A while ago we wrote up the details on the FPB 64 Iron Lady’s interaction with a Fijian Reef. She is in New Zealand now, hauled out near Circa, and we’ve been studying the photos and talking to her owner, Pete Rossin, to get a better feel for the conditions. What we have learned has caused us to rethink our normal tactics when aground in difficult situations for the FPB 64s.

Pete’s comments on the Google Earth image above:

“The enclosed polygon is shallow reef.  You can see the anchorage delineated by the horizontal “V”.  Line indicates our probable path.   The southern most point of the line is about where we anchored,  When the squall came up, we were blown back towards the shore reef.  When motoring out, we clipped the reef and then were blown around north onto it and then dragged along it to the north until we made deeper water near the end of the line.”

Now, a few more photos and comments on the conditions.

Paint damage at the bow (the shallowest part of the hull) confirms Pete’s feeling that the bow hit the reef first. His last recollection of forward depth meter reading was three feet (90cm), and the area in the photo shows paint damage at two feet (60cm) or less, which makes sense if the bow caught first as they were being driven onto the reef by the 40-knot squall. Speed was just a knot to knot-and-a-half.

Midships damage in the lead photo and 10mm (3/8″) deflection of the 12mm (almost half-inch) hull plate in one location indicates substantial impact loads, far more than would be the case with a glancing blow at slow speed.

Along with the gale force winds, driving rain reduced visibility to almost zero, but Pete estimates waves at three to four feet (.9/1.2m). He feels they were being lifted and dropped onto the shallow areas of the reef. The grinding and crashing noise, coupled with the shock being transmitted through the hull with each drop, lead Pete to believe the boat was doomed. The tide was just  off the bottom of its nominal six foot (1.8m) range and rising.

He considered trying to launch the dinghy and set a kedge anchor, but with the boat heeled, waves crashing onto the dinghy side, in the dark, it was far too dangerous. So they hung on, waited for daylight or until they drifted clear, and thought about salvage.

Let’s take a minute and talk about what we would normally say in regards to running aground in exposed situations. To begin with, for deep draft vessels we have always advocated rapid and aggressive action (detailed in our book Practical Seamanship, pages 561-587). Time is usually not on your side so this includes getting a kedge set as quickly as possible to keep from being driven onto the reef. With a deep hull draft, or a winged keel, if you are trapped in the surf line it is just a matter of time before the yacht will be destroyed.

Lighter yachts and those with shallower draft, if they have the option of being driven up and onto the reef, and away from the surf line, it is often better to facilitate this to the extent possible. The Deerfoot 2-62, Moonshadow, proved this point early in her career with a reef in the Tuamotu’s, surviving for a week, high and dry and out of the surf line, before being towed off.

To reiterate, if you have deep draft, or  projections that may trap you in the surf, time is short if the yacht is to be saved.

A combination of factors with the FPB 64s, now evident with Iron Lady’s experience, make a rethink of our suggested tactics worthwhile.

• Shallow draft (4.5 feet / 1.35m), and minimal fins in relation to the rest of the boat, make it easier for the boat to be driven onto the reef and out of harm’s way in the surf, than would otherwise be the case.
• Extra factors of safety starting with that super thick hull plating, along with integral tanks, and watertight bulkheads, reduce likelihood of major damage and confine water ingress should the hull plate breach (as unlikely as that may be).
• With the boat able to withstand enormous punishment the need to take risks with personal safety becomes moot (with other configurations, as previously stated, the risk profile changes especially if you are in remote locations where doing nothing entails its own set of risks).
• The frangible nature of the stabilizer fins, evident when the starboard fin detached in this incident, is a significant benefit. Eliminating the leeward fin removes an impediment which might otherwise trap the boat.

Of course the ideal is to not test these capabilities. But in the real world mistakes happen, as we can attest from personal experience. Although we have always escaped, those close calls have forged an understanding at the gut level of the need for reef tolerance, and we prefer to have extra factors of safety waiting in the wings to bail us out.

Before we leave this subject we need to come back to the topic of personal safety. We would suggest this subject is not to be taken lightly. Enormous forces are involved when a yacht takes the ground and surf is present. If risks are t o be taken, we feel it best to understand their magnitude, and act accordingly. We won’t go into detail here but there a link below that will bring home the finality of this subject.

Lectronic Latitude re Mark Saunders accident.