Salvage & Securing Unmanned Boats

[RickI]

This happened in 1973 with scuba gear in use at the time so it should fill the bill of a vintage story with a present day lead in:

Owls Head near Rockland, the area of the rescue.

The Maine Marine Patrol secured a lobster boat running in circles out of control with no one at the wheel recently. I am sorry Robert Staples passed away before help arrived. The Marine Patrol secured things well in a bad situation. More about the story including video at: https://www.facebook.com/544606922335736/videos/788547294608363/?pnref=story


I had a similar experience when I was 16. Some rich kid had just taken on fuel on his way overpowered and overloaded hydroplane at Lauderdale Marina. The weight of the fuel, minimal freeboard with the large outboard saw the boat sink stern first in short order. I was getting fuel myself and offered to locate and salvage the kid's boat. We agreed to a price and he promptly left in a hurry to make a date? The boat had drifted over the bottom about 75 ft. towards the 17th Street Causeway bridge in about 18 ft. of water in the tidal current but had stayed upright.

A slightly older but in someways similar hydroplane.

I took some plastic drums down as lift containers down tied them to the stern, inflated them with my handy low pressure air gun nozzle off my regulator and lifted the stern and outboard off the bottom. I also pulled the bilge plugs to allow water to eventually drain out. Then I tied a line to the bow cleat and secured it to the stern of my boat. It was a simple matter to plane the sunken boat to the surface and pull it around at speed until the water drained out. Well, the boat was dry and on the surface but the plugs were still out. If we stopped the tow the damn thing might sink again before we could do anything about it. So, my friend Denis, Dirk's dad, swung by the marina at speed where I dove overboard, swam up to the dock and hitched a ride on another boat. I had the guy pull up at speed by the hydroplane, I jumped across and inserted the plugs and all was done. Denis towed the hydroplane back to the fuel dock, tied it up and I called the kid to collect his boat.

The scene in Ft. Lauderdale from the following year with Lauderdale Marina, Pier 66 and 17th Street Causeway bridge.

 

[Couv]

.....I have a similar story, but it ends with me having to remove ALL of my clothing because of the gasoline remaining in the stern made it impossible for me to keep my swimming trunks on. Fortunately, one of the guys in the tow boat had a towel he tossed back to me-but only after a parade around the lake to entertain the onlookers. :blush:

 

[jbomb001]

Had a call a few years ago where a guy out fishing in the dark fell off his boat while it was running "14 foot Jon boat" and got his arm in the prop. Bad news ! He managed to swim almost a mile before reaching shore where we picked him up loaded him into the ambulance and sent him to the O.R. myself and a couple other fireman got on our rescue boat and had to chase down the free roaming Jon boat. We actually managed to lasso the boat as it was running around in a big circle and I was elected to jump on board as it made another pass around us. It was quite the midnight adventure!

Sent from my galaxy S5 Active.

 

[RickI]

The hidden hazards of salvage! Sounds like the time we changed out the 80 gallon tank on a boat in bathing suits. The tank had a leak which came across just below waist level. I kept mine on but who knew gasoline could burn like that absent a flame!

.....I have a similar story, but it ends with me having to remove ALL of my clothing because of the gasoline remaining in the stern made it impossible for me to keep my swimming trunks on. Fortunately, one of the guys in the tow boat had a towel he tossed back to me-but only after a parade around the lake to entertain the onlookers. :blush:

---------- Post added October 13th, 2015 at 12:02 AM ----------

It is great the guy didn't sever his femoral or otherwise bleed out on the way in. Did you have much trouble finding the boat at night? Well done capturing the boat!

Had a call a few years ago where a guy out fishing in the dark fell off his boat while it was running "14 foot Jon boat" and got his arm in the prop. Bad news ! He managed to swim almost a mile before reaching shore where we picked him up loaded him into the ambulance and sent him to the O.R. myself and a couple other fireman got on our rescue boat and had to chase down the free roaming Jon boat. We actually managed to lasso the boat as it was running around in a big circle and I was elected to jump on board as it made another pass around us. It was quite the midnight adventure!

Sent from my galaxy S5 Active.

 

[jbomb001]

Yea he got very lucky. It took roughly 75 staples to close the wound. He was actually a professional fireman and paramedic and I believe most anyone else would have drown due to his professional need to stay calm in an emergency.. He actually had taken his shirt off in water and wrapped the arm to slow bleeding. As far as finding the boat it was no problem at all as he was in a small lake about 2 miles long/wide. He happen to be pretty much right in the middle and his boat was just going round and round.

Sent from my galaxy S5 Active.

 

[RickI]

What an amazing story and tough, resourceful person. I am glad things worked out

 

[james croft]

I have had to respond to a number of boating incidents whose occupants have gone overboard and boats circled them. That is why it is very important to have the kill switch lanyard attached to the operator. I have been able to foul the propeller with a line thrown across the path of the boat but most times it will just slow the boat down but any motor of 25 hp or so is powerful enough to eventually cut through the rope and the chase is on again. When the boat slows we normally jump aboard the runaway and cut off the engine. I am aware of a couple of boats that my partners have had to shoot the engine to stop the runaway vessel.

 

[Rich Keller]

I took some plastic drums down as lift containers down tied them to the stern, inflated them with my handy low pressure air gun nozzle off my regulator and lifted the stern and outboard off the bottom. I also pulled the bilge plugs to allow water to eventually drain out. Then I tied a line to the bow cleat and secured it to the stern of my boat. It was a simple matter to plane the sunken boat to the surface and pull it around at speed until the water drained out. Well, the boat was dry and on the surface but the plugs were still out. If we stopped the tow the damn thing might sink again before we could do anything about it. So, my friend Denis, Dirk's dad, swung by the marina at speed where I dove overboard, swam up to the dock and hitched a ride on another boat. I had the guy pull up at speed by the hydroplane, I jumped across and inserted the plugs and all was done. Denis towed the hydroplane back to the fuel dock, tied it up and I called the kid to collect his boat.

Brilliant! Not a lot of people would have considered towing the boat to the surface once you had counterweighted the engine. This would not have worked as great with your average boat but the size and shape of this hull made it a good option. Just a couple of suggestions for next time. You don't want to tie off to the cleats on the top of the gunwale as they are usually just bolted into plywood. It is better to tie to the three pad eyes found on most boats, one on each side of the stern and one in the bow. These are bolted into the frame of the hull so they are much safer to work with. The only thing holding down most boats is the weight of the engine so once you counter weight that the job is mostly done. The engines have a pad eye built into the top so that would be the best place to tie off. It would be safer to attach the barrels to the lift points while the barrels are on the surface and full of air then crank them down with a come along. This will give you a controlled lift that does not require using air from your tank. Once the water was out of the boat you were towing you could have just stopped and boarded the boat to put the plugs back in place, some water would have come back into the boat but no where near enough to sink it again.

 

[CT-Rich]

Great collection of stories. I recovered a car and an outboard, nothing nearly as exciting.