Boat sinks ... Simon Cowell rescues 9

At the Southampton Boat Show there was a 120' Sunseeker M/Y with a large garage hatch at the stern. The brand new yacht had launched it's tenders, so was light at the stern, and was tied along side.

Water was washing in over the swim platform and into the garage at what I thought was an alarming rate. Around 4 or 5 inches of water was sloshing around, this is on a calm day while at the dock.

St. Tropez can get quite rough in the afternoon, on a busy weekend at 'going home' time there is a lot of wash from careless skippers. I'm suprised more of these bath-tub dayboats don't get swamped.

The incident with SOFIA 3 happened while the yacht was anchored at the Baie de Canebiers. Around "going home time", the water can indeed get very choppy and rough as the Baie is parallel to the Golfe where all the yachts are passing.

Once upon a time...most tenders and toys were stored on the "upper-decks"...?! They were reasonably safe "up there" from rough seas too.

But for many years now, yacht designers have increasingly insisted on storing tenders and toys lower-down in "the hull", launched and recovered using technically-complex electro-hydraulic cranes / water-tight doors etc. (but also prone to increased failure during operations).

What surprises me is that the builders (and surveyors / class authorities etc.) incorporating these various designers' tender storage and launching designs apparently do so without much consideration...

One might obviously assume that the aft "tender" storage space on a modern motor yacht of 30-45m would be completely water-tight in the sense that any water ingress into this compartment would not pose any risk of subsequent flooding to say, the main E/R or other compartments (it would be easy to say ensure that any door communicating from the E/R to the aft tender storage compartment - a common arrangement, should be kept "SHUT" when the transom is open...), yeah, like that would be possible in reality?!

What is beyond any discussion is that these "internal" tender-storage spaces, 'beach clubs or whatever" should be considered liable to unexpected and sudden / complete flooding vis-a-vis vessel stability in normal use etc.

The yacht builders / designers should have incorporated all this into the initial design / newbuilding. No excuses allowed IMHO.

A friend of mine took these pictures. He had spoken to the recovery yard and was told no serious damages were done.

I'd like to see the numbers to see %age wise if they are really "going down so easily"....

From what we can see here there is absolutely nothing that we can extract right now that would make these two accidents mentioned (Yogi / Sofia 3) "the same" or even in the same group....

Yogi had something weird and unexpected happen, which according to your source, which you yourself say is heresay and has absolutely no proof...while this one apparently had an open aft door in conditions which were not compatible with such. Not all yachts with transom or other hull openings have issues... many yachts without such openings also have issue so i dont really see much use for speculating......but this is just my opinion

PS: in the case of sofia it wasnt a plage style back, it was a regular aft garage opening... Perhaps it was speced to be opened, cargo put in/out and then immediately closed and this wasnt observed in time?

Hi,

You will find that it is more than theory, it is in the rules that any decent boat is built to.

Look up Damage Stability and Intact Stability for yachts if you are interested in the facts.

As for YOGI, everyone seems to know someone with the scoop on this one.. Funny thing is all scoops have same end result but a wide variety of initial causes.

I don't know if the whole truth will ever come out.

Capt J, that may well be the case for some boats... badly executed (IMO), and boats I personally wouldnt go near as an owner...

Having design and built a boat abt 10 yrs ago, and now in the market for a 40-45m for the past few years i am very active in research and in looking at all sort of products (and I research extremely heavily...). I assure you I have seen a lot of what you mention, but have you been on a Baglietto? Codecasa? ISA? etc? Esp these recent ones (aka last 10yrs)? These are extremely well built and engineered machines, built to the same specs as any other top yard in the world (failiures may always exist, either by design flaw or human error, or machine error - just like on Boeing Airplaines.........), but things ARE NOT as simple as you seem to indicate in some of your posts...

Some yards which were only smaller yards building smaller boats (40-60, then up to 80, then 100, etc) in the size range you usually seem to concentrate on most comments are mostly the culprit for missing critical equipment when you go up in size... (A while back - there was a comment, i believe it was from you, that mentioned that most things on a 80ft and a 40m are quite similar in systems - i didnt want to enter the argument as it was already quite heated, but i disagree vehemently from personal experience... owning an 80ft and being extremely involved directly with its spec, build and operation together with our full-time crew - yes we have a fulltime crew of 2 off season, 4 on season, no charter, I and the capt/engineer are on top of everything...) Anyways, this is all to say that in this particular case i think it may have been a bit of crew mistake, or just bad timing...

You can research for full specs on many of these boats and see how automated they are, how many alarms and automatic pumps they have - obviously with manual BACKUPS, etc... its not built like a commercial shrimp boat...sorry to call this one out...

Yes, you're right CaptJ, obviously their not using rule pumps eheh that would be funny even (although i wouldnt be surprised if some non-classed vessels from "adventurer yards" do that)... bagliettos and others are likely using large gianneschi ac pumps...but thats just what i've seen... And most kick in automatically as well as manually, even when some manifolds are involved there is usually a dual mechanism...

As for the watertight doors above the waterline, that was the case on Sofia 3... But as the account says, she took 3 large waves in sequence to the open garage... I didnt hear that her engineroom flooded? but if that is so it was a major crew failure to leave the door open... All 35m+ yachts I've been on that have such garages or plages DO HAVE watertight doors to the other areas (such as inner rooms and/or engine room), and in many cases the garage itself is also either "fully wet" or will be watertight...

I assume that this garage was not capable of being flooded, and was flooded due to a freak accident... I assume the pumps (probably with external aid) did their job (although whether their would have righted the boat on their own is a mystery), but there is no evidence the entire yacht flooded... *case in point... i'm not talking about yogi or others*...

Wasnt there a similar accident posted here a while back where a yacht somewhere in some beach in france/italy/or greece had a similar fate? Open tender garage, large waves in short succession hit her, garage flooded taking the stern down... pumped water out, and back she came? (some damage to be expected)...

PS: shouldnt we change the thread to "Simon Cowell's crew rescues 9"?

No,no. It should read "Simon Cowell is an irritating, self-opinionated, cloth-eared, talentless tit.
Professional crew saves 9".

As a yacht owner he did direct (or at least give the ok) the crew to go and do it though (the crew wouldnt just sail away with the owners party onboard or on a beach)... on his dime... so as arrogant or irritating and talent-less, he thankfully didn't turn a blind eye!

I have sent and encouraged my crew to take out our yacht on more than one occasion to aid in rescue efforts - it is a no-brainer of a question for anyone except a f-ing selfish pr#@#

tit

I wish I was as talentless as he is so I could sit back counting my 200 million pound fortune and sail around the Med with a crew of nine even if the yacht was chartered.

Plus his shows have given the chance to many young people to make their own fortunes, yes he makes it off them but where would they be without him.

Every Svengali needs a Trilby and vice-versa. Suck them in, spit them out.

A bit like pre-owned Broward buyers.

?

Sounds like you know as much about Broward owners as you know about Cowell.

A proffesional crew would probably aid in rescue situations without the owner's "permission"....?