Scuttle The Boat When Abandoning Ship?

[seaross]

many have heard the talk of the much maligned scuttling of George V 's beloved britiania. The capt. goes down with ship and vice versa the ship goes down with the captain. I think you are over thinking the "law of the sea" I believe it was to keep the ship out of hands that may oppose you.from a day gone by when you controled the sea you controled the world. A navigation hazard perhaps,but I think if there is a reasonable chance it can be recovered, and the rightful captain in command there is not need to scuttle the ship out of principal. legally I think there may be some plausible deniability if an accident occurs, for damages and such so I do believe with no chance of recovery scuttle the ship.How do you make that call is it recoverable or not?

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by bailsout

Sailing at night what good is a watch if there is a submerged container in your path.

Same goes for day time in all but a flat sea.. real hard to spot that bit of disturbed water that marks the spot..

[PhiSig1071]

What's the saying?

"Never step DOWN into your liferaft?"

[MarkJ]

If I am forced off my boat onto a ship I am not safe untill on the ship.

If we stuff up the transfer I can't go back because my boat is sinking.

If the weather is good enough to do a transfer and my boat wasn't sinking why would I abandon it?

If it was all nice then, yes, I would scuttle my boat.


Mark

[Dartanyon]

I'm very interested in the community's ideas about this, but with all deference to Ann, may I pose the question with some more specifics:

Bob & Sally are 3 days out from San Diego to Hawaii on a 40' mono. Everything is going well, boat is in great shape. Bob gets up from an afternoon nap, and immediately fears something is wrong, he ambles out to Sally, who's reading in the cockpit and they quickly surmise that he's showing signs of having had a stroke. They get on the radio, and raise the Coast Guard, who agree with their assessment. They take what actions they can, but medical attention is needed. The Coast Guard offers rescue, and Sally & Bob agree to it.

There has been no time to discuss, if they are still cruising if Bob recovers, no plans made to stop. Bob seems a bit altered. The hilo shows up basket is lowered, rescue puts Bob in the basket. If Sally doesn't go with him, they may never see each other again if Bob does not recover; rescue has given it a 50/50 chance.

Does Sally go with him? Leaving the boat adrift? Does she sink it?

[robert sailor]

Your story is bad luck and we can all engineer similar stories but a boat is just a boat so hubby and wife leave the boat. He's in the trade winds so the boat will continue its movement in Hawaii's direction, it will certainly be beyond helicopter range by the time he gets out of the hospital. Wife probably can't arrange anything as her attention will be on him. So the only decision is whether you think leaving a hazard to navigation is acceptable. Now I could craft an ending to your story that entails a young couple with 2 kids that run into the boat left adrift in the middle of the night and do enough damage to their boat that puts their lives at risk. If we think totally about ourselves we leave the boat adrift and if we think about others then maybe a different outcome. There has certainly been cases of people being rescued and due to circumstances they were unable to scuttle the boat so it really depends on the circumstances.

[mainsil]

Just tell the CG to practice on it with their 50s. They'll have a blast.

[JPA Cate]

Originally Posted by Dartanyon

I'm very interested in the community's ideas about this, but with all deference to Ann, may I pose the question with some more specifics:

Bob & Sally are 3 days out from San Diego to Hawaii on a 40' mono. Everything is going well, boat is in great shape. Bob gets up from an afternoon nap, and immediately fears something is wrong, he ambles out to Sally, who's reading in the cockpit and they quickly surmise that he's showing signs of having had a stroke. They get on the radio, and raise the Coast Guard, who agree with their assessment. They take what actions they can, but medical attention is needed. The Coast Guard offers rescue, and Sally & Bob agree to it.

There has been no time to discuss, if they are still cruising if Bob recovers, no plans made to stop. Bob seems a bit altered. The hilo shows up basket is lowered, rescue puts Bob in the basket. If Sally doesn't go with him, they may never see each other again if Bob does not recover; rescue has given it a 50/50 chance.

Does Sally go with him? Leaving the boat adrift? Does she sink it?

Nice hypothetical, Dartanyan, they're around 500 miles out, or so.

It is a good idea to have talked about this before hand. I have always thought I'd take the boat to port, then meet Jim at the hospital, and I still might not do it! The reasons for my or Jim's bringing the boat to port are that it is our retirement home as well as a possession, and we would want to live on it as long as possible in any event, all our worldly possessions are here, aboard. The reason for going with him would be to offer comfort and support, which I view as a central part of our marriage, so it would be a hard decision for me, giving up our home, which would have to be scuttled, it's unrealistic to plan on finding it after 2 or 3 days, difficulty of bringing it back undamaged by a salvor could really lower its value, if it could happen, vs. being where i belong, with my man. I don't know how I'd jump. Would stay with the boat if it were what Jim wanted. You'd really want to have an abandon-ship plan in place, salvor already bargained with and on the way, who'd be your shore contact, etc.

How one worked it out is very much a couples issue, and of course, my dilemma has the woman able to sail and navigate the boat to a safe harbor. It is one of the reasons I am so big on women learning to sail independently of their partners, so that they and their partners have the competence that allows them to sleep soundly on passages, and handle emergencies.

I think it is something they should talk about together and come to their own path.

Ann

[Stumble]

Originally Posted by Dartanyon

I'm very interested in the community's ideas about this, but with all deference to Ann, may I pose the question with some more specifics:

Bob & Sally are 3 days out from San Diego to Hawaii on a 40' mono. Everything is going well, boat is in great shape. Bob gets up from an afternoon nap, and immediately fears something is wrong, he ambles out to Sally, who's reading in the cockpit and they quickly surmise that he's showing signs of having had a stroke. They get on the radio, and raise the Coast Guard, who agree with their assessment. They take what actions they can, but medical attention is needed. The Coast Guard offers rescue, and Sally & Bob agree to it.

There has been no time to discuss, if they are still cruising if Bob recovers, no plans made to stop. Bob seems a bit altered. The hilo shows up basket is lowered, rescue puts Bob in the basket. If Sally doesn't go with him, they may never see each other again if Bob does not recover; rescue has given it a 50/50 chance.

Does Sally go with him? Leaving the boat adrift? Does she sink it?

Is Sally competent to solo the boat back to land? Even many good sailors may not be up to a minimum three day solo trip.

Is the boat safe for solo sailing, with lines run properly, autopilot reliable and powerful enough, to even consider it?

In short in some circumstances I think Sally should stay with the boat and bring it home. But if she or the boat are not capable of safely making the trip then she has a positive obligation to abandon the vessel now, while transfer can be made safely. If the USCG has to come back and rescue her again you double the risk to their personal.

If she chooses to abandon then I would do the following...

prepare the vessel like I would if I was leaving her at the dock for a hurricane (sails stowed or lashed in place, Bimini down, dogged hatches, etc) Except :

1) everything but the bilge pump off
2) turn on all the running lights, and the anchor light
3) leave a note indicating the vessel has been abandoned taped to the companion way with contact information for the owner
4) close but do not lock the companionway
5) leave the key in the ignition
6) hoist any radar reflector or retro-reflective light reflector into the rigging.

If you have a way to track the boat, via autonomous gps reporting turn it on and plug it into the ships battery for charging if possible.


Under this scenario it is possible, though not probable that you could recover the vessel in reasonably good shape. The note and the contact information is so in case someone comes by and sees a wallowing vesssel and investigates they know that the crew weren't lost aboard, and how to contact you in the event a salvage is attempted.

So why leave it unlocked and the key in the ignition? There is a chance a Good Samaritan would come by to investigate, and make an attempt to bring her home. You are just making it as easy as possible to salvage the vessel. A thief will just break it anyway.


The tracker obviously helps to track the boat, but it can also be relayed to the USCG for securitate notices to mariners.

But no way on gods green earth would I scuttle the vessel. I don't consider it safe to do until you are onboard the rescue vessel, and I don't think the USCG cares enough to even take pop shots at the boat after the rescue is performed.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by Ann T. Cate

Nice hypothetical, Dartanyan,

It is a good idea to have talked about this before hand. I have always thought I'd take the boat to port, then meet Jim at the hospital, and I still might not do it. The reasons for my or Jim's bringing the boat to port are that it is our retirement home as well as a possession, and we would want to live on it as long as possible in any event, all our worldly possessions are here, aboard. The reason for going with him would be to offer comfort and support, which I view as a central part of our marriage, so it would be a hard decision for me, giving up our home, which would have to be scuttled, it's unrealistic to plan on finding it after 2 or 3 days, difficulty of bringing it back undamaged by a salvor would really lower its value, if it could happen, vs. being where i belong, with my man. I don't know how I'd jump. Would stay with the boat if it were what Jim wanted.

How one worked it out is very much a couples issue, and of course, my dilemma has the woman able to sail and navigate the boat to a safe harbor. It is one of the reasons I am so big on women learning to sail independently of their partners, so that they and their partners have the competence that allows them to sleep soundly on passages.

I think it is something they should talk about together and come to their own path.

Ann

I concur with Ann on this.. especially if it carries all you own.. regarding the woman being able to sail and navigate properly.. that's an essential as one woman discovered when her partner went over the side a few years back.. all she could do was panic as she watched him disappear astern.

[Sandero]

I wonder what people this of this:

If you have to abandon ship.... have some sort of large inflatable bladder or several to inflate inside the cabin. The would make the hull unsinkable and leave litter room for water inside the hull if it did get in.

Now the abandoned vessel striped of sails and as much windage is left with a solar powered strobe and AIS and of course a solar power tracking device so a salvor can locate the ship.

You don't want to leave a hazard to navigation out there...

Of course this presumes that the crew can be removed safely and returned to land.

[buzzstar]

Seems to me, the responsible thing to do is to scuttle her if she is sinking anyway and you are abandoning her for that reason. Just be sure to keep your mouth shut about anything done to advance the process. BTW, at what point does "she" become an "it"?

[Frugal]

Having been there and done that. The last thing in mind at the time was to scuttle. Far more important was to maintain Leprena II as an effective backup if the rescue went awry. The sink drain was left open and it was the lowest point of entry for seawater. She would have gone down in her own good time.

[jmschmidt]

There may be serious and adverse insurance issues with intentionally sinking a vessel even if everyone knows that sometimes this is the least objectionable and actually the safest course of action.

But there is the old sailor's rule of don't abandon ship until it sinks out from under you or if it's on fire and then only if you are down wind of the fire. And, no it won't suck you down with it. That only happens in the movies.

[robert sailor]

The downside for you guys that think the wife should sail in it back which is only 3 days....well I'd put my money on Anne but the average wife who knows little about sailing is going to turn around and beat upwind against the trades for maybe a week or ten days before reaching home port. Would probably make more sense to continue on to Hawaii. Just a thought.