Potential nightmare scenario?

[Pyroman]

Hi all – could use a bit of advice on a rather worrying development – so worrying it is keeping me from sleeping, hence the insomniac posting...

 

Had my boat craned out for blacking and stood on timbers. The yard I used did all this for me and as far as I know they’re a respected yard.

 

Having just returned to the boat tonight, I found the floor to have buckled upwards halfway down the galley. Galley units jarred out of alignment. Went outside to investigate – hoping the timbers didn’t correspond to the position of the bulge. Naturally, they do.

 

To my horror I discovered that halfway down, they’ve used two pieces of timber instead of a continuous piece spanning the beam of the boat. And of course, one is about an inch higher than the other, the result being that one half is bearing all the load towards the centre of the baseplate, and the other half is not even touching the hull – the baseplate is hanging in the air – I can remove the timber.

 

The (small) area of baseplate bearing the load at the centre / end of the higher timber is visibly bulged upwards. Cue horrible, nauseous, sinking feeling.

 

The questions racing round my head right now are...

• Is this totally bad practice? It certainly doesn’t seem great.
• Even if it has been badly supported, is it likely that my baseplate must be dangerously thin for this to have happened?
• Could the baseplate even be split or cracked?
• What is the likelihood of things ‘dropping back into place’ if she’s lifted back into the water?
• Is it likely to have damaged welds at the chines or caused any other major structural damage?
• Is my boat doomed....

My plan is to notify my insurers tomorrow and speak with the yard. I will also be taking photos at first light. I presume the first priority is a full survey and I would expect them (or their insurers) to pay for this. Obviously if the results find that the baseplate is at fault then I guess I share some liability and it’s a case of overplating or worse....

 

If the plate is sound, and the damage is due to the method of supporting, then I guess I’ll really find out how good their customer service is...

 

Seriously gutted at right now – was so looking forward to getting back on the water on Monday.

 

Any thoughts or suggestions would be really appreciated!

 

Chris

 

[frangar]

Take lots of pictures before anyone moves anything just to get a record. If you have a tame surveyor then get in touch with them or if you say on here where you are then I'm sure some names can be suggested.

 

I wouldn't rely on it all dropping back into place...my boat can flex a bit when lifted but that just causes doors to bind...nothing as bad as you have said.

 

If it was me I would be informing my insurance company and getting a surveyor down to check out what's happened and what can be done to fix it.

 

Don't let anyone fob you off.

 

Cheers & good luck

 

Gareth

Edited August 16, 2014 by frangar

[Burgiesburnin]

It doesn't sound like too good a situation to me.

I wouldn't be too eager to admit to Ny responsibility on your part in terms of the thickness of the baseplate.

They are the "experts" and its that expertise that you are paying them for.

[Jamboat]

Bl**dy hell! This is the second incident like this I've read about this week, it'll certainly make me be on the ball when we are out of the water next summer. As frangar says, lots of photos & call your insurance company. Hope you will be feeling better when some sort of a plan of action to put things right is in place.

[pearltoo]

What a horrible shock for you.....so sorry.

You probably already have, but it can help to give a sense of scale in your photos, (particularly in close-ups of the bottom of your boat and the timbers), to put a fag packet, or coffee mug, in the frame. Hope the situation doesn't look quite so bad this morning.

[Pykebird]

Sorry to hear this, as others have suggested get evidence as soon as possible, just in case it is needed. Hopefully it won't be and things will get sorted. Make sure you are happy with whatever action is taken before she goes back in the water. good luck and keep us posted.

[Bee]

Agree with the other posts, can you get the floor up where it has been pushed up? If you can you will get a better idea of what has happened. if it is `just` the plating that has been pushed up it may not be so bad but if a transverse `frame` has bent then there is a bit of a problem, whatever has happened it is careless to say the least but having spent a while driving skip lorries I can say that skips - not too dissimilar from a narrowboat in some ways, can take a hell of a beating without cracking, You can sit a full skip on a brick and it will not hole it so try not to panic.

[Arthur Brown]

Urgently collect evidence, use a disposable film camera there is often a flash there too for the black on black shots of bitumen and sleepers. My company prefers film for it's in vehicle cameras (yes every van on the fleet has a disposable camera) as it's obvious if a film has been altered but it's easy to manipulate a digital file..

[Paul's Nulife4-2]

OH NO,

Absolute nightmare for you !.

I Echo what's been said above, Diary & Pictures is a must.

be sure to keep us updated !.

 

 

I REALLY hope this gets sorted quickly for you.

[MtB]

The questions racing round my head right now are...

• • Is this totally bad practice? It certainly doesn’t seem great.

 

It's worse than that. it's gross incompetence to chock a boat in that way IMV. Timbers should support a hull at the edges mainly. Supporting a hull only in the centre of the baseplate like this would predictably result in exactly what has happened.

 

 

MtB

[blackrose]

I agree it doesn't sound good. However, every time my boat's been out the water the floor has shifted slightly. At Winkwell Dock the baseplate was unsupported in the middle for at least 25ft and I wasn't very happy about it, but the hull coped with it ok. About a year ago I had the stern pulled out the water (with the bow partly submerged) at a Thames boatyard, to get the prop off, and my kitchen cabinets at the stern shifted upwards so the doors wouldn't open. One of the carcass bases cracked across the corner where the leg was supporting it underneath, but once the boat went back into the water everything settled back into place.

 

Pyroman's story does sound a bit more extreme. I'm not sure if the baseplate is necessarily thinning - even a 10mm baseplate can bulge or sag. I don't know much about welding but steel has some flexibility and most canalboat hulls will flex to some degree when they are unsupported. To my knowledge the welds generally don't crack.

Edited August 16, 2014 by blackrose

[bizzard]

You usually do get a little deformation when in dry dock, like an internal door won't quite close properly but shouldn't be serious.

How old is the boat and how thick is/was the base plate ? There is also the possibility that your boats hull was not built quite square and true when new and is lying on timbers contradicting its shape which may also have been laid not flat and true.

[nb Innisfree]

I've heard of this happening to a flat bottomed widebeam during transportation on a lorry. Ideally it's better to have a V bottom with a WB, even with a NB. Amazes me that so called proffessionals can't see that it's the hull sides that take any bending stress when out of the water, seems pretty obvious to me.

[blackrose]

I've heard of this happening to a flat bottomed widebeam during transportation on a lorry. Ideally it's better to have a V bottom with a WB, even with a NB. Amazes me that so called proffessionals can't see that it's the hull sides that take any bending stress when out of the water, seems pretty obvious to me.

 

Yes the hull sides that bending stresses, but many widebeams (especially the ones over 10ft wide), have longitudinal bearers along the length of the baseplate, so good builders do take this into account when building hard chined widebeams. Although longitudinal bearers will bend over their length to some degree, they will also take some of that stress.

 

Edited August 16, 2014 by blackrose

[nb Innisfree]

The real possibility of a boat settling onto a rock if water levels drop needs to be factored in.

[Pyroman]

Thanks folks for the replies and supportive messages...though I have to admit I wish the concensus was along the lines of "don't worry, it'll fettle itself when dropped back in't watter"!

 

Well, I've spoken to the marina and they've had a look - so far very supportive and they seem genuinely concerned / shocked that their staff had chocked the boat in such a fashion. The chap I'm dealing with today certainly seemed to imply that a survey is the way forward - and didn't rule out them paying when I suggested this. However the marina manager and the head engineer there are off until Monday, so it's just a case of self-imposed stress management until then!

 

The (maybe) good news is that looking in the daylight, there doesn't seem to be any visible damage to the welds at the chines or between the sections of plate - although it's hard to tell, being covered in fresh blacking.

 

In reply to Bizzard....the boat was built in 1991, and the baseplate was 10mm then. What it is now, I don't know - I've never had a survey done in the two years I've owned here. Yes, I know I probably should have done...

 

I've taken plenty of pictures and will upload those if anyone's interested.

 

Next job - dig out all those insurance documents I've never properly read and notify Towergate...

 

Cheers all.

[BruceinSanity]

Sorry to hear about this, a real nightmare.

 

A weeny bit of reassurance; a couple of years ago, Tim Tyler bought in a boat which had been dropped from slings so that the baseplate came down half across the dock edge and bent up. The floor inside came up about half a metre IIRC. He stripped the affected area and used hydraulic jacks to shove the plate back down, then Braidbar refitted that section.

 

Boat was good as new afterwards (or better - it hadn't been a Braidbar fit out originally ).

 

Best of luck with it, whatever happens!

[Kae]

Make sure you're noting all conversations. Time/Date, with whom and what was said by both parties.

Photographs of everything inside and out.

 

I know it's not maybe the first thing on your mind, and hopefully everything will be settled amicably, but you have to work towards the worse case scenario (and hope for the best!).

[Stilllearning]

It has reinforced my opinion that boats should never be craned out, just dry docked to avoid this sort of stress on the boat and the owner. Good luck with this situation.

[Kae]

It has reinforced my opinion that boats should never be craned out, just dry docked to avoid this sort of stress on the boat and the owner. Good luck with this situation.

 

But the method of removal wasn't the issue. The problem is how the boat has been supported post-lift out.

Personally I prefer a method of removal where the failure only results in the boat refloating, but you can't really use this as an example of a reason not to use a crane.

[Pyroman]

Here's a video, which I think shows the issue more clearly than any still photo:

[blackrose]

Yes I can see the baseplate is not supported by that piece of wood, but you haven't shown where it is supported so it's difficult to tell how bad the situation is.

 

Edit: Another way of looking at it is that if your baseplate/hull was weak then that unsupported area would have sagged until it was supported. The fact that it's supporting itself seem like a positive thing to me as it shows its inherent strength.

Edited August 17, 2014 by blackrose

[Pyroman]

Looking like a happy ending on this!

 

The marina have been brilliant – really supportive and have spent the best part of a day dealing with everythingn and feeding me mars bars. My boat’s been up and down in the hoist so many times it looked like a Craggy Island funfair ride.

 

Good news began when they hoisted her off the timbers – floor dropped back into position. Good to know the steel isn’t brittle.

 

They then pressure washed the base and inspected it, before re-tiling my galley and re-fixing the units. Despite their assurances it would be fine, I requested a surveyor – no problem – they got called one out within hours. He identified a couple of areas of fatigued weld between the baseplate sections nearest the impact, which they are happy to grind out and re-weld for free.

 

Here it gets serendipitous – he also identified several areas of fairly deep pitting to the plate which as far as I know has never been blacked – so I’ll pay to get these welded up in the process.

 

Interestingly, on a 22 year old hull the sides are virtually free of pitting. Certainly settles the baseplate blacking debate for me...

 

Thanks again for all the advice here – I’ll be making an effort to ‘chip in’ if ever I can (with my albeit limited knowledge) help anyone in return.

 

Cheers,

 

Chris

[Paul's Nulife4-2]

I think that was a very professional way to sort out an unfortunate problem, well done to all involved at the yard.

& I'm glad it's been a Good ending.

Cider & Donuts all around !

[BruceinSanity]

So glad to hear that; what a horrible weekend for you!

 

Who says boating is stress-free?

 

I sucked some fuel out of the bottom of the tank yesterday; no sign of water at all. Felt good about that for about five minutes, then started worrying if the oil extractor pipe might have introduced the bug into the tank.

 

I know, I'm a sad sod