BR20 Turtling Incident

[globetrot]

I had an interesting Sunday on September 8. The conditions were beautiful, and the wind was light enough that I decided not to use ballast, considering there were three of us. Of the two other people, one had some experience sailing and wanted to get more experience on the tiller, so I obliged. This wasn't his first time sailing with me, and I felt pretty comfortable with him helming the boat. My friend panicked during one of the tacks when the wind picked up slightly, and we quickly found ourselves swimming in the Baltic.

Now, I have given a lot of thought to all of the decisions made that day and developed my own opinion about them. There are certain things I would do differently and subtle signs that my friend began to lose his confidence I should have taken more seriously. At that moment I should have taken control of the tiller instead of trying to walk him through the maneuver.

However, I'm writing this post not to evaluate the decisions but to discuss the unexpected behavior of the BR20 once it capsized.

Luckily, I had almost all of our gear stowed in the lockers except a cooler of cold drinks and a few cushions. All hatches were closed as they should be. We were also wearing out lifejackets. Once the boat capsized, I ensured all sail controls were loosened so the sails did not prevent me from righting the boat. A nearby boat saw what happened and came over to graciously offer assistance. I asked that they take the two crew on board.
Meanwhile, I climbed atop the keel to attempt to get the boat to right itself. I was surprised to see how little of an effect I had. I also observed that the top part of the mast was beneath the water's surface. After 15-20 minutes of attempting to have some effect on the boat, I saw no alternative other than to use the distress button on my VHF/DSC radio.

It took another 20 minutes for assistance to arrive, during which I tried various things to make the job easier to no avail. The rescue boat transferred my crew from the civilian boat and checked on everyone to ensure we were all OK. Aside from a few minor bruises, the decision was made to stay on-site to try and recover the boat.

I imagined the mainsail was creating enough drag in the water to prohibit me from righting it alone. Surely, a line running from the forward port cleat, over the side of the boat (pointed towards the sky), and parallel to the keel to the tow boat would be enough to get the sail out of the water and allow the boat to right itself. After several attempts, however, it was clear that this was ineffective.

We then attached a second line to the aft cleat so both the fore and aft could be equally towed by the rescue boat. At times, this seemed to have the desired effect, but as soon as the rescue boat stopped pulling, the BR20 would settle back in the water, but this time almost completely turtled.

We kept trying, and finally, a few waves were tall enough to allow the keel to bite into the water providing just enough righting power to get the boat the sit on its butt again. All in all, it took 45-50 min of various attempts to get her upright. Certainly not what I had anticipated.

Of course, this incident could have been much less likely to occur and more easily recovered from if we had used ballast, but what concerned me the most was how far under the water the mast was able to go in calm conditions.

Immediately after getting her upright, I was allowed back on the boat to bail water and clean up the rigging while they towed us back to our harbor. Sitting next to the mast, I could hear a hissing sound coming from the hand bolt that secured the boom to the mast. I unscrewed it just a bit, and water began to pour from the screw hole. It was apparent that the mast was under the water because it was entirely filled with water.

So, the good news is that she didn't sink, we didn't lose that much gear, no one was injured, and the water temperature was manageable. The bad news is that my confidence in being able to right the BR20 on my own without ballast is totally shot until I can figure out what happened. My immediate takeaway is that I must ensure the mast is entirely water-tight. I had some repair work done on the mast several years ago, and I suspect that they did not use a sealant when they reinstalled the plastic cap at the top of the mast. This is the only point of ingress I can think of in a carbon fiber mast.

[Llafurio]

For re-righting the BR from capsize and inversion it is absolutely essential that the mast does not fill with water. If the USA Bermudan mast cannot be sealed as perfectly as the original rugged Gunter mast it must be considered unsuitable for the raid boat, for this reason too.

The original re-righting tests were all done with the original Gunter rig.

C.

[Graham W]

Louis,

Thank you very much for sharing your experience with your BR20 and a cold and wet welcome to the Honourable Company of Turtlers.  This is a select bunch who, as far as I know and until you turtled, did not have a Bermudan rig.

Some questions on your experience:
What was the approximate wind strength and were you reefed at all?
How cold was the sea when you were decanted into it?  What were you and your crew wearing?  Do you think the temperature slowed you down physically or mentally in any way?
How easy did you find it to clamber back on the upturned hull? Did you come in over the stern?
What sort of buoyancy aids were you wearing and did they get in the way at all?
When you eventually righted the boat, was it listing to port and was the port locker flooded?
Did the centreboard stay securely in the down position during the whole episode?  In the photos, it looks like it's not fully down.
Where do you keep your VHF/DSC radio?  You obviously had it reasonably to hand when you activated the distress button.
Sorry for so many questions but not many of us have had this experience and it helps to understand what precautions to take if we do.

From the experiences of other turtlers, all of whom (except me) righted their boats without assistance, these were contributory factors to the capsizes:
* They were all unballasted
* Some capsizes were due to mistakes but at least two were caused by sudden katabatic-type downdrafts and were probably unavoidable
* Because of the buoyancy of the BR20 hull, if you capsize, as a matter of geometry most of the hull will be out of the water and the mast will be well below the horizontal.  If wind is involved, it's likely to steadily push the hull downwind.  With the top of the mainsail already underwater, this can turn you upside down surprisingly quickly.  When I turtled and unlike your experience, it was immediately after capsize.

Here are links to some other instances:
https://www.swallowyachtsassociation.org/smf/index.php?msg=3540
https://www.swallowyachtsassociation.org/smf/index.php?msg=7665
https://www.swallowyachtsassociation.org/smf/index.php?msg=8287
There's also a long thread on capsizes here https://www.swallowyachtsassociation.org/smf/index.php/topic,1070.0.html.

When you dismantle your boat for the winter, it sounds like it would be worthwhile holding your mast horizontally under water to test for leaks.  This may be a three person job - one at each end and one walking the mast's length looking for bubbles.  If your boom hand bolt was hissing, it can't have been fully watertight and other mast fittings may also have come loose over time.  It's probably also worth doing immersion tests on the carbon mizzen mast and for gunter rigs, the carbon gunter yard.

Following my turtling on the Truro River (I had to be rescued because the top of my mast had impaled itself in the riverbed mud), I decided that unless racing with safety boats nearby, I will nearly always be ballasted.  Especially at sea or with inexperienced crew and even more so after I nearly capsized (again) in the Medway Estuary after a moment's inattention.  I will also nearly always wear a buoyancy gilet (in wintry conditions a Fladen survival suit) but not a self-inflating lifejacket.  I even considered installing a self-inflating buoyancy device to run up the mast in more difficult conditions but so far haven't done so.  And I'm still looking for somewhere sensible to keep my VHF.

Matthew P made the excellent suggestion that to quickly bail a waterlogged and unballasted boat, you should undo the large aft inspection hatch in the cockpit sole, thus pouring water into the empty ballast tank.  As an aside, you'll probably find that there is water in some of your boat's buoyancy voids.  Rather than trying to remove this with a sponge once you're on dry land, I recommend a cheap water pump that can be run off a hand drill, with sufficiently long 1/2" id hose that can be threaded into awkward to reach places.

[Llafurio]

BTW,
it wasn't just the flooded mast.

You capsized to starboard, and apparently the water was not deep enough (7.5 mtrs. min) to invert fully, so it looks as if your the mast top was stuck on the seabed.

So then the Asymmetric Capsize Buoyancy (ACB) tank could not help, as that is on portside of the boat only.

The ACB System requires the boat to be fully turtled -and both side storage lockers to be floodable- so the ACB system can diminish remaining buoyancy on the port side of the boat so the boat can be rolled back over its port side. Back in the design phase in 2005 we learned that boats this big and beamy as the BRs must be rolled back "through" the water rather than be levered in large parts out and above the water. The trick is that the pivoting line for the re-righting must be fairly deep under water, not too near up the surface. It feels uninspired, to intentionally lower the turtled boat in the water, but that is exactly what makes it work.

IF the mast is not flooded also. There, I mistrust the tapered USA mast over the original cylindrical Gunter mast, with which all original BR re-righting test were done.

You were two to three times unlucky in your accident.

C.

[globetrot]

@Graham W thank you for all of your questions. My goal here is to help inform others and your questions will help with this.

Q: What was the approximate wind strength, and were you reefed at all?
A: When we departed the marina, the wind was steady at 3-4 m/s. It was expected that the further offshore we sailed the wind could gust up to about 5-6 m/s. We were not reefed at all.

Q: How cold was the sea when you were decanted into it? What were you and your crew wearing? Do you think the temperature slowed you down physically or mentally in any way?
A: The sea temperature was approximately 17C, and the air temperature was around 25C. We were all dressed very lightly, though we brought jackets just in case. I spent the most time in the water and had a pair of sailing shorts and a long-sleeve sun-blocking shirt. I lost my shoes during the incident, so I was barefoot through the ordeal. Two out of three of us regularly bathe in the sea regardless of the time of year, so we have some experience with cold water. The third crew didn't seem too bothered. Luckily, the civilian vessel that offered assistance got my friends out of the water relatively quickly and gave them blankets to warm up. I probably spent at least 35 min in the water and did not feel the need for a safety blanket. But I was also working pretty hard to try and solve the issue. I don't think the water temperature ever affected my decision-making ability. It's lucky that the incident happened last week because sea and air temperatures have already begun to plummet. The sea temperature now is about 15C.

Q: How easy did you find it to clamber back on the upturned hull? Did you come in over the stern?
A: I didn't find this too hard to do, though a good amount of upper body strength was needed. From the water, I pulled myself up onto the keel with my arms and put one foot on the skeg to help me onto the keel.

Q: What sort of buoyancy aids were you wearing and did they get in the way at all?
A: We had 50N lifejackets onboard, ready at hand. We were not wearing lifejackets, but they were easily available. It was the first thing we did as soon as we were in the water. I can highly recommend not stowing life jackets in the lockers but keeping them on deck if you're not going to wear them.

Q: When you eventually righted the boat, was it listing to port, and was the port locker flooded?
A: The port side of the boat was out of the water while she was on her side, so for most of the ordeal, the port locker was dry. However, once I returned to the boat after it was righted, both lockers were flooded (and still locked closed). I imagine the port locker flooded due to water in the cockpit entering through the fuel hose vent hole.

Q: Did the centreboard stay securely in the down position during the whole episode?  In the photos, it looks like it's not fully down.
A: Yes, I also noticed that it did not seem to extend as far forward as I would have liked, but it did remain in place. I became very aware of this when climbing onto the keel because I noticed it would move a bit, so I was very vigilant while climbing around.

Q: Where do you keep your VHF/DSC radio?  You obviously had it reasonably to hand when you activated the distress button.
A: Lacking an obvious place to put the radio that would not interfere with my movement around the boat, I began to clip it on the line used to secure the mast while trailering at the base of the mizzen mast. This has turned out to be a very convenient place to put the radio because it is next to the tiller position, out of the way, and easy to reach from either side of the boat. When we took the swim, the radio unclipped itself from the line and fell into the water next to where we were swimming.
Quite lucky. I will continue to keep the radio in this position since it is too bulky to carry on my person. Instead of a radio, I'll likely attach a PLB to my life jacket. Another backup in my Apple watch that I could use to send a distress signal.


You have several other great suggestions. Rest assured, I have enough projects to keep me busy this winter.

[globetrot]

BTW,
it wasn't just the flooded mast.

You capsized to starboard, and apparently the water was not deep enough (7.5 mtrs. min) to invert fully, so it looks as if your the mast top was stuck on the seabed.

@Llafurio Thank you for this and the other insights. The area we were in was not tremendously deep, but I found it hard to believe (though not impossible) that the mast was stuck in the seabed. I suppose I may be able to see some evidence of wear on the masthead when I de-rig for the winter.

As for your description of the ACB system, I am trying to imagine what you mean about the pivoting line placement for re-righting. Is this assuming another boat helps to right the boat after it completely turtles?

[Llafurio]

... As for your description of the ACB system, I am trying to imagine what you mean about the pivoting line placement for re-righting. Is this assuming another boat helps to right the boat after it completely turtles?

With "pivoting line" I mean the set of longitudinal axes around which the hull must be rotated during re-righting. In the original design of the BR (no USA rig and no sealed storage lockers) and in ideal circumstances, no help from another boat was required to re-right the BR.


Lookup the various "BayRaider Capsize" videoclips on Youtube.

C.