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How does a boat sink in 15 minutes?

3K views 22 replies 20 participants last post by  dmchose 
#1 ·
#11 ·
Put a 28' Owens on the bottom on the north end of Seneca Lake about 20 -25 years ago.
From that experience I'm suprised it took as long as 15 minutes !
Seems like it went down alot faster than that.
It happened as a result of a series of bad decisions followed by engine failure on a lee shore.
Still freaks me out, I'll never anchor w/ a lee shore,never.
The only good thing that came out of it was the next boat I bought had a motor AND a sail. I figure one or the other will keep me off the bottom. (that and better seamanship !)
 
#12 ·
I watched a boat sink in just about 2 minutes. Nothing I could do. I was walking out the long fuel dock towards the lake's marina as a guy pulled his picklefork with 5" of transom into a slip. Every slip and the side of the store had signs that said BOW OUT. He was just pulling in to get a 6 pack of beer so he thought that bow in would be OK. It wasn't. A boat passed going fast and the wake swamped the back of the picklefork. As I came around the corner of the store I saw his polished, supercharged 454 with chrome exhaust go under water. The whole cockpit was flooded and only the bow was sticking up as he walked out with his beer. He yelled and the marina manager came out. By this time most of the air in the bow had hissed out around the bow eye and it was getting lower and lower. The marina manager reached down and cut the bow line with his knife. The beer guy started crying. The marina manager explained that he wouldn't allow the boat to destroy the dock and down she went.
It was the first time he'd had the boat out.
 
#13 ·
Pull your knotmeter, especially if you do not a flap.
 
#16 ·
A 2" diameter hole 1 foot underneath the waterline will let in 78 gallons per minute. If the bilge pump can't handle that, then the second minute the hole will be 2 feet underneath the waterline and let in commensurately more water.

78 Gallons is about 650 Lbs, a typical boat won't stand that much weight being added per minute for very long...
 
#21 ·
Back in the 90s I had a 19 foot jet boat with through transom exhaust. A short section of rubber hose connected the exhaust manifolds to the transom fittings and had rotted from the inside.

Launched the boat and sped off across a lake. Within five minutes we had water up to the seats and coming in faster than the bilge pump could handle it. Immediately turned for shore and beached the boat.

Any further out, or if the engine had stalled the boat would have been lost well within 15 minutes. Don't know the exact volume, but the cooling system moves a lot of water.
 
#22 ·
Break the keel off a sailboat and leave a 10 inch wide by 5 foot long hole in the bottom of the boat.

The boat sinks in 15 seconds, the other 14 minutes and 45 seconds you float in the water (assuming you weren't down below when it happened) and wonder what happened.

How do I know this? I'm not answering that but . . . .



That used to have a keel attached to it.
 
#23 ·
Watched a 128 foot tug we were salvaging sink in about a " very looong 60 sec.". Well kinda watched. I was actually running as fast as I could away from the mooring wall still in a dry suit. It is a very violent and fast affair. If anyone was on board there would have been no way to get off it. Stern bobbed twice and bow rose, whole tug twisted as much as the 3 inch hawsers would allow. Tug became vertical and then was gone.
Bow and stern lines snapped and spring lines became guitar strings melded into a hazard that took a whole shift before management came up with an idea how to break them without breaking anyone in the process.
 
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