Inspecting A Sunken HouseBoat {[What Made It Sink]}

that's what made it sink it's right here actually both boots one is almost completely gone the other one's got a couple of nice-sized holes and it either between it taking on water there and all the rain yeah it ever overtook your village or your village just working but i guarantee you that's what made this thing [Music] what's up guys it's brian again from lake hicker scuba marine and we're down here on lake norman which is two lakes down from our personal lake lake hickory and we've got an inspection to dive to do on a houseboat that sunk and if you come right over here with me you'll see it it's probably in about 15 foot of water at the stern but if you look down at the bottom of the hill here you'll see it down there and we're not sure what actually made this boat sink but we're going to jump in we're going to do an inspection of it see if we can find any maybe holes in the hole or anything like that maybe see if we can just figure out if the plugs were not in it or whatnot and we're also going to try to get a price to the guy of what it's going to take to lift it up but we got a little walk we've got to go all the way down through these trails here and then figure out a way to get off this embankment into the water itself to the inspection so it's going to be a busy day for us but hopefully it'll be a successful day so we're going to gear up and we're going to get started so here we are we are actually walking down the trail i'm talking to the owner of the boat here you can see him on the screen and we're trying to formulate a game plan of what we're going to actually be doing and anytime we do any type of work like this i try my best to uh explain our actions in detail so i say hey you know first of all it's all about safety we're going to get out here we're just going to do an inspection or this is how we're going to rig especially if we're lifting a vessel a lot of times things can get damaged and the owner needs to understand that too now we do take all precautions necessary to try our best not to damage stuff but sometimes things still happen so we're actually walking through the trail here wasn't that far of a walk probably about 150 200 feet um thankfully we're not going very deep so we was able to wear very thin suits here because it is hot this time of the year uh but we're trying to determine if we want to crawl down this embankment here there's actually another clearing that we're going to go over and check out as well so that's what we're going to do there but uh yeah we're just trying to decide how we're going to get in the water and then once we're in the water how do we get back out of it as well so we're gonna go check this other clearing out real quick um and as you can see there's not much to actually climb up or down so i think our best bet is actually to go into this other little access point and the owner had been using this as an entry and exit way anyways he had pulled his boat over this general area to work on it to be able to service it and things like that and he's got him a little uh makeshift ramp there to get or plank if you will to get out on the boat so we're actually going to be utilizing this got a little step down about three or four foot here uh we're gonna step down into the water uh get geared up completely we've got our gear on but we're gonna get our mask on our fins on uh just finalize our plan and then we're just going to make a loop around the boat we're actually going to make a couple of different loops and what our goal is at this point is one find out the condition of the vessel you know is it broke apart uh is it actually sitting on the bottom or is just say the stern in this case sitting on the bottom the rest of it semi-floating or whatnot and we're also looking for attachment points if we were able to lift this vessel where are we going to attach bags to it or a crane system or whatever lifting device that we're going to be using and also just see if we can determine what actually made this vessel sink a lot of times we may be able to lift the boat up but if we don't know what made it sink sometimes we can't get them out of the water and we're going to have to leave bags up underneath them for a lengthy period of time and that can get very very costly for the owner of the vessel because obviously we can't just leave our bags there indefinitely they're going to have to have a trailer ready they're going to have to have whatever they can have so that they can remove this vessel from the water a lot of times when people hire us all they're hiring us to do is to inspect it and to lift it and maybe even pump it out it's their responsibility to get it out of the water and of course we may have a particular rate that we charge for the salvage the lift part of it but as far as us leaving our bags under and definitely until they can get a trailer or something then i can get pretty costly pretty quick because that's by the hour if you will so you can imagine how quickly um a salvage fee like that can add up really quickly but here we're on the stern of the vessel and we're just swimming we're actually on the porch side so we're the poor aft side and we're just swimming around just doing an uh getting a general impression of what the vessel looks like trying to determine here i'm actually going underneath it as well we're actually seeing if the vessel is sitting on the bottom because that's very important to us because we may not be able to get bags up underneath it uh the strap system that we use basically it goes up underneath the vessel and then we're going to hook the bags to that strap system up underneath we also got to be able to hook airlines and everything else to it so we're just getting a general impression here of what it looks like as you can tell the vessel is obviously sitting on the bottom so that's that's going to hinder us somewhat during the salvage phase of it we're also just noticing any debris that's in the way um noticing the attachment point of that rope there so where the rope was attached that may be an attachment point there's metal railing that goes all the way around this vessel and i try not or i try my best not to use railing to lift with because a lot of time it can just break free and we don't want that that can be dangerous for us uh it could just damage the vessel things like that so once again there's a cleat there that we could possibly use but once again i really don't like using cleats primarily just because cleats break away very easily especially if it's in fiberglass lift bags can pick up on those cleats it can shear those bolts or it can pull the bolts through the fiberglass on this particular vessel there's slots in the side of the gunnels that's solid metal obviously and that's going to be a good option for us to run straps and stuff although the boat is on the bottom it's going to be hard for us to get up underneath it so what we may have to do is lift lift it via those slots just enough to get straps and bags under it and then lay it lay it back down and then pump up the bags from there but we're on the bow of the vessel now we're swimming around to the front um and we're just like i said it's just a general impression is what we're making of this trying to determine uh what made us ink how are we gonna lift it um and if we even can lift it as well a lot of times when people call us they'll say hey my boat's hunt can you get it out of the water we don't always like to say yes we can because it depends a vessel like this may be outside of our lifting capacity lifting capacity simply means how much physical lift we may have how many lift bags we may have to do the job so a lot of times we're sitting there doing calculations in our head underwater is this vessel going to be able to be lifted with the amount of lift that we have and here we're kind of just discussing things under the water and we're going to move on over to the starboard side of the vessel now and we're starting to see quite a bit of damage if you look right there you'll see where the cabin of the house boat has just come come completely disconnected from from the hole itself and there you can see i can just reach my hand all the way through it and that that's actually the base of the cabin so if you were walking around the deck of the house boat that would be the cabin or the part of the house itself where it's come so there's quite a bit of damage to this boat um already we did notice just some small openings there right there was a big old gash in the side of the hole and this is a steel hole too so you know usually when you find stuff like that there's there's typically a reason that vessels sink and obviously this this is pretty much the reason here but we're going to work our way around and what that little knob was you just saw right there that i'm holding my hand on that's a vent so in the event that we do lift this vessel up we've got to make sure that the water line is below that vent because if it's not as we're just pumping water out water is just going right back in that little hole there was actually a scupper hole there in the back once again we want to make sure it's up out of the water here we're checking the transom now this is an inboard outboard houseboat so that means the motor the engines on the inside the foot of the motor is on the outside that means through the transom there's boots that go around it and a lot of times what will happen is muskrats will eat those boots out and it'll take on water and flood as well this one also has a steering system that comes out through the transom as well so we're going to be checking it and checking the boots around it and here you can see where the steering system is coming out you can see that the boot has just been shredded by muskrats basically they just get in there and they eat it out and we are pretty certain at this point that is what made this vessel sink in short muskrats ate that buddha out water come rushing in now he did have a village pump that was working and pumping the water out but if you get too much water in there it's going to burn that pump up or it's going to run your battery down and then your pump's going to stop anyways and you're not going to be able to pump any water out so we feel pretty confident that right there is what made this boat sink the other one's got a couple of nice-sized holes and it either between it taking on water there and all the rain yeah it ever overtook your village or your ability to working but i guarantee you that's what made this thing sink that was the last thing we saw i didn't realize the uh stern was at the rear [Music] all right guys so we just got finished up just got out of the water we were able to determine what made this vessel sink in short muskrats ate the boot out around the um outboard part of the engine and it filled up with water it filled up with so much water that it ended up either one burning the billage pump out or it shorted out the battery and of course the village just shut down and it quit quit pumping out but that's what made that vessel actually sink now unfortunately we don't have enough lift our company doesn't to actually get this vessel up it's a steel hole bottom and it's just way too much lift for what we got the capacity for although we've got other salvage crews we can partner with we could definitely get it up i'm not sure the owner is going to make the best value of it because i don't think the boat's worth what it's going to cost to actually get it up either way he's got to figure out something so we're in limbo on what to do right now so we're going to leave it in his and his ballpark and see what he wants to go with but i appreciate you coming on this dive with us if you got any questions please drop it down in the comment section below i'll try to answer them the best i can guys if you like this video you want to see more salvage related videos hit that thumbs up button and definitely share it as well as always guys make sure you follow us on instagram and twitter like us on facebook pin us on pinterest subscribe to us here on youtube and as always guys we appreciate your business

Channel: LakeHickoryScuba

Views: 1,651

Rating: 4.9615383 out of 5

Keywords: Inspecting A Sunken HouseBoat {[What Made It Sink]}, Doing Underwater Inspections, Sunken Boat, HouseBoat, Raising Up A Sunken Boat, Lake Hickory Scuba Center And Marina, Instructor Trainer Bryan Stafford

Id: PV6thZCy7E4

Length: 12min 28sec (748 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 01 2020