If you don’t know what you’re doing and you don’t pay attention, you are probably going to have a really bad day. In this case a deckhand who didn’t know what he was doing, wasn’t paying attention and wasn’t properly supervised nearly put his boat on the bottom next to the pier.
The boat was about to sail for a long outside trip from the Gulf back up the coast. The boat’s fuel and water were pressed up to the vents. (By the way, fuel tanks pressed up to the vents are a no-no unless you’d like to try to arrange for an oil spill on the way out of the harbor.) The Master was trying to catch a few last winks and the Mate was ashore doing some final paperwork at the facility.
When the boat was loaded to the max, it tended to have a normal slight list of 1° to 2°. The deckhand had taken it upon himself to do some minor maintenance. Greasing the steering pins and linkages for the long trip seemed like a good idea at the time. He pulled the manhole covers off the lazarette and went looking for the grease gun.
While rummaging around he noticed a slight list and decided to straighten up the boat by a little counter ballasting. He knew where the pump, controller, and manifold were, but that was the extent of his knowledge of ballasting and stability.
He figured he’d go ahead and start the pump to save some time. He did just that and resumed the scavenger hunt for the grease gun.
During a break he noticed the boat was listing to the other side and remembered he had left the ballast pump running. To correct the over corrected list, he diverted ballast to an opposite side tank. At some point he got tired and went to the galley, had a couple of cups of coffee, and probably caught up on some TV.
The Master was getting up and thought the boat felt strangely trimmed down by the stern. The Mate was returning to the boat, but the mast just didn’t seem to be raked correctly. Then he saw the boat.
The stern was underwater all the way up to the door to the fidley. Water was cascading into the open lazarette like a submarine submerging with the hatches open.
The Mate jumped aboard and swam waist deep to the lazarette manholes and was just able to kick the covers in place. He dogged the engine room door. Then he made a beeline to the ballast pump. The Master made it to the galley in record time.
What went wrong? The deckhand wasn’t qualified to ballast. He hadn’t asked permission to pump ballast. Nobody else knew he was messing with the ballast pump. He left the pump running and was distracted by starting another job that he also had not notified anybody that he was doing. Then he got distracted from being distracted by his coffee and TV break. Put it all together, and it was almost the voyage to the bottom of the sea.
Basic lessons re-learned: Know what you’re doing. Make sure you’re qualified for the job you are about to undertake. Strictly observe procedures. Make sure people are informed. Pay attention until the job’s done.
At least the Master didn’t jump out of his bunk up to his knees in water. I would have loved to have had pictures of this circus
Sail Safe.
