Forewarning: this
is a very long post, as well as a painful one.
On Monday afternoon
(08-Aug) we departed the Summit North Marina on the eastern end of the
C&D Canal, entered the Delaware River and Bay, and headed south. In our last blog post we had concluded it
with:
“As
we approached our target anchorage in the Delaware Bay area around 1700 everything
was looking good, but then the situation went to hell in a hurry....”
That was something of an understatement, because in the end
the boat sunk. Writing this is likely part of the penance – we were
taught to own our actions and mistakes, and this was a definite
screw-up, with an end result of Ghost
Rider sinking to the bottom of the Delaware River.
How She Went Down
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| Just Before Waypoint #12 is Where We Struck the Jetty. But We Were Not Using This Chart Rendition. |
To put it as simply as possible, we missed the fact that
there is a submerged (at least at a high tide) rock jetty between
the main channel and an entrance to an anchorage south of Reedy Island. On the raster charts – which we weren’t using
at the time – it was fairly obvious. But
on the vector charts, it was not as prominent.
But it was there (see chart
excerpts.) The C-Map chart on the Furuno unit we were actually using to navigate at the time we struck it was even less revealing. None of that in any way is an
excuse. A prudent mariner should always
study all information available to him, especially when transiting into
unfamiliar waters outside a marked channel.
We had closely examined depths, tides, currents, Active Captain tips and
comments – but overlooked the damned jetty markings.
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| What It Looks Like on the Furuno C-Map Display....Similar to the One We Were Using (Pic Courtesy of Southern Star) |
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| A Couple of Hours After Impact the Jetty Becomes Visible as the Tide Recedes |
Both we and the SeaTow personnel made another detailed
inspection of the vessel for damage and water intrusion, including the engine
room and its bilges and all lower level inspection hatches, with once again
none being apparent. Rick was especially
vigilant with the starboard side stabilizer compartment, since initially we
thought it was possible we had ripped that thing off, although we never saw
water there. (We hit the jetty at a
slight angle….from the measurements Rick took we thought the port side
stabilizer probably survived. We also decided to plug the starboard side
scuppers on the lower deck level, being unsure if the boat might heel over that
far with tide and current changes (it didn’t….but the current can rip through
there at 2.5 knots.)
But as the tide kept receding and the up angle of the bow correspondingly
increased, we did observe exterior fiberglass damage low on the forepoint of
the bow….although an inspection of the anchor chain locker revealed no obvious interior
damage. SeaTow remained on site and a second boat delivered float bags (but did not deploy yet), and they expressed with some optimism they would be able to pull or float the boat off at the next high tide, which would occur around 0330 the next morning. A short while later a
Delaware DNR vessel approached, came aboard, and processed their report
requirements; they also made another inspection of the vessel, again with no other
damage found at that point except for some stress cracks in the fiberglass
floor of the engine room, just forward of the main engine in the vicinity of
the high-water bilge cavity. That was a
foreshadowing.
 |
| The Jetty as Seen Through Ghost Rider's Starboard Side Pilot House Door |
Shortly thereafter (at approximately 1900 hours) as we
continued to make periodic re-inspections of all lower compartments, we
observed water entering the rear bilge from an unknown location. SeaTow had departed to retrieve some more equipment,
so we hailed them on VHF channel 16 to inform them of the water intrusion. Because of the angle of the boat – it was
bow-up by 5 or 6 degrees according to the inclinometer that Rick had set up in
the pilot house shortly after the collision to monitor boat movement – the
water was pooling in the aft bilge and exceeding the capacity of its small pump
(rated at 400 GPH). So we began pumping it
out with the manual bilge pump (rated at 1800 GPH…but note that any of those
pump ratings are optimistic given the lift distances). SeaTow returned a short while later and began
deploying their gas-powered dewatering pumps…two of them at first (another would not start...which turned out to be a recurring theme.)
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| Initial Dewatering Pump Hose Runs from Engine Room Up and Out to Cockpit Area |
They had some trouble getting those pumps started and
primed, so Rick and Chelle took shifts on the manual pump...right up until it failed about
30 minutes later – a seal had burst at the rear of the unit and now it was just
sucking air. But SeaTow finally got
their pumps working a short while later, and we never got the chance to see if
the manual pump failure was repairable. (Other Nordy owners should take note....we are not aware of any scheduled or preventive maintenance on the manual bilge pump, but there should be.) We
had also added an additional small electric bilge pump in the main shaft cavity
since the bow-up angle of the boat caused some occasional bilge overflow to
accumulate there. Another check of the
forward bilge revealed water flowing beneath its floor drain (where it is
connected with the rear bilge via a 2” pipe that runs from the bow)….that meant
we had a hull breach somewhere forward of that location.
By this time we had opened up two of the salon floor hatches
for direct engine room access – we used one to route the dewatering pump hoses
down there, and the other for personnel access to & from that compartment, as we were
making very frequent trips down there to check on damage and water ingress /
egress rates. With the up-angle of the
bow and wet floor (from all the foot traffic to/from the cockpit) one had to be
very careful not to slip and fall into one of them. That angle also caused the galley’s oven and
fridge doors to pop open – we secured the former with a rope, the latter with
its underway securing latch (although that required the use of a hammer to coax
the bolt into its slot.) At about the
same time the boat’s two internal fire, smoke & CO detectors started
screaming – the fumes from the dewatering pumps were triggering them at regular
intervals. Rick finally just removed the
batteries and disabled them, although we all agreed to minimize time spent in
the salon where airflow wasn’t particularly good.
Over the next few hours that rate of water intrusion increased
significantly, and the high-water bilge was now filling up as the up bow angle
increased – to the point that the boat’s swim platform was submerged. Rick noticed a bulge starting to protrude
into that cavity, enough to dislodge the high-water bilge pump from its
mounting and moving it above the water’s level.
It took Rick about 15 minutes to relocate its discharge hose and the
pump itself so it remained submerged, after which it began pumping well (rated
at 3700 GPH theoretical capacity). Rick then went
up to the pilot house to silence the high water alarm…it was pretty obvious
that wasn’t going to change any time soon, and we didn’t need that screeching in our ears.
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| On the Rocks After the Tide Receded Photo Courtesy of Delaware DNR |
But as the hull breach progressively worsened it became evident
the situation was getting dire. Around
midnight Rick told Chelle two things: that
he had serious doubts the boat could be saved, and to pack a couple of small
bags in preparation for leaving the boat.
The SeaTow folks did not seem to share that sentiment at that particular
moment, although we suspect they are trained to say such things (up to a
point?)
The bulge in the high-water bilge cavity was intruding further
and further, splintering and cracking its top coating of FRP and revealing
parts of the hull one really shouldn’t ever be looking at. Given its location, essentially in the middle
of the boat and just forward of the main engine – basically where the vessel
was resting on the rock jetty – it made sense that’s where the major hull
damage would occur. Rick spent
considerable time trying to peer into these new openings to discern the nature
and size of the hull breach. The ragged
nature of it made that extremely difficult….the Forespar foam-cone plugs we
carry weren’t a good fit and had no impact on the flow; same for the kapok
bags, rags, bedsheets and the StayAfloat goo that he attempted to stuff in
there to at least slow the flow. At that
point the SeaTow captain-in-charge came down to the engine room and asked Rick
to remain above decks for safety reasons.
Agreement was reluctant.
Over time the buckling of that hull area continued to
increase along as did the rate at which we were taking on water. We surmised this worsening condition was due
to the outgoing tide (the jetty was now quite visible) and the boat’s dead weight
of 95,000 pounds lying on the rock jetty far exceeding the hull’s design
limits. The boat was essentially trying
to break in half….we think only the quality of its build kept it together as
long as it did.
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| Getting Lots of Water into the Engine Room |
SeaTow retrieved and deployed two more dewatering pumps, so by
that time we had four of them in service, as well as float bags (finally but only partially) inflated under
the stern area. (We'll want to revisit that topic later.) When the last pump was added
to the array now covering the cockpit floor it sprung a large leak in its large
4-inch discharge hose. SeaTow attempted
to sleeve it, but the water volume and pressure was just too much for
that. Rick retrieved several rolls of
rescue tape from our on-board emergency gear and applied 2 full spools around
on the hose, topped with numerous wraps of 3M vinyl tape, finally getting it to
seal. Chelle also spent much of her time
in the cockpit helping the SeaTow crews manage the pump discharge hoses, refueling
the pump motors, as well as redeploying fenders between our boat and theirs at the
swim platform. She also kept an eye out
for boat traffic in the channel – it’s a busy shipping lane with large ships
displacing big wakes; when one was sighted (or when an AIS target
showed up) SeaTow would hail them on VHF 16 and request a minimum speed pass;
it wasn’t always successful, and the subsequent rocking motion certainly
exacerbated Ghost Rider’s wounds as the teetering hull was grinding further into the rock jetty.
At approximately 0300 hours (now 09-Aug), the SeaTow captain
asked us to leave the boat to find accommodations for the night as they
continued their efforts – it was very apparent at that point in time that
staying on the boat was not an option for us.
Before we departed Rick provided the SeaTow captain-in-charge
instructions for main engine and generator start-up in case those would be
needed, as well as an overview of the electrical panel; and also suggested that
at some point they parallel all batteries as the house bank capacity neared the
60% level. We also agreed that
attempting to pull the boat off wasn’t a good idea; instead they would attempt
to locate divers to inspect, and if possible, plug some holes before attempting
that maneuver. Chelle had looked at the
chart and we selected some nearby shallow areas with soft bottom as potential
landing areas should that plan turn out to be feasible.
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| And More Water....We Put the Biggest Pump into the Breach Area in the Forward High Water Bilge Cavity |
We grabbed the minimal gear Chelle had packed us for the
night – one of the bags with a special American flag inside it, thanks to
Chelle’s clear-headed thinking – and Rick changed into some dry clothes. Another SeaTow captain ferried us to Delaware
City Marina, and from there to a nearby hotel.
It was about 0430 when we checked in.
A bit later, at approximately 0530 – a strange time of day to be drinking
wine and scotch in your hotel room, but that’s what we were doing – we received a call from the
SeaTow personnel who needed additional assistance in starting the vessel’s
generator. (So at that point we knew the boat was still afloat.) We walked them through the
procedure for genset startup, and while it started, the unit would shut down
after only a few seconds. We were pretty sure that its internal safety switches
for various fluid levels didn’t like the angle the boat was at. Rick had also recommended that they start the
main engine and rev it to about 1200 RPM should they need an alternate charging
source, though it was likely to suffer from similar issues, and in the end it really didn’t matter.
At 0930 SeaTow called us again, this time reporting the
boat’s stern had been swamped by passing boat wakes (e.g., those very large
ships that transit the nearby channel) and the situation was now turning to
strictly salvage….Ghost Rider had
dislodged from the jetty and had slowly settled to the bottom after drifting about a mile further south with the outgoing tide and current.
Our next post addresses salvage operations and the aftermath....click HERE.
Our next post addresses salvage operations and the aftermath....click HERE.
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