TWL: Re: How much can a boat take?
Here is a post from the Tollycraft forum (msn)...I don't think you want to go
there! By Darrin in Alaska.
"Some years ago in Icy Straight it was a perfect glass calm day. We saw what
looked like a fog bank come in from South Inian Pass. After watching it for a
couple of minutes it was clear it was moving too fast for fog. It turned out
to be spray being blow off of the ocean in a frothy white cloud. Within 15
minutes it went from glass to 6 footers. In another 15 minutes we where
fighting 12+ caps in our 34. From wave to wave, there was not enough distance
for the boat to ride up and over. Instead the bow would be forced into the
oncoming breaker and the previous wave was still under the stern. The wave
under the stern would finally clear the transom and SMASH up under the swim
step. Eventually this cause the heavy metal brackets to break, allowing the
skiff on the swim step to go bye-bye.
Water was pouring off the bridge from the crests making it over the front of
the bridge. With the engines are under the cockpit on that model, one large
wave dumped lots of water over the bridge into the cockpit, stalling the
starboard engine. That of course sent us into a sudden hard turn. The next
breaker hit broad-side & laid the boat clean over. I was out back securing
gear while my father drove, wrong place to be. I thought it was all over as
the boat started to roll. The first engine's RPM soared when the propeller
broke the surface sending spray all over, followed by the just restated 2nd
engine surfacing. I held dangling over the ocean from the rails of the bridge
ladder. To this day I am amazed that Tolly rolled back onto her keel. We did a
roll in excess of 90 degrees. My mother said she saw sky on the port salon
windows and dark ocean on the starboard.
Within the hour the wind was gone and we were left with just the post storm
swell. Our 34 made it to the lodge in Glacier Bay with a good lean to
starboard. All of the paint and varnish on every joint of the interior was
cracked from the extreme stress and flexing of the hull. I remembered how
every wave rolled passed the rails and almost in slow motion the nose would
vanish into dark water. The wave would slam the front windows and the boat
would shudder followed by a sinking feeling, only to break free and do it
again. If we had been in about any other make of boat, we would have been on
the bottom, along with a Coast Guard cutter. That vessel was lost in the same
area years ago under another sudden storm that came and went, evading
detection by the weather service till it was upon them.
In that same area we had a friend who was in his 37' Tolly one winter when he
got a real unpleasant experience. He was gliding through 3 footers when he
turned close around Rocky Island. As he passed the reef the boat dropped from
the sky sending the wine glasses to the roof. He spent the next 4 hours trying
to make it 10 miles to safety through 20 footers. He said conditions would
never have allowed him to turn around, he had to press forward. I still
remember the smile on Jim's face as he said "She never took one over the
nose."
I will probably never own a different brand of boat as long as I frequent the
coast of Alaska."
Jerry
Midnight Watch
Tollycraft 26
"J Kaster" kaster@tds.net
At 01:56 PM 2/21/04 -0600, you wrote:
Here is a post from the Tollycraft forum (msn)...I don't think you want to go
there! By Darrin in Alaska.
"Some years ago in Icy Straight it was a perfect glass calm day. We saw what
A couple of comments.
Sounds like some kind of Willawa, but from the wrong direction.
South Inian Pass is the route into Elfin Cove. Approaching the pass from
Icy Strait would make the heading about due west. The pass is pretty narrow
and winds.
Can't understand anyone watching something that obvious for several minutes
and just proceeding as if it were going to be a nice day. Oh, well.
It is implied from the article that the aft deck was not watertight, or
there would not have been a lot of water get into the engine room and drown
out the one engine. Icy Strait can be very nasty. Depths east of the pass
are generally on the order of 30-60 fathoms. This is not a case of waves
being aggravated by depth of water.
I am skeptical about the forward windows not breaking out in the conditions
described. I am familiar with those boats. Even with tempered safety glass,
direct hits from breakers 12' high would tear the glass from the frame,
even if it did not break it. It is really hard to draw conclusions from
such breathless, lack of detail accounts.
It is hard to understand why anyone would go to the Lodge at Glacier Bay
for repairs, when Elfin Cove would have been closer and at least in the
past 15 years or so, would have had better facilities.
Don't get me wrong, I am not suggesting this did not happen, but it is hard
to make sense sometimes out of accounts by novices, especially when this
seems to have been their first encounter with severe conditions. So, what
do I think happened.
Reading between the lines. The windows might have held up, if the water
simply surged forward across the front deck, up against the windows and
over the top of the boat. The description of the bow digging in, sounds
about right. The level of wind that it would have taken to make all this
happen would have been throwing enough spray, to nearly blind the
observers. Drop the nearly! Sounds like wind was over 80 knots.
Enough water in the engine room, might have come from cowl vents placed
facing forward, but it still sounds like the deck and hatches over the
engines were not watertight. Enough water to kill an engine should have
been enough to create enough free surface to contribute to the boat rolling
over in a calm sea. You may recall that my post which started this thread,
specifically assumed no substantial free surface from tanks, and I should
have added from bilge water.
But, it is possible that the first wave sent water close enough to the
carburetor or ignition system to short or drown one of them out. This could
have come from anyplace. But, if they limped in listing heavily, then they
obviously got a fair amount of water in over the course of the encounter.
Based on the topography of the area, it is unlikely that this storm entered
solely from S. Inian Pass. But, I believe the account, so that implies that
the boat must have been close enough to the pass that they could not see
the effects coming around the north end of the island. It is about 5 miles
back to the nearest island, where shelter could be found. Had they run off,
when they had the chance, they would not have nearly lost the boat. And I
have no doubt they nearly did. The line of sight that would obscure the
north pass, would place them within about 2 1/2 miles of the windward
island. Those boats where pretty fast, running down wind would have worked
a lot better, oh well.
There are a fair number of assumptions in all this and I would not claim
that they are all correct. But, the lack of detail in the account, doesn't
help much. Icy Strait can be one very ugly place.
Mike
Capt. Mike Maurice
Wilsonville, Oregon (Portland).
A few years ago we were off Cape Flattery heading out for a favorite fishing
ground when the swells began to get to the size that got our attention. As
they grew they began to get steeper with the wave period getting shorter.
Well, we really wanted to get out there as the fishing had been great so we
kept going. I expected the rollers to get smaller and the period to increase
as we got into deeper water. They didn't. A mistake on my part.
Finally I decided to turn and run back into Neah Bay. Alrighteeeeee. When
do I turn the 180? Holding on, I went up on the fly bridge to get a better look
at what was happening and to better judge the conditions. By now the
height was an estimated 19 feet (6 feet above my fly bridge). Annnnnnnnd
they were beginning to break at the very tip top. Uh-oh! Better get turned
ASAP. The timing of the turn was a concern now.
Well, finally I saw a slightly longer wave period and applied full power with the
helm hard over. She came around fine, in fact slightly faster than I thought
she would. Good boat. Love that big rudder. Now to hold her on a course for
home. Why not use the autopilot? Pushed the button. Woah! Almost went
broadside before it turned back. It had worked lots of times before in lesser
following seas, why not now? Well it seems it can't anticipate which way
the stern of the boat was going to go before it made the adjustment to stay
straight. The boat needs that jump of a half second or so that a human can
feel to better turn the right way. I had been told that the autopilot would
"learn" what was happening and take corrective action. OK, but under these
conditions I wasn't about to experiment.
Learned something that day.
Sandy Floe
Sea Eagle(39 CHB)
Day Island, WA
-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Maurice
<It is hard to understand why anyone would go to the Lodge at Glacier Bay
for repairs, when Elfin Cove would have been closer and at least in the
past 15 years or so, would have had better facilities.>
My thought is that heading for Glacier Bay may have been a more emotionally
comfortable decision. Elfin Cove was closer, but that's where the tiger had
just come from and they still would have had South Inian Pass to contend
with. Both South and North Inian Passes can get nasty even on nice days if
you don't pay attention to the wind/tide directions.
One year we timed our departure from Glacier Bay headed to Elfin Cove to hit
South Inian at slack water. Tide was flooding and we held a 30-35 degree
westerly crab just to maintain our course line. That same year we came out
of Elfin Cove headed to Hoonah at low slack in 100 yard visibility fog. We
were well into South Inian and my eyes were pretty much in scanning the
radar and The Capn when I heard my wife gasp. I looked up and out of the
fog, a pod of 10 Orcas were coming at us from dead ahead. They were really
trucking, like they do when they're on the way to a seal kill zone, and were
surfing the small westbound swells. The pod split at our bow and came by us
on both sides, the males' dorsals well above our eye lines. We had our
starboard door open and could here them blow, and could sense their power
from the sound the water made as they passed through it. And then it was
over. Maybe 15 or 30 seconds of sheer magic that left our hearts beating
faster for the rest of the morning.
Mike O'Reilly
Ladyhawke
Sunnfjord 54
Portland, OR