WOOD’S HOLE GROUNDING
The Wood's Hole Grounding
Pocasset Harbour, MA September 7, 2006. A clear sunny day with no wind. Stan, Alun
and I had decided to sail to Nantucket Island, a distance of 47 miles, whilst the
ladies travelled by ferry. We left Stan’s mooring at 0740 and, under power, made
directly for Wood’s Hole Passage. This is a narrow rock-
The west-
The channel is well buoyed, the direction of buoyage being from east to west. As
the USA use the IALA B system (Red Right Returning), this meant that green buoys
should all be left to starboard. I was at the helm, and Stan, with his local knowledge,
took charge of the pilotage. All went well until we neared the fork. By that time
we were doing at least 9 knots over the ground, and things were happening very fast.
We had a chart on deck, but I didn’t have chance to check off the buoys. Unfortunately,
I also didn’t have time to double-
We struck the rocks on Middle Ledge with force at about 0925. After the initial impact, the boat slewed to starboard with the tide, and there were two further impacts before the tide carried us off into deep water. After the final impact, the boat was rotated 360 degrees to starboard.
The initial impact was a huge bang, and the boat stopped dead. Alun was catapulted
off the cabin roof and into the starboard guardrails. Fortunately he didn’t go overboard
as he doesn’t swim well. If he had, we would have had no chance of recovering him
in that tide. Stan grazed his arm on the non-
Although we were all in a state of shock, I immediately realised why we had grounded. There was no obviously serious damage and the boat was not in any immediate danger of sinking, so we carried on to Nantucket where Stan and I swam down to have a look at the underwater areas. There was a huge impact mark on the lower leading edge of the keel, and significant twisting of the lower trailing edge of the keel – nothing else was obvious at that stage, but we were making water at about 50 litres per hour.
Pantaenius, the insurers, directed us to New England Boatworks at Portsmouth RI for repairs, so Jenny and I gently motored Al Shaheen 80 miles to NEB’s yard over two days. Arriving on a Saturday afternoon, we had to wait until Monday evening to be slipped – all the time extremely conscious of the electric bilge pump running for a few seconds every 3 minutes and hoping that it wouldn’t fail!
Once hauled, the Surveyor confirmed that the damage was limited to the ends of the bottom of the keel. Everyone admired the design skills of Mike Pocock and the fabrication skills of Cunninghams. A week after the accident we had an initial repair estimate of upwards of $10,000, and Pantaenius’ approval to go ahead.
Frustratingly, it was not until the 10th day ashore that the work began. To Jenny’s
amusement, in this high-
Al Shaheen will soon be as strong as she always was, and ready soon to sail on south.
While all this has been going on, I have installed a new chart plotter. This, hopefully, will help to avoid a similar accident happening in the future!
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