G23 Sunk Yesterday on a Texas Lake

[SilentSeven]

Fully agree with the above. I'm betting there was stupid going on here that hasn't come out yet. I have a feeling the owner fully knows what it is too.

What? You doubt white-claw girl's TikTok narrative about tanks cracking? I'm appalled I say...just appalled!

[Interjon]

I will take a positive approach and say that I am glad everyone is safe. With respect to the "stupid" comments, not everyone who owns a Nautique browses the forums or is intimately familiar with the workings of their boat.

I too am curious what occurred, but critiquing a daytrip to surf as if it is a transatlantic crossing is unfair.

[scottb7]

As far as placing blame. We have all done stupid stuff, or not inspected something that we should have. Where are we going to draw the line? If your boat sank then you are stupid? But if it just filled with water cause you didn't check something you should have, but it did NOT sink then you are NOT stupid?

[mooneywa]

Is it too soon to ask, since it's going to be totaled, can I have the strapless board racks?

[scottb7]

Is it too soon to ask, since it's going to be totaled, can I have the strapless board racks?

Why you even ask? Just grab your diving gear and go!

The boat still sunk?

[mooneywa]

Really need to brush up on my inland marine salvage law.

[RDT-G23]

OK, I know what happened, (I have the video of the engine) but asking for people to have a little class here. Forum members implying that I'm throwing folks under the "boat"-BS. Be decent here. The exhaust failed. Let's let the insurance company and manufacturer(s) sort it out, then I'll report out. Folks are getting "cute" here, chunking rocks from California- Not cool. No extra weight as I told you all before.

[RDT-G23]

This really makes no sense to me. Assuming a ballast sack (yes, they are sacks, not tanks in a G-series) ruptured, turning off the pump would have stopped the flow. The pump would have automatically shut off via the timer when the bag would have been full, so unless they manually turned it back on, this isn't the cause.

Second, the boat would have been neutrally-buoyant unless there was additional non-water ballast on board. No way it would have gone down like that without additional weight.

Third, why in the world are they towing it full of water?? Let the bilge pumps do their job, and then assess the situation.

Also, not sure what year boat that is, but for the last few years they have a high water alert that comes up on the LINC screen if there is an abnormal amount of water in the bilge.

I can't imagine what would have caused this, but it wasn't simply a ruptured ballast bag. There is more to this story.

Should not have been towed, but ballast had absolutely nothing to do with the sinking.

[RDT-G23]

I shouldn't have posted as early as I did. Folks are acting rather foolish. I am to blame for posting so early. I'll wear this...

[RDT-G23]

Hmm. So interesting....boat was undertow, bilge pump was dumping water (see pic) and still decently high in the water. And it sank.

Suggests to me some sort of catastrophic leak - thru hull failure...ballast system...engine inlet water hose....hull perforation of some kind...what else could it be? Hard to think of anything else that would let that much water in.

BTW, I'd dope slap the kid that pushed that vid. BAD FORM I say!

Edit: Also, judging by how quick everyone was off the boat (when it was still high in the water), I'd say they had a pretty good idea it was bad - what else would lead you to abandon ship? My vote is they hit something and punched a hole in the boat.

The owner knew what he was doing (at least with respect to evacuating). The towing wasn't good, but yes, the boat was filling all the while-but they hit nothing to create a hull hole.

[RDT-G23]

I have experienced an exaust hose coming loose from thr thru hull fitting. This was almost catastrophic because I realized immediately what had happened and was close to my lift and was able to slightly lift the boat to slow the flow while I reconnected the hose. This would not have been possible while fully in the water due to the huge volume of water coming in. If I had not been near the shore or if my daughter had been operating the boat by herself and was not able to immediatly identify and slow the flow possibly with a towel it would not habe taken long at all to habe a major situation. It was truely shocking to see the volume of water that was coming thru the hull. Iâm not saying this happend here but just wanted ti identify a way that a G series boat call fill with water very quickly.

You win the insightful post of the day. This is it. This is (not exactly, but effectively) what happened.

[RDT-G23]

I had the exhaust hose come off. The decision was either put it back on manually to stop water intrusion or get home. Although we tried, since it would not go on easily we went with dump all ballast, and full plane home to boat lift. And raise boat as quickly as possible.

For us full plane meant less water was coming in to the boat from the engine then was coming in from the lake. When boat is full of ballast it sits very low in the water and if that exhaust hose comes off, you get a lot of water pretty darn quickly.

I did think about beaching but did not have to.

You will notice that pcm moved away from just large hose clamps to fancier and stronger clamps.

Now that I think about. I recall a very large, but deep sounds pop sound, which apparently was the sound of the hose popping off.

Last sentence...

[Kenv]

RDT....was it on LBJ? I know it's not too deep out there....shouldn't be too hard to bring up if so. I thought I saw a comment about 60 feet....but I didn't think there was 60 feet in LBJ. Glad everyone got out safe..

[bturner]

If the hose "popped off" that's going to be a mechanical defect and the insurance company will go after Nautique. If the insurance company or the owner's lawyers get wind of Drake's comments here of having the same issue I would expect Drake will be getting a call. I can just see White Claw girl crying on the witness stand now telling everyone how traumatized she was and the emotional pain she suffered after having lake water get into her claw. They'll be asking for millions.

Although I will say though that TikTok video won't help their case.

[SilentSeven]

RDT-G23

Thanks for providing some clarity...I do see you mention it was exhaust related in the initial post. As to my speculation...a catastrophic exhaust hose failure is the equivalent of a hull hole...just achieved by a different means. :/

My out-loud thinking is this....surf rigs would seem to have additional exposure to an exhaust failure. When you consider the depth of the exhaust ...from both the boat being deliberately sunk with ballast and then the typical fresh air extension....you just a lot more water pressure to deal with on a failure. And it's going to require a lot more water to come into the boat before you achieve some basic water level equilibrium. On my direct drive, the exhaust port is maybe 4 or 5 inches underwater...it's got to be 3 or 4x deeper on a blasted surf rig.

AndI think it gets worse when you have a v-drive setup the aft based engine. You have a big chuck of iron right where the leak is further pushing down that part of the boat compounding the water differential as the aft settles. In the clip, the boat goes down by the stern...which is not surprising.

What I still don't understand is why the boat sank at all. It was my understanding that - by design - boats like this were supposed to be neutrally buoyant so that they might swamp but not sink. NautiqueJeff also raises this point.....but maybe I'm misinformed...?