Unseaworthy Vessel of the Week: Sun Cruise Resort and Yacht in South Korea

Back in 2006 I was sailing as 3rd Mate on board a hydrographic survey ship.  One afternoon we were cruising along the coast of South Korea when I came up to the pilothouse to take over as watch officer.  When it came time to get an appraisal of the shipping traffic in the area, I couldn't help but notice this particularly unsettling ship in the distance:

This is Sun Cruise Resort and Yacht, a hotel designed and built to look like some implausibly horrific maritime disaster.  We were in the area for a few days and I still couldn't help but be weirded out every time I turned around and saw this hotel which was clearly designed to look like something left behind by Godzilla.  It was just as bad at night:

Many folks might ask why someone would build such a thing.  Not me.  I figure it started with some absurdly wealthy South Korean going on a cruise and getting seasick.  Then they thought, "this would be great if only it would stop moving."  A few years later, there it is.  Problem solved.

If it was up to me, the next step would be setting it up with wheels so I could back it into downtown Seoul every month or two just to see how much destruction it could cause.  It's things like this that should make the world glad I'm not a billionaire.

If you get bored, check out their website for some fascinating Engrish.  Especially if you'd like to make reservations for a "romantic propose," so you can come to "the special resort for making your impressiver love confession."

Tell me that doesn't sound like a good time.

Unseaworthy Vessel of the Week: Winnebago

The other day I was out of town when someone decided to try and park an RV next to my boat:


According to witnesses, the driver was backing down the boat ramp to launch a trailered boat he was towing behind the RV.  As the boat floated off the trailer, he put the vehicle in park but didn't set the parking brake because "it tends to stick."

I'm not sure, but I'm thinking that would've been the better alternative:


From what I've heard, the driver's girlfriend (a mildly disabled non-swimmer) was seated in the rear of the RV as it rolled itself down the ramp and submerged itself.  The driver was able to get her out of the vehicle and safely ashore.  She was soaking wet, but otherwise unharmed.

Then he went for a boat ride.

It was quite a while later before he returned to find a diver, tow truck, several firefighters,  and the assistant harbormaster in the middle of retrieving what was apparently the entirety of his worldly possessions:


The not-quite-amphibious Winnebago spent quite a few days in the parking lot by the boat ramp before the owner was finally able to wring everything out, get it running, and get on his way:
 
People never cease to amaze me.

Unseaworthy Vessel of the Week: Snowmobiles

This picture is not photoshopped:

The water is many feet deep, and the snowmobile pictured is not being towed and has not been modified in any significant way.

What you're looking at is "Snowmobile Skipping," also known as "Watercross."  This is a sport where riders drive snowmobiles on water, counting on their wide tracks to give them enough speed to drive them across the water before they can sink.

Invented during the drug-fueled haze of the 1970s, the First Annual World Championship Snowmobile Watercross was held in July 1977 in Grantsburg, Wisconsin (where there's clearly not much else going on) and sounds more like a drunken dare between some snowmobilers wondering if they could hit the water of Memory Lake fast enough to make it the 300 feet to the island in the middle.

Since that fateful day, the event has grown by leaps and bounds.  Now, some 33 years later, tens of riders compete in the various classes ranging from the beginners' Stock Drags to the top Pro-Open Ovals Class. 

I'd love to try cutting an oval on the water in a snowmobile.  Then figure eights.

Riders are required to wear helmets and lifejackets and the snowmobiles are fitted with tethered buoys so they can be located in the likely event of a sinking.  Otherwise, they tend to strip as much gear as they can from their vehicles in order to save weight.  This usually includes removing the seat:


If you've got a snowmobile lying around that you don't like, it turns out there's a formula to the madness.  For the typical snowmobile you need to hit the water with a speed of 5mph for every 150 pounds of vehicle-rider-silliness and keep the throttle wide open for as long as you intend to avoid swimming.

Don't blame me when you drown.


 ,

Unseaworthy Vessel of the Week: Silver Minivan

This morning I woke up on my boat and, like many mornings, went for coffee and a bagel at the Marina Bean coffee shop in the adjacent office building.  When I walked in, the owner asked if I had a nice view this morning.

"Same as any day, I guess," says I, "Why?"

"Some guy tried to park another car next to your boat" says he, "didn't you hear it?"

This bothers me a little bit.  Apparently about the exact time as I was waking up this morning, just before the fog was starting to lift, someone tried to drive around the wrong side of the office building and ended up rolling right down the boat ramp.  Here's a picture taken from the Press Democrat's website:



My boat is just outside of the frame to the right.  The part that bothers me is that I managed to not notice anything at all while the car splashed into the water and later when the towing crew hauled it back out.  

Either way, it's not been too long since the last time this happened.  Maybe when they resurfaced the parking lot they should've repainted the lettering and stripes that warned folks they were approaching a ramp that would dump them into the river.  But what do I know?

Unseaworthy Vessel of the Week: Love-Love the Forever Sinking Sailboat

Check this out:

Believe it or not, this boat is sitting in perfect trim on an even keel.


Her name is "Love-Love" and she was built by an artist named Julien Berthier.  Here's what she looks like out of the water:

All I keep thinking is that this guy must do nothing but apologize to rescue agencies wherever he goes.

"No I'm not in distress.  Yes the boat is supposed to look like this.  It's intended as a statement of the decomposition of..." 

While I feel bad for whatever Coast Guard has to deal with this guy, I feel worse for his neighbors in the marina:

Cool.

Unseaworthy Vessel of the Week: BMW Z3

Yesterday morning I got down to the marina to see this circus forming up:

I'd just missed the fire and police department.  By the time I got there, all that was left was one Community Service Officer, two tow trucks, and a scuba diver with his boat.  The diver snaked the tow cable and his air line into the water and a few moments later, they started to drag this shiny BMW Z3 convertible up the boat ramp:


The owner had stopped at the top of the boat ramp early in the morning to leave a note on the door to the harbormaster's office.  Then he heard a splash, turned around, and noticed his car was gone.

Oops.

It was out of the water fairly quick, but it will still end up being counted as a total loss:


It's a shame too.  This is one of the models I was considering as a replacement for my own car.  I suppose I could have this one for cheap, but I'm not ready to put up with the litany of little problems that will plague this car even after it's been stripped, cleaned, dried, and reassembled.

Lately it seems someone parks a car underwater at my marina about once a year.  The last time it was a van with a boat trailer.  The owner was launching his boat singlehanded, holding a bow line from the boat with his left hand through the driver's side window.  When the boat started to drift off, he jumped out to tie off the bow line and his van and trailer rolled down the ramp and disappeared underwater.

People amaze me sometimes.

HA HA HA

It takes a real boating nerd to think this photo is funny.

Unseaworthy Vessel of the Week: Zipper Boat

Japanese artist Yasuhiro Suzuki built a little motorboat to look like a zipper pull:

The technical aspects are mildly interesting, but what makes it work is the aerial view:

It looks a bit less cool when it's turning:


Makes me want to make a boat that looks like a great big pencil drawing on the sea...

Unseaworthy Vessel of the Week

The other day I was walking along the docks in Angel Island's Ayala Cove when I spotted what at first glance appeared to be a nice, clean, new sailing yacht. At first it looked like a trim and well-equipped boat, the kind of vessel that was ready to weather the passage to the South China Sea without much more than a quick trip to the supermarket for provisions.

Then upon closer inspection I noticed the name:


Clearly this is the boat of a complete moron. I'm sure the owner felt very clever in the brief moment of sober clarity when he came up with this name, but no. Someone who can't even take the naming of their boat seriously should reconsider being in, on, or around water before their nincompoopery gets them killed.

Unseaworthy Vessel of the Month

It's the watertable that all those geologists are so crazy about:


From thereifixedit.com

Unseaworthy Vessel of the Week

This particular little pusher tug has been moored/aground in the same spot along the bank of the Petaluma River since I can remember:


I just love its amazingly apt name.

Unseaworthy Vessel of the Week

I stumbled across this houseboat while I was wandering around Sausolito in the rain a couple of weekends ago:


It's so wonky and whimsical I just had to share.

More Time in the Bilges

The other day I woke up and the boat was sinking. To be fair, "sinking" probably wasn't the right word so much as "flooding," and later I figured out that the boat was taking on water so slowly that it would've taken weeks before the carpet would've gotten wet, but it was a problem nonetheless. Since this meant a sudden drastic change in priorities for the day, Ana went to get coffee while I set to troubleshooting.

The immediate concern was to get the water out of the bilge. The switch on the electrical panel labeled "bilge pump" was turned on, but nothing was happening. Opening the access panel to the bilge pump, I could see the tip of the float switch in the full, upright, "on" position and nothing was happenning. Reaching into the bilge muck, I found that the ends of the wires leading into the float switch had burned off.* I followed the leads out of the top of the pump itself and attached a 12-volt battery charger to them and nothing was happening.

It was pretty clear that I was going to need a new pump and a new float switch. I still had no idea where the water was coming in from though. There were no obvious leaks and the packing gland for the propeller shaft was tight enough to prevent dripping. I borrowed a 110V portable pump from one of dad's boats, pumped the water out, and still couldn't find anymore water coming in. I wasn't happy about being unable to find the cause, but the symptom still needed to be taken care of. First though, I needed a shower.

When I finished showering and shut off the water I heard a trickling noise from under the deck. When I pulled the access panel for the bilge pump again, I stuck my head in and noticed that the sump for the shower drain was overflowing. Since the bottom of the shower stall is about a foot below the waterline, the shower drains into a plastic box (called a "sump") with another little bilge pump and float switch installed inside to pump water up and over the side. Clearly something in this little system was not working as well. Further investigation revealed that neither the pump nor the float switch were in working condition.

So the bad news was that the shower was draining into the bilge. The good news was that at least I knew where the water in the bilge was coming from.

After a lot of cursing and a few hundred dollars spent at the local West Marine I had two new bilge pumps with built-in float switches and clever little strainer baskets designed to keep them from getting clogged. After a few minutes of poking around with the multi-meter, it was clear that there was no power going to either of these pumps. That meant it was time to get into the electrical system.

This is me not having fun with the boat's electrical system:


The electrical system has been one of the most dreaded projects I've been looking forward to ever since I bought the boat. Here's a shot of the backside of the control panel:

What you're looking at in the above picture is basically 30 years worth of the previous owners of the boat making "improvements" of varying quality. To standardize things on board, all of the positive wires should be red, the negative wires should be black, and the ground wires should be green. There should be no call for blue, purple, white, grey, yellow, orange, or pink wires. Still, I've found them all and more while poking around in the cramped little engine room looking for leads in the great mystery that is my electrical system.

One good thing about the wiring is that much of it is labeled. Unfortunately, not all of the labels are helpful:

So I invited my friend Matt back over to listen to me curse and throw tools and we pulled out all of the wiring that formerly fed power to the two failed pumps. Then I got to squeeze my way into the access panel and pull out the dead bilge pump and float switch:


As comfy as that looks, the real twisting and turning was goign on down below:


After a few minutes rebuilding the shower sump around the new pump, then a couple of hours of squeezing my way past the steering cables, water hoses, propeller shaft, and more to set the pump in the lowest possible part of the boat, then unraveling the wiring spaghetti in the engine room and connecting the new lead to the switch labelled "bilge pump," something happened. The pump kicked on, the water started shooting over the side and I was finally able to relax, happy to have working sump and bilge pumps again:


Then all I had to do was toss some fresh oil-absorbent towels into the bilge to save me from causing a minor oil spill and get cleaned up:


Based on Ana's recommendation (and who better to ask about oil cleanup than the nearest Coast Guard officer?) I used Dawn dish soap to get the ick off. Apparently that's the de-gooper of choice for this sort of job. I figure if it worked for this guy, it'll work for me:


I'm sure I'll notice something else broken soon. I've also got to catch up on writing about my latest costuming project progress, Kite Combat and California Coast Cliff-dwelling Cows, and the ongoing quest for a ship, so stay tuned.

*When the water level reached the wires, it set up a bit of electrolytic action which accelerated the corrosion of the copper conductors, essentially making them rot overnight. Oops. The new connections are secured in place as high as possible out of the bilge.

Unseaworthy Vessel of the Week: the Cuban 1951 Chevrolet Amphitruck

A while back I promised I'd write up a story every week about a particularly comical example of foolhardy mariners aboard questionable vessels. I've failed the "weekly" part, so I figure I might as well fail the "unseaworthy" part too. That way I can regale you with the age-old tale of a dozen desperate souls, bound from Communist Cuba to the Freedom of Florida, who drove their 1951 Chevrolet pickup truck out to the beach and just kept going.

I like these guys. In case you don't remember the story, it was a sunny July day back in 2003 when 12 Cubans set out to sea in a pickup truck with some 55-gallon drums lashed and welded to its sides and a propeller mated to the back end of the drive shaft. On the way, a DEA aircraft spotted them and the US Coast Guard then intercepted them.

Here's what they looked like:



I can't rightly call the vessel unseaworthy. When they were intercepted in the open ocean, the truck was cruising at a liesurely 7 knots



Better still, the passengers on the "weather decks" were wearing proper and functional personal flotation devices:

In the end though, these brave camionautas (Spanish for truck navigators) were taken off of their vessel and repatriated back to Cuba. Given the failure of most other amphibious car projects in the United States, I think we should've brought them ashore and found them a job. I know I personally would love to have a pickup truck that could get up to 7 knots while waterborne.

I can't have this one though. Once the people were offloaded, the Coast Guard decided it was a hazard to navigation and that the best remedy for that danger was the liberal application of automatic weapons fire.

Alas.

FOLLOW UP: I forgot to mention it, but there have been at least two other attempts by Cuban camionauts to drive to the US. Here's some pictures:

Unseaworthy Vessel of the Week

Ever since my wife started doing the professional blogging thing, I've been enjoying the occasional story about the Coast Guard going out and rescuing someone from their own stupidity. While a lot of her stories tend to involve folks caught by surprise or suddenly unable to save their own lives, there were no shortage of folks who really just plain shouldn't have been on the water to begin with.

It's with these folks in mind that I would like to start periodically posting my favorite unseaworthy vessels as I find them. Today's entry comes from www.thereifixedit.com, a site about makeshift repairs and jury-rigged equipment.

Without further ado, I present the Beatnik Bass Boat:


In his defense, there's no shortage of flotation in the hull. Fortunately it looks like a fairly calm day on the local pond, so whenever his little car battery runs out of juice he'll eventually drift ashore.

I'd like to write something clever about the lack of lifejacket, running lights, backup propulsion, hull integrity, and so on, but I'm too distracted by this intrepid mariner's hairstyle.