Capsized My 26X

[Compromise]

Wow, I'm interested to hear the ballast answer too!

Looking at the picture of the 'M' above, it's not too hard to imagine in the 'heat of the moment', A) the main not released and therefore the submerged sail keeping her from returning upright and B) Add in wind and wave action and an open gangway hatch, water would have an opportunity to fill the cabin in a rapid fashion!

[Lease]

[/img]

I thought it was next to impossible to take on water in the cockpit. How did that happen? Are the openings on the X not as well protected as on the M? I am glad no one got hurt.

Thos nice pull-down pictures done in flat water with no movable weight in the boat are a bit deceptive.

Try a knockdown with the leach of the main filling, people falling to the low side, and the boat being dragged sideways through a decent chop and you won't find those gunnels above the waterline like in the picture.

Sailing in a strong breeze that is gusting and shifting is no fun at all. Sometimes when you are on your ear, you're going more sideways than forward. In those circumstances it isn't hard to get caught on the wrong side of the breeze and tip in to windward.

What is worrying is why the boat didn't come back up. The worst situation that one can think of for a capsized boat resisting its righting moment would be a main that was eased for reaching, but still cleated. That would cause a lot of water to be trapped inside the sail as it tried to come up, but it still should come up eventually.


On Edit - By the time I got it writ, it looks like an echo.

Wonder if the ballast tank had a failure. It would explain the suggishness and excessive heeling, not to mention the rapid filling. It would also neatly explain why it wouldn't come back up.

[Dimitri-2000X-Tampa]

I'm sorry to hear about your misfortune Fran.

Maybe he hit something and damaged the hull? Its hard to see how it would take on water that fast.

I was thinking along similar lines. Perhaps there was already some sort of leak in the hull or ballast tank. That could explain the sluggish sailing.

[Frank C]

I was thinking exactly same as Dimitri ... sluggish was the description ... BEFORE the knockdowns, and that's not normal. Makes me wonder if the bilges were already full.

In normal circumstances, the boat is self righting. THis should be true in any wind conditions. Fact is, ballast full OR empty, the boat shouldn't stay down if all sheets are free, which permits the sails to drain. All bets off if ballast is partial, or bilges have water.

Edit P.S. Upon reflection, I was wrong at top ... the boat with empty ballast could lay down and stay down. Recall Capt Jim's stories of sailing w/o ballast and standing on the gunnel to raise it with a halyard.

But ... fran's story sounds surely as if the boat carried water in the bilges ("sluggish" and "bailing" the week before). This could, or would, invalidate the state of ballast tank. Surely though, an empty tank would leave the boat even more suseptible to laying down & staying down. Fran - very sad to hear your story, glad that everyone's okay.

Recall story by a FL mac guy who discovered water had filled the bilges, but not yet showing on the cabin sole. It was during a sea-trial helping another prospective owner ... the 26X demo boat (used) had somehow leaked & filled the bilges. IIRC, it was this event that motivated the factory's drilling a "leak reveal hole" at bottom of the companionway ladder (starting during model year '99).

[Sloop John B]

The only way I have managed to turtle anything is to have some fat hysterical dink topple off the boat into the mainsail.

There's more to this story we may never learn about.

[fran trapp]

Not much to report yet. I have not been back to the boat since the last post and I have not heard from the insurance adjuster. My digital camera was on board so we just picked up a disposable camera. I will try to have the pics put on disk so that I can up load them.

My mistake was not throughly checking that boat before I went out. I ASSUMED that it was left like the boat "rules" require.

I do not know whether the ballast was full or not. Also, the original owner of my boat had 2 portholes installed to ventilate the aft bunk. I think that the starboard porthole may have failed. Again, I just don’t know yet.

When we got back to the Marina my sailing partner, Ben, said he thought that he saw the ballast gate open when we were on the rescue boat. I called SeaTow (salvage company) and told him where the gate was and the plug in the cabin. I told him to have a 1" plug on hand just in case. The next day he told me that the plug was in and the gate was closed. That , of course, does not mean that the ballast was full.


The only "broken" equipment I saw was the tri color light on top of the mast was broken. SeaTow said it was gone when he got there.

That boat filled with water and rolled over within seconds. A few weeks ago I bailed the boat out. I did not go sailing that day and I assumed the water came from my brother leaving the hatch open during a thunderstorm. Otherwise, the boat has never taken on water.

[DLT]

Those aft portholes would be my suspect #1. The hull is thin on the sides. Real thin. If you heeled enough, such that they were submerged, I wonder if they wouldn't just fail completely leaving a big hole under water?

My suspect #2 would be ballast issues: empty/partially filled ballast, plugs/valves left open, etc...

My suspect #3 would be some other hull breach.

Actually, it may also be a combination of #1 and #2. That would fully explain the story, at least in my mind... Empty ballast would let you heel radically, submerging the port holes, which could likely fail, thereby letting in large volumes of water. When the boat came back up, the water sloshing around would make it want to just keep going to the other side, possibly causing the other port hole to fail and filling the cabin. The longer you stayed over, the more water would come in, until the weight of the water in the cabin overcame that big air pocket, otherwise known as a ballast tank, turtling the boat...

[bob lee]

without laying ANY blame, this seems like an example of how important it really is to treat every launch of your boat like a plane flight, using a mental or written checklist. you can never assume "that tank is full because its always full" i assume everything is wrong until i confirm its set up right.

like i said before, all that matters is everyone's safety, its a good thing you had those pfd's close enough to grab, not in a closed locker, down below, since as you found out, thats also where the water is. thats a lesson i'll take from this. i've been on chartered boats where the pfds are stored in places that would be impossible to get to in an emergency.

good luck, hope it all works out for you

[Catigale]

Ive chartered boats where the PFDs were in heavy shrink wrap in a locker and the charter guys were p*d that I took them out.

Imho, PFDs in shrink wrap do not meet CG regulations for being accessible...but more importantly as master of the vessel they didnt meet my criteria....

..they shut up when I suggested we walk over to the CG to ask them their opinion...

Heh heh...

[LOUIS B HOLUB]

Fran Trapp...

I hope you follow up with further details...because a MacGregor isnt supposed to suffer a knock down so easily...Could you further expand on details of this incident...(ballast, cargo, wind, etc)

Thanks

[fran trapp]

I will go to the boat in the morning and check the ballast and other things. I will also post photos this afternoon. I will try to answer some questions.

Someone asked about gear on board and # and size of crew. 2 on board me (Fran) and Ben. Ben weighs 150 lbs (Fran is a girl- me) so I wont tell you exactly but I weigh less than Ben. There was an awful lot of gear on board. Normal stuff, like pfd's, boat hooks. Then my brother sold his San Juan 24 so a lot of that stuff was on board-- 4 extra sails, main sail covers (2), extra cushions, bedding, tools (tool case that stays on board and a drill to fix the roller fuller guides), cooler, water skis and just lots of stuff.

The motor was a 2005 50 hp johnson 2 stroke. The boat was repowered fall 2005. The sheets were not tied when she went over to starboard. As she going down on the starboard side, Ben reefed in the head sail-- the roller reefing is located on the starboard side -- so he was on the low side and I was at the wheel to the high side. After getting the headsail in he was heading on deck to take down the main when I saw the water over the table in the cabin. I yelled at him and he left the main-- which was not tied and he jumped to the high side as she rolled. The really strange thing is I had gone below to stow my cellphone and his sun glasses and I jumped back in the cockpit as she was going over to port. The headsail had been cleated then and I could not get it loose. Ben uncleated it and rolled in the sail and I took the helm. Then she went over to starboard. I saw no water when I was below. In fact I put my cellphone and his glasses in a small empty cooler on the floor thinking they would be safe and dry.

When you see the pics you can see that you do not have to heel severely to get those portholes underwater.

Ben is very experienced. He sailed a 40' Ketch from Milford Haven, Wales to Charleston, SC , single handed, last winter. I have owned this boat for a little over a year. I have been sailing since I was 5-- but was off the water for a number of years until I bought this boat. I sailed her every weekend until this past May. Have been out on her 3 times since May.

[KayakDan]

Here's my guess..
They motored out to the party(ballast valve partly open?) Now they may have a partially filled tank. They almost immediately head back under sail with the boat "sluggish"(water sloshing in the tank,but trailing the movements of the boat?) Partially filled tank,water sloshing side to side in the tank,boat goes over,water doesn't transfer fast enough to right the boat. The water would then remain on the leeward side,preventing the boat from coming back up.
I would also guess that this is the reason for the solid ballast in the M.

[Frank C]

... After getting the headsail in he was heading on deck to take down the main when I saw the water over the table in the cabin. I yelled at him and he left the main-- which was not tied and he jumped to the high side as she rolled ...

The really strange thing is I had gone below to stow my cellphone and his sun glasses and I jumped back in the cockpit as she was going over to port. ...
Then she went over to starboard. I saw no water when I was below ...

Sorry Dan, perhaps this WAS caused by partial ballast, but it wasn't IN the ballast tank.
This was serious water ballast ... filling the cabin~!
If water was "over the table in the cabin" so quickly, yet Fran didn't note water pouring
through the companionway, then the boat had a major leak. In fact, for the water to fill the cabin so quickly (in just the time it took to roll from port to starboard) then a simple thru-hull could not be the source. Sounds as if DLT's right about that porthole.

[maddmike]

Personally I find this event both a bit disturbing and strange. While I have had my boat knocked down a number of times in several different situations (some rather extreme and remote) I can't recall the boat ever acting like that described in the thread. Granted I have never been knocked down with the ballast tank empty (I never run with it empty), though once I did partly flood the boat and it behaved in a similar way described as the water shifted back and forth. Just some points to ponder:

1. I can tell you first hand the picture of someone standing on a dock holding down a mast is NOTHING like actually having your boat slammed over on its side with the rudders out of the water and the wind blowing like snot out in the real world.
2. The one time I thought the boat might not come back up was because I had 4 adults on a day trip slide off the windward bench onto the leeward bench when the boat was hit abeam with a breaking wave coming out of a protected cove on Culiberita.
3. I have had the cockpit both flood and not flood when the boat went down, depending on the sea state. However, even when flooded it drained quickly. While it did not happen during a knockdown I had the cockpit completely flood up to the point where the bottom half of the wheel was underwater (running into Whale Cut in a rage in the Bahamas), as the wind was directly from astern there was little effect other than making the boat sluggish with some risk of broaching if mishandled.
4. I have encountered up to about 140 degrees of shifting winds to about 60 kts. and other than having to release the main sheet and having the boat 'skid' sideways with the main pressed into the spreaders with 30+ degrees of heel, the boat did fine.

I can not tell you why this event occured, but I can say with some confidence that some type of abnormal contition had to apply and it would be helpful to all if it could be properly identified and analyzed for future consideration. MM

[Night Sailor]

Sorry to hear of your loss and scare, Fran.

Although we all know madmike's boat is modified with respect to ballast and below water area, I agree with him that something is not right about a Mac that behaves as Fran describes hers did.

To have the cabin flood so quickly indicates a major breach of a portion underwater, so failure of the portlights in the hull added by the previous owner I think would be prime suspects. It seems apparent also that the weight of the flooded cabin, which was above the COG, caused the sluggish erratic behavior and eventually overcame the designed tendency of the boat to self right, even with ballast full.

With the boat turtled, I'm assuming that it floated, and was a rescue platform as intended, though that was not mentioned in the report.

Using this event as a reminder, I wonder if those who have added additional fixed or moveable ballast or much heavier motors have also added additional flotation to offset that added weight in the event of capsize or holing of the boat so they will still have the boat as a rescue platform?