In this section, you can find a
collection of marine distress stories...read them and gain life saving
experience !
All of them are reported by the skipper or a qualified crew
member. Every story has a "lessons learned" part at the end.
If you want to submit your own story....use the following
structure and submit it to sailors-forum@telering.at
Topic:
Yacht:
Skipper:
Crew:
On the way from/to:
Date:
Position:
The Story:
Lessons learned:
Topic: How one nut can sink a ship
Yacht: SUNSAIL Sun Odyssee 40, Bintang
Skipper: Christian Buxbaum
Crew: Sabine Baumgartner-Mann
On the way from/to: Patong to Phuket Town
Date: Friday the 15th of April 2005
Position: 5 sm west of Kata Beach, west
coast of Phuket Island, Thailand
The Story: We arrived at 3pm in the Phuket
Boat Lagoon Resort Marina. My wife and me were tired from the long flight but really happy
kicking off one more great sailing adventure. After having made some experiences
as a short handed crew in the Caribbean and in Turkey, Sabine and I were
pretty confident to manage the difficult waters of Thailand as well. We
did not know about the tide challenge in the harbour. Ian, the SUNSAIL base
manager told us that we have to cast off either in 90 minutes...or wait until
tomorrow afternoon. I decided to quickly take over the ship and cast off. I was familiar
with this kind of ship and did not really study in detail where all the
equipment (signals, toolbox, etc.) was. I wanted to check it later, when we were out on the
sea. I thought I would find it anyway in case I need it. We had a great time
sailing in the Andaman Sea. Finally we headed for Patong. We did not want to go there
in the first place but as the NewYear in
Thailand is celebrated at this time we decided to visit this tourist Mekka. After having had
a long night in Patong we started the engine and lifted our anchor at
10am. There was a force 4 SW blowing and we knew that we are going have a great
sailing day. We sailed about 5 miles to the west and turned then exactly south. Suddenly I heard a strange scratching,
rotation noise. It was changing the sound
with the speed of the boat. I thought it was the turning propeller and put in
the backwards gear. The noise was still there. I did not pay much attention. The
sailing was great. But the noise was boring. So I tried to put in the forward gear. The
noise was still there. I noticed that the "feeling" of the the
throttle lever was strange when I changed the gear. A little bit alerted I
started the engine and put in the backwards gear again. There was no change in speed.
I realized that my propeller was not working. I had no engine power. As the
engine was running smoothly, I
was sure that the wire control of the clutch was defect and was not very
concerned. As a mechanical engineer I would be able to solve this without
outside help. The sailing was great. I decided to sail a little bit longer and
then take care of the problem. After 30 more minutes I finally went down to the stern cabin to look at
the gear-box. On my way down I checked, as usual, the bilge and noticed an unusual amount
of water inside. It was too much water to ignore it. I tasted the water, hoping
that it would be sweet. It was salty. I flipped the switch for the electrical bilge pump and stepped
into the stern cabin. I opened the side cover of the engine compartment and
looked inside. I was confronted with an unbelieveable view. Looking at the
engine and the gearbox, I could not see the propeller shaft. My brains began to
work. How could that be. Did somebody steal it in the night ? No, I was motoring
out of Patong in the morning. And by the way, nobody steals propeller shafts.
Was I looking at the wrong place? No, there was the engine, the gearbox and
there was the stuffing box...no mistake possible....and there was water coming in, through the stuffing
box. Now I understood why the bilge was full. I still had no clue where my shaft
was, but I knew I had a sever problem. I told Sabine to come down and to press
her hand or foot against the stuffing box. The compressor for the frigoboat
fridge was under water. I tried to heave to. As the boat was
slowing down the water pressure was increasing and even more water was coming
in. There was more water coming in than the bilge pump could move out. I told
Sabine to go to the helm again and keep the yacht on a stable course. I needed
time to think. The water
was rising. Now the water was splashing around in the saloon. I could not
believe it. This boat was going to sink if I was not able to find a quick
solution. I turned to the navigation table to look in the chart. Suddenly the bilge pump
changed it's sound and stopped working. I noticed that there was something
strangling my throat. Ok,...Now I know how it feels when you face panic. I
forced myself to sort my thoughts. I ignored the water and looked at the chart.
I made a fix and recorded my position. I re-checked the result with the GPS. I searched a
sandy bay to lay BINTANG on the beach if it really was going to sink. I chose
Nai Harn. 5 sm against the wind. The home of the Kings-Cup Regatta. Not really a good place to sink a
ship. I collected the documents, passports and money to be ready just in case we
had to really leave the ship. I ordered Sabine to go upwind as hard as possible. Now I needed to stop the water. I cut a
plastic water
bottle in half, tilted it over the stuffing box. With a round seizing I fixed it
to the stuffing box, strangling it with a small spoon. This was slowing down the
waterflow, but it was not a durable solution and there was still water coming in. I called SUNSAIL office on VHF. No
answer. The mountains of Phuket Island where preventing us from having a VHF
contact. I searched through the documents and found the mobile number of the base
manager. It made me really happy that he was answering the phone. After a short
explanation of the situation we agreed that I would try to reach Nai Harn and
anchor there. He would come to the beach over land and try to help me. He also
told me that there are "bungs" in the toolbox. Not only that I did not
know the expression,...I could not find the toolbox. We tacked into the bay and finally managed to
anchor down at Kata Beach under sails. There was still water in the saloon but
it stopped rising. I found a bung and put it into the stuffing box. Meanwhile,
Ian, our base manager arrived on the beach. He had a technician with him. I
picked them up with the Dhingi. Back on board we saw that the bilge pump was
stopped by a filter full of dirt. The propeller shaft was pulled out of the
hull, only blocked from falling to the ground by the sacrificial anode. The
axial nut
which fixed the shaft to the flange and the gearbox has been loosening and went
off. Therefore
the shaft was pulled out and opened the stuffing box. We re-assembled the drive
section of the boat, pumped the boat empty...and had a beer. Ian told me that it
is possible that the nut fixing the shaft to the flange has no mechanical block.
This works as designed. SUNSAIL was officially confirming that, but promised to
take care of it in the future....Anyway I would like to have a chat with the guy
who designed that ...
Lessons learned:
We were so eager to start our holiday that we did
not take enough time to take over the boat. The tide forced us to leave very
quickly. When we would have taken our time, I would have found the toolbox
quicker and I would have known that we have bungs on board.
When I realized the strange noise which was
generated by the sacrificial anode, I did not immediatly clarify the cause for
it. I lost precious time, because I enjoyed the sailing and missjudged the
urgency.
The bilge pump stopped working after a while,
because all the water in the ship washed a lot of dirt to the filter of the
pump. Finally the filter was blocked. I was not aware of that fact. I did not
even know where the filter was located.
I was very lucky to find the leaking stuffing box
before the water was covering it. 10 minutes later, I would have had a hard time
finding the cause for the water in the ship.
Finally one can say that there is usually no
possibility for a skipper to know every single nuts and bolts of a
charter-ship....no problem, as long as everything is fine....that can change
very quickly...even without any fault of the skipper...and than you better know
about everything on the ship.
Recommended English books & DVDs to this topic  
Empfohlene deutsche Bücher und DVDs zu diesem Thema  
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