Sick - No really it made me sick.

[RidgeRunner]

A friend of mine brought this to my attention, for the lat/lon. Nice video of spearfishing off Stienahatchee, But there is more. I won't say what it is, watch it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c48IWQ7vWEE

[phatdaddy]

saw that on tht about a week ago, lot of second guessing on what happened. only thing i wonder is with divers in the water, why not look for source. start plugging all thru hulls, etc. i almost lost a 19 mako one time. 74 hull with the cut down transom, water came over the back ( 4 divers w/gear hanging on the stern in 3 ft seas). the water went in the rigging hole and flooded the bilge. i had my buddies go tothe bow and hang on the anchor while i took off my gear and went over the bow and started the bilge pump. scary times.

[Road King Cole]

I would still like to understand how that happened...The seas didn't look that rough to me...I thought I heard them say the bilge pump was running...open hatch? I don't get it. Perhaps I don't understand the layout of that boat completely.

rkc

[RidgeRunner]

The layout of the boat, as I understand it. The euro style transom has hatches and rigging holes behind the full height transom. It near about has to have some to facilitate the rigging. I have a Whaler with a similar transom design. It has a large fiberglass hatch giving access to the batteries on the starboard side (with a nice rubber gasket) and then a rectangular hatch at the bottom of the splash well. (yep the bottom of the square splash well and it is kinda cheap looking)
I am confused as to why they were not anchored up while diving. A motor would need to be running with someone at the controls to keep the boat close AND when the problem was detected the motor would not be shut off. Why not put a couple guys on finding the leak, isolate the battery issue and get frantic about bailing. With both batteries submerged, because they are buried in the bilge and access to the bilge already underwater I am sure they were limited. I would have at least tried something. If the bilge pump was on, the leak was substantial and probably killed the battery but that would have been noticed long before the cameraman made it back onboard.
The Jackson's in the "Merlin" live around the corner from my parents in Suwannee. They are the neighbors that I referred to as catching nice Red Snapper this past weekend in the fishing section under "Scallops anyone?" Small world unless your floating along looking at the bottom of your 30 footer somewhere in the Gulf.
Glad they made it home safe, there was some editing involved so they probably tried more than the video showed. Easy to play armchair quarterback, now it is time to go and inspect them hatches, test the bilge alarm, both pumps and consider another battery that isn't below the deck.

[Destroyer]

Actually, strange as it may seem, a submerged battery will still put out proper voltage for a long time. Battery acid is made of water and acid, and the vent holes in a battery would only allow a little water into the battery itself. The resistance of the water between the battery posts is great enough to keep it from shorting out. The items that it's powering may short out, but since bilge pumps are made to run underwater, they would not be one of them.

[Monkey Butler]

http://www.boatus.com/seaworthy/asse...hyJuly2011.pdf

Story in there that to me looks to be almost the same situation but with a better ending.

Most important that everyone is okay but it is a shame to see that happen to what looks to be a very nice and well kept boat.

[phatdaddy]

destroyer, had a boat go under a dock at low tide and get trapped when the tide came back in. only thing above water was the bow. we used a chain hoist strapped to a tree and pulled it up on the hill. could not believe when the transom finally came up, the bilge pump was pumping away.