Proteksan-Turquoise YOGI superyacht sinking investigation

Funny Marmot! Paint can cover a multitude of sins...

However much the crew response might have been lacking, surely the coded safety systems must have been the real problem.

It is hard to see what the crew could have done so badly to sink the boat short of deliberately overriding the water tight bulkheads and pumping systems.

Deliberately was never mentioned. However, leaving the engine room water tight door open as well as other water tight doors for convenience, is definately a possibility. The majority of the crew was new to the vessel as well. Not knowing where all of the pumping systems were located and how to operate them quickly, could be another definite possibility.

On another note, I used to occassionally run a 103' Broward MY that was here in Florida about 10 years ago. Well the boat had actually been in Japan for a while previously, for a Japanese owner. EVERYTHING in the engine room was written in Japanese. It would be a disaster for a new crew, if they weren't already knowledgable about the boat or that the systems were US systems, if there was an emergency.

Hi,

On professionally run commercial vessels a safety briefing has to be done as soon after joining as possible and a new crew member should take part in a drill before the ship sails or as soon thereafter as possible.

Update?

I just found this in an article on the Power and Motoryacht website:

"The captain said they were navigating at 14 knots. There were strong winds and 3-meter waves. Suddenly the starboard engine exhaust bellows punctured due to heat and he stopped the engine. He told me that he thought the engine got overheated because they were going in and out of the waves and there must be air that blocked the cooling water to the engine. Then the port engine overheated and he stopped that engine too. The yacht turned aft to the waves while they were busy with the engines. He told me the aft starboard side watertight beach club door blew open and a lot of water entered where he told Nedim that the portside watertight hatch blew open. (We are not sure which one he meant exactly.) Then they took off the filter [sic] for the second engine and restarted it and began navigating with one engine but the rudder didn’t respond (water in the steering compartment). He said they couldn’t go to the emergency rudder compartment (on the port side of the beach club above the rudder compartment) since it was also full of water. Then the storm got stronger and big waves started. Water invaded the lower beach club and even the main deck. Since he no longer had control he sent the Mayday call."

Original Article:

I don't see how 3 meter waves should cause issues to a boat that size... Certainly now cause air to be ingested to the point of damaging exhaust bellows.

There should have been a number of warnings before bellow failure anyway, from higher coolant temp, higher transmission temp and most there should have been heat alarms on the bellows. I don't know what kind of bellows they used but I can tell you that the big blue Trident will give out a tell tale smell when the get hot long before failure!

If the Captain left the ship via helicopter after an eight hour emergency without the Log I would have thought very serious questions will be asked.

The contents of the Log will no doubt be part of the French report, when finally released mid-December and so hopefully evidence of crew briefings will be recorded.

Design for Sinking

Well if it was the "beach club" door being part of the problem...

I am vindicated on my concern about tender garages, beach clubs, lazzerettes and other holes in the hull. If you have a garage, beach club lazzerette with the steering gear with a door of some kind open to near waterline you are asking for trouble... Particularly if the crew is sloppy about closing this door and watertight integrity. I don't know how may times I have seen yachts at anchor, underway or just hanging out with the DOOR OPEN. In fact that is the idea with the garage, beach club and often lazzerette having access to a swim platform.
BAD IDEA

See this Lazarette - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Talks about steering gear

Hi,

Karo, you might want to take a look at a properly constructed and run vessel before swinging your all encompassing wrecking ball.

I am on a fully classed professionally designed, built and operated vessel that has a beach club with two shell doors. Both have multiple locking pins and inflatable seals, the state of each is reported to the main Alarm and Monitoring system. We do not go to sea without the doors locked and seals inflated.

The minimum sill height when fully loaded is 600mm, the area containing the steering mechanical parts is under the after section of the Beach Club. It is sealed from the Beach Club by two watertight doors which have have a further 600mm sill and status indication on the main alarm system, the procedure is to have these shut and dogged unless someone is coming or going through one if them.

The motors and pumps are 1m above and 15m fwd of the stern door in another compartment.

The Beach Club has it's own 2,000 lt Bilge Water tank that has an alarm and dedicated Bilge Eductor connected.

If the doors on a vessel are not operated correctly and there is an incident as a result of this the operations onboard should get as much if not more attention than the construction.

A well known example of this can be seen in the accident involving the Herald of Free Enterprise.

Having worked as Captain of similar sized yachts fitted with similar equipment during the past years, I must say that K1W1 you are 100% right about the doors. They are so well designed and constructed nowadays that the only way they can fail is if you do not close them properly. I too had a flashback to the Herald, and would be appalled if it turns out that this is a repeat of that incident.

Furthermore, regarding the failure of the exhaust bellows, all vessels built to class nowadays are fitted with shut off valves at the hull. Shut the valve, problem solved. Don't close the valve quickly, you will have a huge problem very quickly.

I must too question the validity of operating at that speed in any vessel in those conditions. Granted, I wasn't there so do not know the circumstances, but I have tried it and learned the hard way that speed in rough weather generally ends in tears.

Even without the official report to go by, we can still all agree that this is a classic case of a small issue snowballing out of control very quickly. If you don't deal with the initial problem immediately the situation can quickly get out of control.

I know this has already been discussed in this thread but I feel that I must reiterate that in order to operate safely at sea, all crew/vessels need: familiarization with your vessel, sufficient personnel to deal with emergency situations, experienced crew and training, training, training!