Possible tug aground NJ

[dorock]

Hi All, The internet shows a picture of what looks like a Ranger 23, 25 or 27 with outboard motor that ran ashore at the North Wildwood Beach NJ. Does anyone know the details of this unfortunate mishap.

 

[scross]

Ranger Tugs R27OB named “AKA Riley”. A man, two women and a dog on board. Towed out at high tide. Two lawn chairs on beach slightly damaged….

 

[JamesC28]

The boat was towed off the beach. Anyone know what happened?

 

[scross]

None of the media outlets have a reason for the boat’s beaching. From just a PR standpoint, having a boat ground itself at a crowded beach at high speed is not good. Lots of valid reasons for intentional grounding (fire, taking on lots of water, medical emergencies, etc.) but if you need to do this, please, please, try to explain to all stakeholders, media, law enforcement, witnesses why you needed to do what you did. Apologize, explain and apologize some more.
The media in New Jersey universally gave boating a bad name today because there wasn’t an immediate explanation for what transpired.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/6abc.com/a ... /10899545/

If you’ve had a really, really bad day on your boat you don’t want the media ending the story of your day with: “So far no charges have been filed.”

 

[SgtAlf]

I met this owner last year, he struck me as a nice guy. I have since moved to Georgia, I doubt I'll meet him again.

 

[Craigmconrad]

https://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2021/ ... ood-beach/

 

[knotflying]

At least he put out the fenders.

 

[it4llc]

The latest news I saw says "“a combination of inexperience and an equipment failure" caused the accident. I'm not sure that provides a whole lot more insight though. Here's a video of her getting towed back out: https://youtu.be/64qYQBFTnFU

 

[knotflying]

I see the name on the side of the boat is "AKA Riley". Looks like all turned out okay.

 

[scross]

I too saw the “a combination of inexperience and an equipment failure" mention in the media. For the life of me I can’t imagine any type of equipment failure that would result in both loss of directional steering control AND the loss of speed control simultaneously. If either of those occurred my reaction would be to just turn the engine off and try to figure out what to do next.
Can anyone think of a scenario where a mechanical problem results in both a directional and speed control failure simultaneously? If so, it would be good for all of us to have a process in mind on how to deal with that!

 

[Kaptajnen]

Perhaps the Captain was running the boat on Auto Pilot and was not paying attention?

 

[Wee Venture]

Perhaps the Captain was running the boat on Auto Pilot and was not paying attention?

Yes that could be. And there are some scenarios where it is very easy to run into a problem. For example, I frequently use the “follow route” function on the autopilot. While following a route, if I wish to allow a wider berth to pass another boat, I will sometimes use the arrow keys to adjust the course to port or starboard. This automatically puts the autopilot into “heading hold.” After passing, I adjust the heading several degrees back again and engage “follow route” when I cross the magenta line again, or perhaps just recalculate the route.

But if you are used to being in “follow route” mode it is easy to forget that you switched to heading hold. This happened to me one time when I realized I was headed straight for rocks at full cruising speed. Thankfully I was watching (though it should have occurred to me that the boat icon was not on the magenta route line), saw the rocks both visually and on the chart, quickly throttled back and put the AP on standby and was able to adjust course. But it is easy to get lulled into inattention with the AP. To state the obvious, constant vigilance is essential when underway. It is hard to imagine that this beaching incident could not have been avoided if the captain was at the helm keeping watch.

John

 

[it4llc]

As a slight digression, but talking about the autopilot functions, in addition to making sure you understand how the basic heading hold and follow route functions work, there are a lot of functions in it that can be useful. The other weekend we were discussing where to head for lunch, and engaged the circle function to more or less keep us in one area while we discussed, without having to focus too much on steering. It may be that everyone else already knows this, but it was a cool find for me.

 

[CaspersCruiser]

......if you are used to being in “follow route” mode it is easy to forget that you switched to heading hold. This happened to me one time when I realized I was headed straight for rocks at full cruising speed....

I am reminded so often that boats and airplanes share many similarities. I taught pilots for many years in big airplanes with extremely sophisticated autopilot systems. And I mean “systems” as in plural. The airplanes had three autopilots.

One thing I always tried to teach my students was, “The autopilot may be controlling the airplane, but you still have to FLY the airplane.” It’s exactly the same with boats. The autopilot may be controlling the boat, but you still have to helm it.