and how secure it felt. There was little response until I read your response to the vessel that foundered and broached/pitch-poled.
So now I would like to drill down on story of 20' foot swells "Winter Harbor" -- how well did she handle --etc.
thanks
Blueback
 
Blueback,

When I was very inexperienced, I hit a 6 foot standing wave at Plum Gut head on. It scared the heck out of me. The boat went nearly vertical, and I applied full power out of fear she would slip backwards and dowse the engine. It was really stupid, but part of the problem with the CD-16 is that it is hard to stand up in her cabin when you are a tall person. So you will find yourself sitting down low behind the wheel with poor visibility. I did not realize how bad the wave was until I reached it, and by that time, it was too late.

On another occasion, I traveled between the wave troughs at an angle in 6 foot waves. The waves were so high that they seemed to tower over me when I was in the trough. The boat was kept level by powering into the oncoming wave, and immediately throttling back to allow the momentum of the boat to carry through. It was like being in a washing machine.

I have been all kinds of conditions. The CD-16 does not like short-period head seas of 2 feet or more. I think I would have been able to sustain greater head seas had I had a Permatrim like so many C-Brats recommended. The Permatrim would have allowed me to travel slowly while keeping the bow down. At slow speeds, it is next to impossible to keep the bow down of a CD-16 Cruiser, because she is only 16 feet long, and tends to be stern heavy.

The biggest seas she was in was about 7 or feet, but they were rollers! It was a lot of fun.

Frankly, any more than 3 feet short duration waves, and I would stay at port with a CD-16. Any more than 5 foot waves has the potential for broaching your boat if you do something stupid like going too fast in a following sea, falling off of a wave and sticking the bow at an angle. I can say, however, that on another occasions I fell off of waves, crashed nose-first into the oncoming wave, and a giant wall of water issued forth with no ill effects. She is an amazing boat, because even though she is stern heavy, and has a lot of roll in the stern, her bow is extremely stable. It seemed to me that the more pressure was applied to the bow, the more stable she became.

All in all, the CD-16 Cruiser was a wonderful boat for a novice, because I got to live to tell my stories of my lack of judgement. She really can cover for your mistakes, but really, I would not recommend using her in heavy seas. In other words, if the NOAA issues small craft warnings, stay in port!

Rich
 
C-Nile":3ibcc4ub said:
Blueback,

When I was very inexperienced, I hit a 6 foot standing wave at Plum Gut head on. It scared the heck out of me. The boat went nearly vertical, and I applied full power out of fear she would slip backwards and dowse the engine. It was really stupid, but part of the problem with the CD-16 is that it is hard to stand up in her cabin when you are a tall person. So you will find yourself sitting down low behind the wheel with poor visibility. I did not realize how bad the wave was until I reached it, and by that time, it was too late.

On another occasion, I traveled between the wave troughs at an angle in 6 foot waves. The waves were so high that they seemed to tower over me when I was in the trough. The boat was kept level by powering into the oncoming wave, and immediately throttling back to allow the momentum of the boat to carry through. It was like being in a washing machine.

I have been all kinds of conditions. The CD-16 does not like short-period head seas of 2 feet or more. I think I would have been able to sustain greater head seas had I had a Permatrim like so many C-Brats recommended. The Permatrim would have allowed me to travel slowly while keeping the bow down. At slow speeds, it is next to impossible to keep the bow down of a CD-16 Cruiser, because she is only 16 feet long, and tends to be stern heavy.

The biggest seas she was in was about 7 or feet, but they were rollers! It was a lot of fun.

Frankly, any more than 3 feet short duration waves, and I would stay at port with a CD-16. Any more than 5 foot waves has the potential for broaching your boat if you do something stupid like going too fast in a following sea, falling off of a wave and sticking the bow at an angle. I can say, however, that on another occasions I fell off of waves, crashed nose-first into the oncoming wave, and a giant wall of water issued forth with no ill effects. She is an amazing boat, because even though she is stern heavy, and has a lot of roll in the stern, her bow is extremely stable. It seemed to me that the more pressure was applied to the bow, the more stable she became.

All in all, the CD-16 Cruiser was a wonderful boat for a novice, because I got to live to tell my stories of my lack of judgement. She really can cover for your mistakes, but really, I would not recommend using her in heavy seas. In other words, if the NOAA issues small craft warnings, stay in port!

Rich
Click to expand...
Thanks - C-Nile
Thats the type of info I was asking for. Yikes- you have really put the 16' er to the wall and came back to tell about. My worst occasion was in the Fraser (broad fast flowing river) and a "big" deep draft, ocean tug left the dock facing upstream and pulled a full power 180 degree turn to go downstream. I was about 200 ft or less away from the huge wake this tug created at the tail out of this turn. I turn into the wake at an idle and as we hit it I went to full power as I could have broached it was that high. I also said to my passenger "hang on" this is going to stand us right up" and it did hit so hard she was thrown right off her seat onto the cockpit floor. Part of the wave broke over the hatch combing.
That skipper should have had a suspension from helm duties but thems the breaks we face at times with idiots with too much power.
If I had to face this again I think I would power into a hard 180 from the wave and run it out before taking it on my stern.
 
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
 
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!
 
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.
 
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).:wink:

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