freeisforme
Well-known member
- Joined
- Sep 23, 2023
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- LOCATION
- NJ
Two days ago I got call from a buddy, who is in his 70's saying his boat sunk, and he wanted to know what the chances are of retrieving it. It was 30 degrees out, with high winds, and about 3pm and I was an hour away counting time to hitch up my boat, get fuel, and get down to where he was at 25 miles away.
Apparently him and a friend of his, also in his late 70's, took his 14ft jon boat out with a 9.9hp motor on it, four rods, two tackle boxes, a battery, a fish finder, and a bucket of bait out on the river on a windy day. It was 27°F outside with 30 mph wind gusts.
The boat took on water for some reason and sunk.
They both had life vests on and both managed to get to shore and back to the van where they were able to warm up.
Knowing the river moved pretty fast there I had my doubts whether their boat would still be near where it sank, but I was surprised it was able to just sink as well. According to him it its not that old, an early 90's model or so at best.
My buddy is a big guy, 6ft 5in tall and about 250lbs or so, his buddy maybe 6ft 200 lbs, both in a boat with maybe a 550lb max limit. When I got there with my boat in tow, they were more pissed off about the five fish they lost than the fact they were soaked in ice water with no clue how to get their boat back.
I launched my boat, a 17ft V hull, and made my way to where they said their boat sunk, using my fish finder I saw nothing but headed down stream a bit and spotted it, sitting motor down on the bottom bow pointing straight up. With my buddy in the boat, (the friend stayed in the van warming up), we were able to get a grapple hook onto the bow rope and after a few tries got hold of the 25 ft or so long rope tied to the bow eye on one end and an anchor on he other. After removing the anchor, we were able to secure it to the bow of my boat.
The bow was about 8ft down off to the one side of the river in some mud. with the sunk boat tied off, I was able to back up and dislodge the boat using the buoyancy of the bow bobbing in the waves. Once free fo the muck on the bottom it became like huge drift anchor that was trying to pull us down stream. we managed to get the rope tied to both rear cleats on my boat and my 50hp was able to pull it upstream until it surfaced, it was still flooded but on the surface for the time being.
He said his boat had no drain plug so it wasn't going to self drain and it didn't want to pull straight, it kept trying to flip to the right.
Using the fact it was trying to go to the starboard side, I managed to get it to tow behind my boat just off to the right using only one cleat on my starboard side and towed it that way until we got to the dirt ramp where they launched. When it was at the ramp area, we let it drift ashore enough to settle on the dirt ramp, still sunk but in reach in about a foot of water or so. I came back around, loaded my trailer, then had him back his trailer down and using both his boat winch, and two hand winches, we managed to get the boat to the point where he could start bailing water out of it. It came afloat after about the tenth bucket of water and he was able to get into the back of the boat, tilt the motor and we winched it onto to the trailer while standing in ice water along side of the submerged trailer.
He took his boat home but the motor is here, as soon as I got it in the garage I turned it over with the plugs out letting it drain. Surprisingly there was almost no oil in the water but the cylinders were full of brackish water, as was the carb and intake, which had started to freeze on the ride home. I split the carb open and dunked it in a bowl of WD40 for a bit, and I flushed the motor with a pint or so of it too, I drained the oil, flushing it out twice with mineral spirits and then with some fresh oil.
The cylinders got flushed about several times as well until I didn't get any more water out of them. The motor is a 2009 9.9hp Mercury.
I then blew out the carb, pushed fresh fuel through the fuel pump with my fuel tank, and put it all back together a little while ago, and with a shot of fuel down the carb, it fired up and idled just fine in a warm garage in my run barrel.
He got lucky again in that the motor survived. Somehow even the cover survived it all.
The tank, which was still attached, was full of water, and the fuel fitting area is split open from being lifted by the fuel hose when we first found it. They went back there in the dark to look for their fishing tackle in hopes their tackle boxes washed ashore down stream somewhere. One fishing rod was in the rod holder but snapped in half when we got the boat to the surface.
After all that, and besides the better part of a day wasted fishing their boat out of the river, and trying to save his motor, my main concern is why it sank in the first place. The flotation, which is foam built into the bench seats of the boat and in the bow did not float the boat, the motor which weighs about 90lbs, they had a 3gal fuel tank, two medium sized tackle boxes in a 1436 Jon boat.
There's no doubt they had no business out there in the cold on a windy day but its likely not their first time. Luckily they were both healthy enough at their age to swim or make their way to shore.
They said once they got to the shore, on the far side of the river, made their way to the highway bridge after trudging through the marsh a few hundred feet, then walked across the bridge and back to their van on the other side while completely soaked in below freezing weather and then still they waited around while they got he van warmed up. They refused to leave their boat behind.
My buddy said that at no point did they ever consider calling the police for help not wanting to get caught fishing out there with a boat that wasn't registered and not realizing that due their age, they neither of them needed a fishing license plus the fact its considered saltwater there which don't require a fishing license.
They got real lucky they didn't end up someplace they couldn't walk out of.
The next day my buddy said he found his tackle box, which was one of my old Plano boxes, he and the same buddy had gone back in a canoe and found it, and two of the rods that were tangled up with it somehow in the reeds about half mile down stream near a bend in the river. He was happier about finding the tackle box than me saving the boat and motor.
There's no doubt they were at the max weight for the boat by the coast guard plate, maybe even over it if that 550lbs is counting motor weight. I'm pretty sure the highest rating on the plate I saw was 550, which likely includes the motor and fuel tank. Either way its not a boat I'd run in a fast moving river, especially in the cold in an area with no one around. If they didn't make to shore, I doubt they'd have found them until their bodies washed up somewhere. Both are widowed old men who live alone with no kids, no one would have missed them, no one would have known where they went until they found the van sitting there the next day. In the end, no one got hurt behind a few sore hands from working in the cold but it really makes you think about those small boats on the water. Luckily they both had left their cell phones in the truck, along with their wallets and keys. If not all of that would likely have been gone or ruined.
For me, a boat like that is nearly useless, or has to be considered a one man boat. I'm 6ft 3in tall, 340lbs or so in my 60's and a boat with a 550 rating is completely out of the question if I hang the 20h max hp on it, take a tackle box, a cooler, and a bait bucket or two. Add in a 50lb battery and its over the limit with just me. Add in the fact that the bigger guy was at the stern running the tiller motor, I can easily see why it swamped.
It sort of stayed at the surface once we got it to the ramp but only the bow was floating. The rear of the boat sat firmly in the sand. It has three bench seats each filled with chunks of white urethane foam in roughly three 30x10x10" chunks glued in under each bench seat.
If I'm figuring right that's 5.2 cubic feet of flotation.
By what I was always told is that every cubic foot of foam gives you about 60lbs of flotation, so a boat with 5.2 cf of foam had only 315lbs of buoyancy or flotation if all the foam is in good condition.
The hull likely weighs in around 150 lbs in aluminum weight, the motor at 90, plus the 50lb battery attached to the floor, an 8 lb danforth anchor and 3ft chain, and the fuel tank plus fuel weight. Its no wonder it went to the bottom. Just roughly calculating the weight, the flotation was about at its max weight and if age degraded it a bit, it was all it took to make it sink.
Seeing all this it make me wonder if any of my boats would actually float if swamped as they're supposed to as well.
I didn't call him and tell him the motor is running, I'm thinking maybe I should wait till the water warms up a bit for his own good.
Apparently him and a friend of his, also in his late 70's, took his 14ft jon boat out with a 9.9hp motor on it, four rods, two tackle boxes, a battery, a fish finder, and a bucket of bait out on the river on a windy day. It was 27°F outside with 30 mph wind gusts.
The boat took on water for some reason and sunk.
They both had life vests on and both managed to get to shore and back to the van where they were able to warm up.
Knowing the river moved pretty fast there I had my doubts whether their boat would still be near where it sank, but I was surprised it was able to just sink as well. According to him it its not that old, an early 90's model or so at best.
My buddy is a big guy, 6ft 5in tall and about 250lbs or so, his buddy maybe 6ft 200 lbs, both in a boat with maybe a 550lb max limit. When I got there with my boat in tow, they were more pissed off about the five fish they lost than the fact they were soaked in ice water with no clue how to get their boat back.
I launched my boat, a 17ft V hull, and made my way to where they said their boat sunk, using my fish finder I saw nothing but headed down stream a bit and spotted it, sitting motor down on the bottom bow pointing straight up. With my buddy in the boat, (the friend stayed in the van warming up), we were able to get a grapple hook onto the bow rope and after a few tries got hold of the 25 ft or so long rope tied to the bow eye on one end and an anchor on he other. After removing the anchor, we were able to secure it to the bow of my boat.
The bow was about 8ft down off to the one side of the river in some mud. with the sunk boat tied off, I was able to back up and dislodge the boat using the buoyancy of the bow bobbing in the waves. Once free fo the muck on the bottom it became like huge drift anchor that was trying to pull us down stream. we managed to get the rope tied to both rear cleats on my boat and my 50hp was able to pull it upstream until it surfaced, it was still flooded but on the surface for the time being.
He said his boat had no drain plug so it wasn't going to self drain and it didn't want to pull straight, it kept trying to flip to the right.
Using the fact it was trying to go to the starboard side, I managed to get it to tow behind my boat just off to the right using only one cleat on my starboard side and towed it that way until we got to the dirt ramp where they launched. When it was at the ramp area, we let it drift ashore enough to settle on the dirt ramp, still sunk but in reach in about a foot of water or so. I came back around, loaded my trailer, then had him back his trailer down and using both his boat winch, and two hand winches, we managed to get the boat to the point where he could start bailing water out of it. It came afloat after about the tenth bucket of water and he was able to get into the back of the boat, tilt the motor and we winched it onto to the trailer while standing in ice water along side of the submerged trailer.
He took his boat home but the motor is here, as soon as I got it in the garage I turned it over with the plugs out letting it drain. Surprisingly there was almost no oil in the water but the cylinders were full of brackish water, as was the carb and intake, which had started to freeze on the ride home. I split the carb open and dunked it in a bowl of WD40 for a bit, and I flushed the motor with a pint or so of it too, I drained the oil, flushing it out twice with mineral spirits and then with some fresh oil.
The cylinders got flushed about several times as well until I didn't get any more water out of them. The motor is a 2009 9.9hp Mercury.
I then blew out the carb, pushed fresh fuel through the fuel pump with my fuel tank, and put it all back together a little while ago, and with a shot of fuel down the carb, it fired up and idled just fine in a warm garage in my run barrel.
He got lucky again in that the motor survived. Somehow even the cover survived it all.
The tank, which was still attached, was full of water, and the fuel fitting area is split open from being lifted by the fuel hose when we first found it. They went back there in the dark to look for their fishing tackle in hopes their tackle boxes washed ashore down stream somewhere. One fishing rod was in the rod holder but snapped in half when we got the boat to the surface.
After all that, and besides the better part of a day wasted fishing their boat out of the river, and trying to save his motor, my main concern is why it sank in the first place. The flotation, which is foam built into the bench seats of the boat and in the bow did not float the boat, the motor which weighs about 90lbs, they had a 3gal fuel tank, two medium sized tackle boxes in a 1436 Jon boat.
There's no doubt they had no business out there in the cold on a windy day but its likely not their first time. Luckily they were both healthy enough at their age to swim or make their way to shore.
They said once they got to the shore, on the far side of the river, made their way to the highway bridge after trudging through the marsh a few hundred feet, then walked across the bridge and back to their van on the other side while completely soaked in below freezing weather and then still they waited around while they got he van warmed up. They refused to leave their boat behind.
My buddy said that at no point did they ever consider calling the police for help not wanting to get caught fishing out there with a boat that wasn't registered and not realizing that due their age, they neither of them needed a fishing license plus the fact its considered saltwater there which don't require a fishing license.
They got real lucky they didn't end up someplace they couldn't walk out of.
The next day my buddy said he found his tackle box, which was one of my old Plano boxes, he and the same buddy had gone back in a canoe and found it, and two of the rods that were tangled up with it somehow in the reeds about half mile down stream near a bend in the river. He was happier about finding the tackle box than me saving the boat and motor.
There's no doubt they were at the max weight for the boat by the coast guard plate, maybe even over it if that 550lbs is counting motor weight. I'm pretty sure the highest rating on the plate I saw was 550, which likely includes the motor and fuel tank. Either way its not a boat I'd run in a fast moving river, especially in the cold in an area with no one around. If they didn't make to shore, I doubt they'd have found them until their bodies washed up somewhere. Both are widowed old men who live alone with no kids, no one would have missed them, no one would have known where they went until they found the van sitting there the next day. In the end, no one got hurt behind a few sore hands from working in the cold but it really makes you think about those small boats on the water. Luckily they both had left their cell phones in the truck, along with their wallets and keys. If not all of that would likely have been gone or ruined.
For me, a boat like that is nearly useless, or has to be considered a one man boat. I'm 6ft 3in tall, 340lbs or so in my 60's and a boat with a 550 rating is completely out of the question if I hang the 20h max hp on it, take a tackle box, a cooler, and a bait bucket or two. Add in a 50lb battery and its over the limit with just me. Add in the fact that the bigger guy was at the stern running the tiller motor, I can easily see why it swamped.
It sort of stayed at the surface once we got it to the ramp but only the bow was floating. The rear of the boat sat firmly in the sand. It has three bench seats each filled with chunks of white urethane foam in roughly three 30x10x10" chunks glued in under each bench seat.
If I'm figuring right that's 5.2 cubic feet of flotation.
By what I was always told is that every cubic foot of foam gives you about 60lbs of flotation, so a boat with 5.2 cf of foam had only 315lbs of buoyancy or flotation if all the foam is in good condition.
The hull likely weighs in around 150 lbs in aluminum weight, the motor at 90, plus the 50lb battery attached to the floor, an 8 lb danforth anchor and 3ft chain, and the fuel tank plus fuel weight. Its no wonder it went to the bottom. Just roughly calculating the weight, the flotation was about at its max weight and if age degraded it a bit, it was all it took to make it sink.
Seeing all this it make me wonder if any of my boats would actually float if swamped as they're supposed to as well.
I didn't call him and tell him the motor is running, I'm thinking maybe I should wait till the water warms up a bit for his own good.
