[mbianka]

More things seem to go bad in the night at sea. Thinking of Steve Callahan of ADRIFT fame and then there is this story:

 

[Minnewaska]

Yikes. You can really find the tough ones. Did they say a steel ship? Surprising that went down by an impact, but I think I also heard it may have separated the rudder. Audio was hard on this computer.

 

[overthehorizon]

You can click on the auto generated CC which helps with the voice over but the CC does not pick up what was spoken on the VHF. It would have been helpful if the makers of the video corrected and added to the auto generated CC. So they hit something and water came in through the rudder, sinking the boat. There are a lot of whales around Niue and between Niue and Tonga. In Niue, whales swim through the anchorage, especially at night. I am becoming a big believer in a skeg hung rudder.

 

[Minnewaska]

....I am becoming a big believer in a skeg hung rudder.

More boats should have water tight compartments around the rudder shaft. I need to examine ours more closely. The shaft sits within a compartment that would retain alot of water, but it would quickly overflow if the rudder hull penetration was compromised. It would fill into a very large lazzarette area, which I believe will flood forward, but I've never dug into the steering linkage area to see how. I bet there are some limber holes that allow it. If that simple, I'd really consider blocking them off and putting a separate bilge pump and high water alarm in that aft section. The pump would only be to evacuate convenience water, from dripping, open lazz hatches, etc. But one should stay afloat, if the entire locker flooded. As I think about it, there must be electrical and plumbing chases that would flood through too.

Our bow chain locker, which runs from the waterline to the deck, is water tight to the rest of the boat. That is a minor sense of comfort, in the event we t-boned something.

 

[overthehorizon]

Isolating the rudder shaft in a water tight area is a very interesting idea. Hydraulic steering would make that much easier than the wire to quadrant steering our old boat has. I wonder if any designer/builder has added such a good concept to a production design?