CONTINUOUSWAVE

Hello, I started a thread last month, " Life Jacket Attachments" some of you I hope you learned something, some after a while the thread was side tracked to some jokes. I can understand this and can take it with a grain of salt, but tell me how many of you have actually been on a sinking boat, and I do not mean in the local canal or pond, but outside the sight of land and you knew you were going swimming?

Some time ago I was hired to help recover a clam dredge off of Fire Island NY.
Middle of February. Headed out on the 125' Clam Boat Jersey Devil. Started out as a great night, flat calm zero wind and freezing, had scallops and linguini on the way out. The dredge belonged to the 112' F/V Cape Fear and they were anchored to the dredge with their tow hawser.
Had some problems with the boat and we ended up heading in after 3 attempts to lift the dredge failed.
And the wind picked up. Myself and the dive helper I brought along hit the rack around midnight.

4am I hear all kinds of yelling, screams and alarms going off. Sleeping below decks on a commercial fishing boat (boats that have a history of problems) and waking up to screams is a bit un-nerving. Swing my legs over the bunk into 2' of ice cold water - and see my work boats floating on the other side of the room. Woke up my helper told him to find a survival suit and I jumped into my dry suit.

Turns out it was just the fresh water tank had failed, 10,000 gallons of it. Scared the crap out of us just the same.
We never sent divers out on the commercial boats again. After that the owners had to pay for the diver/s, crew and a dive boat for transportation.
The Cape fear has since sunk with a loss of 2 lives (1999).

Have been on plenty of boats that sunk though. Some even sunk again as we were raising them.

I have not had the pleasure of being on a sinking boat, thank God. But my first boat ever was given to me because it sank. A buddy at work had a 1969 17 foot Winner runabout with a 55hp Evinrude. He, his girlfriend and her little brother were out on Long Island Sound when a nasty thunderstorm blew in spitting lightning and raised 5 foot seas in no time. They donned the old style orange life jackets and raced back to Hempstead Harbor crashing from wave to wave fearing for their lives and the kid was crying hysterically. Suddenly they heard a loud CRACK! and saw water gushing in. The deck had separated from the hull on the starboard side and opened a large split at the waterline. He wisely kept the bow as high as possible and angled to port while she and her brother bailed as fast as they could. They got to their mooring and jumped into a rowboat tender and rowed back to shore while the storm passed. Just as they got ashore they watched the boat sink. When the boat was raised, the motor stuck to the muddy bottom and broke off from the transom. His Dad would not let him bring it home so it was offered to me. Free boat? Sure! I fiber-glassed it good enough to use for several years but by the end of every season the deck would be cracking away again so I junked it. To this day they all wear comfortable life jackets at all times.

Two years ago, I was pulling a transect cable across 300 feet of the French Broad River. Got the cable across and handed off to crew on shore and started to back out from bank to make a turn and go back to the other side to tighten the come-along but the current was too swift for the jet motor and I had to give up on backing and try to go downstream to make the turn. Could only control boat with bow facing upstream in the swift water. Cable caught jet unit. Stern went under. Boat Turtled. We went swimming in 40 degree water in February. Two of us in boat and both wearing neoprene chest waders which promptly filled with cold water. Luckily, we were also wearing lifejackets. They worked.

Floated downstream with the boat till we hit a gravel bar and could stand up. Crew arrived to "rescue" us about 10 minutes later. Had I not had on the lifejacket, I seriously doubt I could have held my breath that long.

Ll.

Not me but interesting video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cSh8vXtg8A