Interesting Night

Pretty disturbing.....it seems this started routinely at a familiar location....until a mechanical failure ???? happened and caused him to wind up in serious trouble ???.....fortunately he is safe....still, very troubling...
 
Pretty disturbing.....it seems this started routinely at a familiar location....until a mechanical failure ???? happened and caused him to wind up in serious trouble ???.....fortunately he is safe....still, very troubling...

Are there no more details yet? What failed? I also went to the WP blog. MM
 
So sorry to hear that, but glad he is ok. I remember your posts about some of your trips on your blog. Tell him we all have sympathy for his loss and we are glad he is ok.
 
I do not run a big boat all the time. why would you engage the auto pilot entering a channel? I have used them in the open water but not inside. Best wishes with the insurance and replacement. Glad everyone is ok
 
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Thanks for posting and pass on our well wishes for Marc as he goes through the loss and recovery. Thankfully we are not discussing a lost life. MM
 
John,

I'm sorry to hear about the troubles your friend Marc is going through and glad he's doing ok. As others have said, the most important that we're discussing loss of a boat and everyone is safe. Any boat can be replaced as long us people stay safe.

....why would you engage the auto pilot entering a channel? ....

I'm sure that most people wouldn't do it. However, I can see one reason why Marc made that choice. I'm sure that most would agree that an autopilot is capable to keep a straight course better than a captain. I will assume that Marc might have thought that considering the seas condition due to strong winds that the autopilot will take him on the straight course and keep the boat in the channel. At that point there are several variables that could have taken place, including malfunction of the unit while the captian depended on his electronics.

I had a strange situation once on a long trip. I engaged the AP to follow my route and at some point it displayed a message "...next waypoint". I accepted and the next thing I know the boat takes a sharp 270 degrees turn. Human error, bad track, AP malfunction......doesn't matter, but I'm just thinking that this is a posible scenario in Marc's situation. I had plenty of time and room to recover being in normal conditions with great visibility. While in a narrow channel in poor visibility (in fog at night) and rough seas there was not much room for error (in Marc's case). I'm sure that Marc replays the situation over and over in his head and tries to determine the primary cause of the accident, but I would say that in those conditions I would never put control in the hands of electronics while entering any channel or an inlet. It's just way too risky.

I think that we have a good clue "....Next thing he knew his auto pilot alarm was going off and the wind and waves took him out of the channel and into the jetty". Most likelly Marc had saved route and he allowed the AP to follow his safe route, but perhaps due to sea conditions, at the critical point the AP might have malfunction and lost the ability to follow the route.
 
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Glad Marc is still with us; very sorry about his boat. Thanks for posting, that certainly provokes some thought.
 
Glad Marc is ok. Assuming they have to get his boat out of the water. Any time tables on that? Seems like he was very calm and collected through out the entire issue. Not sure I would of been so calm.
 
Here is my thought and this is in no way a reflection on Marc and his boating:

1) Never engage auto pilot when entering or in a channel
2) When auto pilot is engaged, it will not hold course at 5 knots in wind and seas
3) Keep your inbound course in Nantucket channel to starboard, not in the middle of channel. Outbound, keep course to middle of channel and adjust as needed.
4) I always go buoy to buoy, always use radar and always use chartplotter whether it is a beautiful day so you know your courses.
5) Don't assume because you have been in Harbor 50 times that each entry is the same.
6) Don't have your electronics on day mode. They should have been on night mode.
7) Monitor 13 and 16 when entering harbor/channel (I monitor all the time-9, 13, 16)


It is easy to criticize and guess what happened.......There have been circumnavigators, large yachts, charter captains, etc. put on the jetty there.....
 
The autopilot can only do so much... move a rudder, that's it. In heavy seas, high winds, slow moving, the boat is getting blown all over the place and the rudders can only do so much. one wave, big gust of wind, and the boat gets blown off course and the autopilot will kick the rudders hard over until they stop, then the alarm sounds. I don't think anything failed, I just think the little pieces of toast hanging off the back of the boat couldn't keep it in a straight line under the conditions. The autopilot gave off an alarm letting him know that the rudders were hard over.
 
Good lessons learned with Marc being safe & ok. It would be very upsetting to me if a friend of mine was in that situation. Good friends like wetpaint may have saved the day, Mike.
 
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The autopilot can only do so much... move a rudder, that's it. In heavy seas, high winds, slow moving, the boat is getting blown all over the place and the rudders can only do so much. one wave, big gust of wind, and the boat gets blown off course and the autopilot will kick the rudders hard over until they stop, then the alarm sounds. I don't think anything failed, I just think the little pieces of toast hanging off the back of the boat couldn't keep it in a straight line under the conditions. The autopilot gave off an alarm letting him know that the rudders were hard over.

When John made a statement "...When auto pilot is engaged, it will not hold course at 5 knots in wind and seas..." I had second thoughts. I haven't cruised at slow speed in wind and heavy seas on my boat with AP engaged, but I have in my friend’s sailboat and I thought that AP was doing a good job. However, Mike's quick explanation makes perfect sense to me. The biggest difference is that our boats have planing hulls and tiny rudders compare to sailboats, so this would explain why at slow speed the same electronic equipment can deliver different results on very different boats.

Correct me if I'm wrong guys, but I think that when conditions are rough it's not the best approach to travel at 5kts. A quick example is a lock or a narrow canal with strong current. If you go slow (at idle speed) you will have hell of a time to maintain the control of your boat. She will be pushed all over the place (specially if going with the current) and you'll be turning that wheel left and right constantly and still struggle to keep the straight course. This is the time when the power from the props will be your best helper. The smaller the props are the more RPMs you'll need to help you maintain the control. I'll take gas and diesel boats as an example. In the same conditions (a canal with current) I would need to run my 320DA (19" props) at 1300RPMs to help me control the straight course (doing about 7-8kts) while on my 420DB (23" props) I do much better with 1,000RPMs running at the same 7-8kts. Both very different boats are capable to maintain the course just fine when there's enough power comes from the props. Obviously the bigger and heavier boat keeps the course better, but with enough power the smaller and lighter boat does fine as well.

Now, considering the example above you can imagine what the conditions might be when you add strong wind and heavy seas.

I think we can add another bullet point to John’s summary (it may even qualify as #1 in the list) - When entering a channel or an inlet, apply enough power (RPMs) to gain control and ability to maintain desired course.
 
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