Capsizing Vulnerability
 

News clip tells a sad story. The video shows a capsized inboard on Bear Lake in Utah. Initial report says it was due to high winds. I have seen a swamped X45 under tow due to high waves but this must have been pretty bad. Just a reminder how quickly a great day on the lake can turn to tragedy.

http://www.ksl.com/?sid=34898654&nid...s_cid=topstory

That is just awful.

Is that a Nautique?

Wow: that's very sad. I don't boat on a lot of Alpine/Big Body's of water lakes where conditions can change in a instant. We have all heard horror story's of storms that come out of no where and tradigy sets in. As a Captin you have you have you eye on so many things including "storms that come out of no where"

Unless you breakdown and your stuck and a storm sneaks up on you I think accidents like this are 100% avoidable. If you see bad weather comming in its time to pack it in.

Grant, I agee. Big, open body water lakes are kind of intimidating for wakeboats. I prefers the long, winding lakes we have near me in Central Texas. Most are hill or cliff lined so there is protection if needed. Sad story for these people just trying to enjoy life.

This is awful.

It's hard to imagine a boat just capsizing due to wind and rollers. I've taken some pretty huge rollers while weighted down for wakeboarding even, and I've never been close to capsizing. I suppose once you start taken water on, you're pretty much screwed though. I did see a surf board in the rack. If one size of the boat was slammed, that could be a potential cause. Who knows.....

I hope the kids all come out of this okay.

sad story. I ride on fairly big lake and it doesn't take long to get nasty.

all occupants had life jackets?

Quick update - 3 children and 1 adult died. All 7 occupants were wearing life preservers. The problem was cold water. They were in the water nearly 2 hours. Water temp reported as 53 to 56 deg. Likely hypothermia took them. A doctor and his 2 daughters (aged 14 and 7) and daughter's friend aged 14 have died due to extremely low body core temps.
Grant nailed it above. Keep an eye to the sky, and leave yourself time to get to shelter.

yuck. we do boat on a big body of water and I've had nightmares about this scenario. I watch the weather service's lake report closely and I'm chicken little and will get off the lake in a heartbeat if it even remotely starts to get breezy.

Based on the severity of the injuries here, I am betting that something "catastrophic" occurred. Something that caused the people inside the boat to be thrown around before turning over/taking on water. Maybe they got blind-sided by a swell/rollers and the boat landed the wrong way or something. Ski boats aren't built to handle big water, so be careful out there in them.

At the first sign of nasty weather on a large open body of water, PDFs should go on.

There was one on the delta two weekends ago that my friend was first responder on and a young boy died. I will keep the gory details to myself, but was a bad deal. Some of us have been boating for decades and take for granted that it is "easy" or many things are "common sense" on the water, but that is just not the case for all boaters. Would still love to see a boating license at some point to help better educate people on the rules and safety.

This is a scary reminder that we can't be careful enough. With wind & storms I've had some scary moments on Lake Mead & Powell and should always keep this incident in the forefront of my mind.

That's horrible. I'm guessing they were trying to run from the storm. Otherwise, if they were going a reasonable speed, it seems unlikely the boat would capsize. For my own edification, when you get caught in a big blow, should you dump ballast or keep it? I'm guessing fill the center tank but not the rears? It never occurred to me until just now, but I guess It's something we should all be prepared for.

Don't fill them at all. Just drive at a safe speed.

that still doesn't make any sense. you'd beat yourself to death trying to outrun a storm in a towboat. Running aground at speed makes a little sense as waves reveal objects and ground that are typically submerged. Although its running gear looked fine. Lake Marpaul in Louisiana is notorious for this as most of the lake is <10 feet deep yet is big enough for the wind to start building waves.

No ballast at all. whatever speed keeps the bow up. I've brought mine across the lake in pretty rough water and definitely made me nervous

I've been on Bear Lake when the wind comes up, but nothing like this. Driving just fast enough to keep the bow up, usually 13-15mph. The wind gusts were ~76mph with no where to hide. The storm came up fast. They were miles from the marina.

Just keep your bow as high as possible & you should get through.

We used to board on a large lake.It was a rare day that it was calm.We were out in middle chilling near an island.As soon as the wind started we high tailed it knowing we had 6 miles to go to get in.Even so by the time we got to dock there were 4-5 foots waves barely got it out .

We were on the Bear Lake July 24th, 5-6 years ago when a wind storm produced 7ft swells. The above advice worked for me. I had a MC and kept the bow as high as possible 10-12 mph. We stabbed a couple of bigger waves but made it back ok to a packed marina. Also, it is important to never get sideways. That particular day a 21ft Rinker got sideways and just rolled over. (no one hurt)

Also, I think I am going to add an additional bilge back by the drain hole. My '03 MB 220V has only 1 bilge amidship which only works when not underway. If I'm taking on water and trying to get to safety, it's useless.

This is another reminder of just how dangerous some of these big body waters can be very dangerous. I have been to Lake Powell a few times where things were VERY sketchy. Sometimes these tow boats just get pummeled. While I love lake Powell, sometimes I wonder if it is really worth risking a really bad day on a 22 ft boat.

Wow, what a sad, sad story. Makes me want to double and triple check all my safety equipment, even though in this situation it probably wouldn't help. I feel horrible for the family and friends.

http://www.sltrib.com/news/2578459-1...been-trying-to

gets worse... dad made it to shore then went back out for his daughters.

This is really heartbreaking. I literally have nightmares about this scenario.

Very sad situation!! My thoughts go out to the families involved.

I deal with quick moving storms and a lake that can go from glass to 3-4ft rollers in minutes. Normally were able to beat the storm and get off. When on the backside of the lake though I have been caught coming I through rough conditiins. First thing first.. PFDS for EVERYONE!!! I fill the center tank, dump the rears and get the bow up. Cruising at 10-12mph. The added weight in the center tank makes the hull cut through the waves more instead of being tossed around. NEVER get sideways wit the waves!! A zig zag route is the only way to get up the shoreline if needed. This is also the only reason I ALWAYS have a anchor on board with a good amount of heavy duty solid line. The last thing you want is a mechanical failure and being tossed around where the waves wanna put you. Toss the anchor, let it bite and get your nose pointed in to the waves. hunker down and hold on for a wild ride!!

That looks like a Nautique 200 V that is a 20 foot boat . With 6-10 foot waves it had no chance. I hate to see such young kids go this way I hope they are all in a better place

Yes... Simple... 10 ft waves.. 20 ft boat... equals VERY bad news.... If this storm snuck up on them with full ballast, wow...

I have never been in such waves before, and I can only imagine the amount of sheer terror I would feel if in that situation! Dad is a hero for getting some to the shore and going back out to get the others... Regardless of what happened before the storm...

I've thought about doing on my old boat surfing listed. If we're ballasted out and take on water, it would take a lot of water to reach the bilge pump. With the new one, pump is further aft and we wouldn't sink before it started working

"cutting through waves" sounds good but i wouldn't want anything bringing the bow closer to rollers. take one over the bow and you're toast

Speechless after reading the article. I get the chills just thinking how Scary 10' waves and 70+mph winds are and I've been trained in open water and swift-water rescue!

I took a class, with coast guard trainers, on operating vessels at night and in rough conditions and basically if you do "everything right" there is still a strong possibility for an accident to happen.

Best Wishes to everyone involved!
DC

That is a sad story and I can only imagine the story the survivor's have to tell. :( I'm sure sitting there helpless, watching their friends and family die of hypothermia will haunt them for the rest of their lives. I can't even imagine. My heart goes out to them all.

Speaking from my own personal experience, it can happen so fast that you don't even know what is going on. If you are on a lake and get 3' swells, it only takes a couple of waves over the bow to weight down the boat to let more come on in. This happened to me the first year I owned my RZ2 and I thought we were going to sink it. The boat was full of water and still taking on more and when we made it to the ramp/dock, there was a fishing boat capsized at the base of the dock and we couldn't safely pull up to it to get passengers off and the shoreline was solid rocks and water temp was low 60's. It was either damage the boat and possibly injure a passenger or stay close enough to shore that if the boat did go under that we could swim to shore as a last resort.

The 600gph bilge pump couldn't keep up with the 4' waves so we finally figured out that we could use the Tsunami ballast pump to start pumping water out of the bilge. That was enough to finally get to the point where we could get the bow in the air to stop taking on new water and go faster than 5 mph. The storm only lasted 20 to 30 minutes but it was the scariest moment of my boating life. Nothing like having your crew's flip-flops floating in the boat and seeing your brand new boat up to almost the seat cushions in water! Once we got it back on the trailer, I checked all of the fluids and we were good to go.

Needless to say, we don't mess around when the wind picks up anymore, it's get the boat off of the water or at least everyone off of the boat.

That lake can change fast. Went about 5 to 6 years ago with my in laws. Soon as we saw clouds push over hills we decided to head back to the marina. It was almost to late at that point we had 5 'to 6' waves to deal with. I am use to high mountain lakes and how fast afternoon storms can change the lake but never seen a lake change as fast as this one did.

In light of the tragic fatalities its amazing that three survived.