Is this anyone from here? I'm told this is a 55' Hatteras sportfish that sunk 53 miles from Port St Joe. The Sea Tow diver is refloating boat so it can be towed back to shore.
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Is this anyone from here? I'm told this is a 55' Hatteras sportfish that sunk 53 miles from Port St Joe. The Sea Tow diver is refloating boat so it can be towed back to shore.
Ang,
Anything else reported on what may have caused the sinking?
Thanks,
Maybe it's the angle but that looks smaller than a 55.
way smaller
Take another look. The exhaust ports are on the side under the aft spray rails, I think this was limited to the 50' and up Hatt sportfishers of the day.
I've seen a ton of retrofits with the side exhst. Look at the bridge style and size of the diver next to the boat. 43 maybe?
Looking at the rub rail and second chine or ever you want to call it just above the waterline I dont think its a hatt.
I have to agree with some of the comments - looks too small to be a 53, and doesn't look all that Hatty from that angle I'm seeing, but who knows. I'm not a sportfish/convertible expert. If it were a 58MY, I could probably point that out just by a piece of floating trim. LOL
It was the SeaTwo guy (the diver) who said it was a 53' Hatt. I've asked for more details, and am awaiting a response.
I was thinking that by posting this, perhaps someone here would know the story behind what happened and whether it was a HOFer's boat. The real story will eventually surface.
I think it's hard to tell what size she is from the angle. Definitely an '80's Hatt SF. Looks like a 55C or maybe a 52C. Could even be a series II 45C. The exhaust looks like a factory set up but very well could be a retro fit
Jack bet ya a beer its not a hatt. The angle where the deckhouse meets the bridge is all wrong.
http://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/...tfish_0011.jpg
We don't usually see our boats from this angle, thank God, but I agree with RS- I don't think it's a Hatteras, either. I'm sorry it's anyone's boat, to be honest.
the horizontal line at the end of the house, just aft of the side window, is typical 90s vintage hatt sportfish...
That looks like a Hatt.
Baypoint is this weekend, although I haven't heard anything about anyone going down out there. The weather has been excellent around here, and besides, it's pretty tough to sink a Hatt due to conditions.
I'll poke around and see if I can find anything out.
It was that strange angle where the deckhouse meets and all the pipewelding for the flybrige above that got me wondering. But, what would I know....admittedly, I'm not all that familiar with those. I can spot a Hargrave designed classic Hatt motoryacht miles away without glasses, though.
I sent a message to the SeaTow guy to raised the boat to see what he might can share with us.
Angela, that if you look at Sanity down the dock or danny's next to me you ll see that line...
The sprayrail looks like a Hatt, The plastic rubrail and low freeboard and oval cockpit drains look like Viking or Riviera.
Its a Hatt
Could be a THIRD BOAT for Yachtsman Willie!
The cardboard looking slab sided bridge just dosent look like Hatt quality. What were those Hatt look alikes Ronnin?
Ronnin. 38
http://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/...20111725_3.jpg
I think its a SeaRay
mailman
Here's what the SeaTow guy said:
"Hi AngelaThis boat sank 3 weeks ago off of Port St. Joe FL approximately 53 miles offshore. The new owner was taken her home to north Florida when they hit A buoy at early AM before daylight. If you Google (55 Hatteras reel TNT) it will give you all the boats info, and if I can be of any further assistance please let me know. Thanks,Captain Dennis Douglas."
Hit a buoy??? Geez...
Sure enough '87 55' I owe you a beer Jack. I still think those years with the backwards slanted windows didnt look very Hatt.
SPOOOOOOOOOL 'EM UP!!! Probably had 3 radars running with a giant chart plotter/GPS and the guy didnt know how to read the stuff, AND, no paper charts. Most excellent. Didnt have a problem locking in on the SIRIUS (sp) radio blasting some deff row record crud... ws
http://i56.tinypic.com/2vjojk6.jpg
wouldnt wanna hit one, PERIOD!
A buoy 53 miles out?
Uh, what SORT of buoy? That sounds like it was one of the weather "buoys" - that ain't no buoy, it's a floating semi-truck-sized "thing" with more in the water than out.
You hit one of those, you're in BIG trouble.
They're fairly hard to hit too in that they're very visible and show up like a sore thumb on radar.
There's nothing ~50 miles offshore Pt. St. Joe though on the WX buoy map. The closest is the Tyndall buoy and it's ~20 miles out. Hmmm... gonna have to go look at my charts on the boat later and see if I can figure out what he pranged.
I've seen a number of bouys that have broken loose and are drifting around offshore.
Wouldn't think a free-range buoy would take out a 55C unless it was a really BIG one. The anchored ones don't give up as easily and do all sorts of nasty things to your running gear.
I'll never forget my dad clobbering one on the river when I was a kid. We had a 16' Norris Craft v-bottom bowrider and my brother and I were riding up front when a local raceboater passed us by. Dad decided he'd give him a run for his money and dropped the hammer on the Merc 1000 inline six.
We obviously had his view blocked and there wasn't enough time to yell at him as we hit that buoy at about 45MPH. The boat was only a month or two old, and it took out a section of rubrail and half the skeg on the outboard. I do believe that was the last time anybody rode up front. Took dad a long time to get over that one. :D
More boat drivers are fixed staring at the color screens than looking ahead at where the boats going. Guy on my dock hit a buoy 2 weeks ago. He was quite embarrassed and admitted that upon impact he was not paying attention to anything but the damned plotter. The fancy nav stuff will deliver you safely - right to the scene of the accident.
Given they were running before sunrise, I would hope the operator was staring at a radar screen. Obviously not.
I would also lay money at very short odds that the autopilot was engaged as well. People hit day markers and other boats that happen to be sitting on a way point.
Link to the article
http://www.wjhg.com/news/headlines/P...9.html?ref=199
Hi All,
After googling the boat it looks like a boat that has been aggressively for sale for several months with several substantial price reductions.
All the angles etc make sense now comparing the underway pictures to the underwater pictures.
Take a look at Willy's post. Those things are huge and if he hit one of those at speed, it would put a nice hole in the hull. What a shame to see a Hatt go down. That boat had been for sale for over ahead and finally found a new owner.
It looks a nice boat in the photos. It IS a shame. Glad no one was lost, it's bad enough as is.
Hey, all. As an owner of another 55c, this story really hurt to see. But it gets even closer than that, for me -- one of the crew is one of my best friends.
Happened about an hour before dawn, and Chris was snoring away in the fwd cabin when he was awakened with what sounded like a cannon shot. His bunk was probably just a few feet over the site of the impact. By the time he shot up (and probably rung his bell on the bunk right above) and got his feet on the cabin sole, there was already water over that fwd hatch. Nice way to wake up, eh?!
As you can imagine, there wasn't time for damage control or any hope of saving her...he and one other crew or passenger, I think, just grabbed what they could and got up on deck and joined the active crew. And give that whole crew an A+ for prep, because they had all the kind of safety gear you'd want very well-organized in a big ditch bag, AND THEY USED EVERY ELEMENT OF IT -- EPIRB, satphone, port. VHF, flare kits, dye markers, non-perishable food, water, blanket, etc. And of course the quick-inflate 6-pers life raft. That's what Chris really stressed to me...you know that @#$t can happen the water, but how many of us are truly that well set up ALL the time when we get well offshore? I would guess the ones who do it regularly are probably more in the habit, but coming through something like this will make any one of us a better skipper where safety is concerned. He's a very cautious and skilled captain (though in this particular case he was off-duty), and this has ratcheted his level of safety-awareness and prep up another notch or two.
As for the cause, they struck a really large mostly-submerged steel or iron float of some kind. If I heard it right, it's something meant to be like a mooring ball for the oil-service vessels that take care of the rigs. Most of them have short masts on them with a radar reflector, and usually show pretty well on radar. Not sure if this one was missing that all-important piece, but there were two guys at the helm chairs with the radar on and they never saw anything. And they were only going about 9.5 kts. But, it was o-dark-hundred and you sure couldn't trust your eyes then. If the radar missed it, or the crew were fatigued enough just not to notice that little dot getting closer, well...sucks to run at night.
Chris was along because he'd been doing a fair bit of maintenance on her, and the new owner (pretty serious charter fisherman out of Alabama with a lot of time on SF's) wanted his familiarity with the boat for that run from Lauderdale and thought it was money well spent to bring him. The boat wasn't perfect (cosmetic issues, more than anything), but mechanically it was pretty high and tight.
Amazingly, it never sank -- at least while Chris was bobbing alongside in the raft; she just capsized and hung there. Took about 45 mins to turn turtle, too. I would have thought she'd go down pretty quickly, myself.
I'm just glad my friend came though this one a-OK. I try to purge the mental images of him in his tidy-whities with eyes all bugged out (he's sort of a large fellow) in the dark and wet, but still happy he's OK!
We came across a large bell bouy floating halfway between Mattanilla and FtPierce in almost 4000 ft of water. We caught a ton of Mahi under the thing. Called the CG and reported it as a hazard seemed like they could care less. The thing was drifting north at almost 3 knots. Fishing out of Ft Pierce the Gulfstream is like a debris highway coming up from points south. Ive seen telephone poles, entire trees,even a sealand container once floating right at the surface. When you think about it all the stuff that comes from China is packed in styrofoam so theres a good chance if one falls off a ship it will float.
Sounds like just bad luck.
I came VERY close to hitting a submerged container in my little boat a few years ago - it went by off the beam a couple of feet away. Never saw it until we passed it; it was nearly-identical in color to the water and this was in the middle of the day! If we had hit that we would have been totally screwed; I suspect it would have torn both engines right off the back of the boat - if we were lucky and didn't hole the hull.
Stuff like this happens.... if there's nothing sticking up out of the water radar is worthless and it doesn't have to be nighttime to be a problem.