Did you have enough noodles today?

[dave 524]

This story has been making the rounds of the angling forums, a well known and publicized angler made a few self admitted mistakes that almost cost him his life, the worst here is the premium quality aluminum boat mentioned sank in less than a minute after being swamped making an already serious situation really bad .

worth the time spent reading , especially if you play on the big water.

http://www.glangler.com/_blog/Great...Adrift_and_Thanking_God_for_a_Coleman_Cooler/

 

[Bwana Don]

Re: Did you have enough noodles today?

I'll be most boats would go down that fast. 3 foot waves are kinda small but if you get crossed up in them apparently they can swamp you. I've been in 3 footers on LSC in a 14' boat and never thought twice about it. My general rule is PFD at ALL times. No exceptions, don't like wearing one, you can't fish with me. I don't swim well enough to go in after anyone.

One fisherman died on Lake St. Clair early this spring. The coast guard pulled them out with in 30 minutes but hypothermia got one of them. They swamped the same way. It's always a dad with kids at home too. Tag your hull # to your radio and link your GPS to it also. Even if you just hold the button down the Coasties can get a read on you and will know your boat and location. Be safe dads, there's someone at home who depends on you.

 

[roscoe]

Re: Did you have enough noodles today?

Heck of an ordeal.

So much for floatation foam.

I think I will add some more to my boat.

 

[64osby]

Re: Did you have enough noodles today?

That is a great read. Very scary, wonder what flotation was in that boat. 4 Lucky People.

I saw on the news last night that 12 people had to be saved from the rip tides at Grand Haven State Park. They were all swimming in the posted area.

 

[Krichbourg]

Re: Did you have enough noodles today?

Stories like that convince me to never reduce my overly large splashwell.

 

[Sippen]

Re: Did you have enough noodles today?

Yes, and I was just looking at ways to move my splashwell back 6 inches.. no way I'm doing that.
If this is what that boat looked like, it seems to have a poorly designed low well.

 

[paparoof]

Re: Did you have enough noodles today?

Thanks for posting that article Dave. I'm sure we can all learn a lesson or two from their experience. I like the way he spells out the multiple mistakes that all lead to the near tragedy. Lots to think about there.

I was trying to untangle a couple lines this summer that got ripped out of my hands when the long end got caught in the trolling motor prop that no one realized was still running. Both lines were power pro braid and I still think about how lucky I was that I didn't happen to have one of the lines twisted around a finger or two when the trolling motor ripped 'em - would have taken a finger clean off. Luckily all that happened was losing a tip off one of the rods. Since then I just pull all the line into the boat, then start working on it.

 

[astor]

Re: Did you have enough noodles today?

sounds like the boat manufacturer didn't do the proper testing on the boat for flotation. How many of our boats would float swamped? I'm putting the pink board (extruded polystyrene?) in mine and going to put more in than I took out, as the area foward of the fuel tank had no floation under the floor or under the gunwales..

 

[VanderLaan]

Re: Did you have enough noodles today?

I'm putting the pink board (extruded polystyrene?) in mine and going to put more in than I took out...

+1. My boat had several spots where more foam could have been added. Guess they were putting in the required minimums. This story shows that while foaming the hull is important, it is only one part of keeping yourself alive when things go bad.

 

[STARCRAFT16SS]

Re: Did you have enough noodles today?

Found this picture on the internet...don't have any info to go with it

 

[paparoof]

Re: Did you have enough noodles today?

Yeah the "how much foam is enough" question is kind of a scary one to contemplate. It feels good to say "I'll put in more than the manufacturer" and leave it at that, but the article is proof that the manufacturers don't necessarily put in enough, so that's not a good baseline to judge from. You could do lotsa math and modeling, but the only way to REALLY know you have enough is to launch your boat and try to swamp it and see what happens.

I'm sure as hell not doing that to my boat, so I'm just gonna put as much foam as I can possibly fit into every nook and cranny, then I'm gonna do everything I can to not make all the other mistakes the author listed in the article - he mentioned several mistakes that, if he hadn't made them, the amount of floatation foam wouldn't have become a factor.

 

[North Beach]

Re: Did you have enough noodles today?

paparoof, I'm in agreement with you on this one. All you folks out there boating in big water really need to have your safety gear readily available.

And on the side. I have two floating orange hand held radios. Think I'm gonna have one of those readily available in my boat at all times just in case.......I mean even laying on the dash it could have really helped those folks!