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Old 17-01-2014, 14:10   #301
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re: Alpha 42 "Be Good Too" rescue 300 miles off Cape Henry Merged

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Originally Posted by Sand crab View Post
Charle Doane's first hand account.
HELICOPTER EVACUATION: Abandoning Be Good Too
After reading Charles Doane's first hand account, Be Good Too was poorly put together at first place. So many things went wrong wit the boat. Does the builder have any quality control before delivering to the new owner? I feel bad for Mr and Mrs Rodatz. They seems to be a great couple with strong characters.

It appears that Gregor Tarjan is a marketing genius. But I am not sure how good is his knowledge in building boat. I looked at his website, I couldn't find what his formal training is. People often criticize how bad the production boats is put together. But at least these companies are big enough to have better R&D and quality control and tighten specs on the products.

I am not sure what do they have in their R&D department.

On Aeroyacht website, Tarjan spoke about rogue wave, but Doane did not even mention that word at all...... LOL. Who do you want to believe?

Aeroyacht has another one for sales for $28MM
2013 Aeroyacht Sail Boat For Sale - www.yachtworld.com
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Old 17-01-2014, 14:13   #302
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re: Alpha 42 "Be Good Too" rescue 300 miles off Cape Henry Merged

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Something everyone is forgetting is that the owners wife was on board and that just melts all that testosterone away.
You do bring up a good point. Whether I want to admit it or not if my family and loved ones were on board it may change how I analyze risk. This isn't to say that I wouldn't try to fix everything to the best of my abilities to save us and the boat, but I may be more inclined to consider the rescue option a lot sooner just to keep my family safe.
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Old 17-01-2014, 14:20   #303
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re: Alpha 42 "Be Good Too" rescue 300 miles off Cape Henry Merged

One must expect to have stuff break that needs fixing when crossing oceans.
I'd take a axe to the transom if need be to not give up my boat,
but others certainly may have different skills and tolerances.

A rudder is just so important, that they MUST be designed better than we seem to find in many boats.
My view that transom hung rudders are best for simple and reliable, but sorry it might get in the way of those stylish sugar scoop swim platforms, which are so important in the middle of the ocean...

I would guess we are not getting the whole truth in this story given the interests involved. I also note the verbage:
"1.5 inch solid stainless round tube" a tube is not solid!
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Old 17-01-2014, 14:23   #304
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re: Alpha 42 "Be Good Too" rescue 300 miles off Cape Henry Merged

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And I'm a neophyte compared to the two skippers on board. That's what I just don't understand, how could all of this have happened in such a cascade that they couldn't save the boat. It just seems like such a fatalist attitude instead of the fight to the death one I'm more inclined towards.
May be by the grace of the owner, he didn't want anyone lose their life for his boat and ordered to call the coast guard. After all he was the last one off the boat.

Haven't said that, if I were the owner, I would stay on the boat until she sinks and then onto the life raft.
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Old 17-01-2014, 14:31   #305
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re: Alpha 42 "Be Good Too" rescue 300 miles off Cape Henry Merged

Palarran,

I am with you one the MacGyver side of what could have been done.

I would have had no problem hammering off the foam on the rudders and dropping them both out of the bottom of the boat and then crafting a new rudders out of cabinet wood.

I think in the end they knew another weather front was coming and trying their hardest to their abilities to fix the all the problems. With the owners on board the crew may have been a bit reluctant to start hammering a hole in the rear steps to push the rudder post out and then busting up the cabinets to make a MacGyver rudder. They new that they had a stable platform that was not leaking to badly and was keeping them alive 300 mile off shore.

At this point they are all safe and at least talking about it, so we all can learn a thing or two from the discussions.
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Old 17-01-2014, 14:32   #306
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re: Alpha 42 "Be Good Too" rescue 300 miles off Cape Henry Merged

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Haven't said that, if I were the owner, I would stay on the boat until she sinks and then onto the life raft.
Are you frickin serious? On a life raft in the north Atlantic in January. You would be one dead dawg.

Edit: and that was the good weather. The next day was supposed to be worse. Yeah I want to be in a liferaft in that shyte.
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Old 17-01-2014, 14:52   #307
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re: Alpha 42 "Be Good Too" rescue 300 miles off Cape Henry Merged

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Are you frickin serious? On a life raft in the north Atlantic in January. You would be one dead dawg.

Edit: and that was the good weather. The next day was supposed to be worse. Yeah I want to be in a liferaft in that shyte.
May be.... LOL. But I am desperate for not losing the boat.

I bet the boat is still floating and there are plenty of wine on board. Just pick me up in Martha vineyard or UK.
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Old 17-01-2014, 14:53   #308
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Re: Alfa 42 "Be Good Too" rescue 300 miles off Cape Henry

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And maybe you couldn't get the rudder out, but wouldn't you at least try? Wouldn't you be willing to take a hammer to your deck if need be to bust a hole directly above the rudder stock, and drive the shaft down with a stantion? Did they even have proper tools on board?
I'm inclined to agree with you, the path to the solutions are not too tough for experienced sailors who are used to getting their hands dirty, IF (giant IF) you have tools on board, ie: hand sledge, steel drift, jumpers, drill, line, etc. Some tools could be quickly improvised, other would need some creative thinking.

It would be hard to believe that a rudder stock could resist serious, continuous, downward blows from desperate men with a BFHammer. Also hard to believe that experienced sailors couldn't find a way to jury rig/jumper the electricals/batteries or engines?

The thought of easy rescue may have tempered any desperation, or maybe they didn't have the tools or mechanical/electrical skills? Although I'll wager they would have found a way to port if there were no rescue option.
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Old 17-01-2014, 14:58   #309
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re: Alpha 42 "Be Good Too" rescue 300 miles off Cape Henry Merged

You do have to give the crew credit on their efforts, but in the ends there were just to many things to fix before the next weather front moved in on them.

--------------------
Friday, 17 January 2014 13:35 Written by Charles Doane

Inspecting all the steering gear, we found the port-side rudder stock was no longer connected to its tiller arm. Instead of being secured with a pin all the way through the stock, there was only one small set screw, the tip of which had broken off. There was, however, a hole through the stock for a proper pin, and after a long bit of head scratching, jury-rigging, and tiller-arm wrestling, we finally managed to pull the tiller arm up off the retaining ring on to which it had collapsed, line up the tiller's hole with the rudder stock's hole, and drive in an Allen wrench with a hammer.

As you can imagine, we felt pretty proud of ourselves at this point and were confident we had solved our most important problem. Unfortunately, after we started up our one engine to see if we could steer, the boat still would only drive in circles, to port, no matter what we did with the wheel.

So now it was time to visually inspect the rudders to see what the hell was really going on down there. Gunther (69 year old owner) insisted he should be the one to go into the water to do this and soon reported that the starboard rudder blade was just spinning in place around its stock and that the port rudder blade was bent inward toward the boat's centerline at a very large angle.

http://www.wavetrain.net/news-a-views/558-helicopter-evacuation-abandoning-be-good-too
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Old 17-01-2014, 15:06   #310
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re: Alpha 42 "Be Good Too" rescue 300 miles off Cape Henry Merged

One thing is for sure, having seen and repair diferents kinds of rudders in various catamarans mean to me that any of those in the same situation , falling backwards, got the same result, broken or bent rudder no matter what! Catana use in some models Aluminiun stock, Lagoon Fiberglas, Nautitech solid ss stock, Privilege SS, and a lot of monohulls the same , long spade rudders not designed to take a beat backwards, so the question is how is posible to see a light catamaran doing 8 knts and and 1 second falling backwards? here is where the designer need to make their own calculations again and redesign the concept,, my 2 cents.
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Old 17-01-2014, 15:19   #311
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re: Alpha 42 "Be Good Too" rescue 300 miles off Cape Henry Merged

It would be interesting to know when Hull#1 was initially supposed to be ready for commissioning. Aeroyacht said it was to be introduced at the 2013 Annapolis Boat Show. But the boat show listing doesn't show it. The blog shows it being launched in July 2013. One gets the feeling that it was late. I know I'm speculating but it appears they were late and in a rush so that the owners would not miss this season in the Caribbean.

In the introduction they also said it was built to ABS standards. I saw no other mention of this in the build blog as one would expect if that were the case. Apparently the rudders were made in-house.
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Old 17-01-2014, 15:23   #312
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re: Alpha 42 "Be Good Too" rescue 300 miles off Cape Henry Merged

One matter that intrigues me in reading the report by the editor was that they locked the wheel hard over to prevent rounding up. Is this normally done when sailing a cat in those conditions?
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Old 17-01-2014, 15:24   #313
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re: Alpha 42 "Be Good Too" rescue 300 miles off Cape Henry Merged

On topic but from a different angle and I did ask this earlier but the question was probably overlooked in the rush of replies to other things.
Who pays for the Coastguard/ Navy for these rescues.Is in taxpayer funded ,insurance claim ,annual premium,the owner?
Although I've been to the states a few times but fortunately never had the need to use medical facilities and probably watch to much TV but was of the understanding that the medical or hospital system is pretty much user pays so thought these rescue situations may be the same.
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Old 17-01-2014, 15:25   #314
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re: Alpha 42 "Be Good Too" rescue 300 miles off Cape Henry Merged

^^ No the USCG is tax payer funded. There is no user pay.
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Old 17-01-2014, 15:29   #315
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re: Alpha 42 "Be Good Too" rescue 300 miles off Cape Henry Merged

My last word on this thread that turned out to be the seamanship and technical knowledge show..
The crew did a good job, but given their experience one would expect a bit more than that. Lying ahull is not a good idea on a cat, if the waves exceed yr beam length you are at serious risk of be flipped over, particularly on a cat with fixed keel.. Para anchor has similar risks and I wouldn't try this option with this unproven cat.(do you believe that the cleats are any stronger than the rudders ??)
Drogue could have been tried but there is no reference. Maybe they didn't have it..

I was never scared of wind , a bit more from sea state but dead scared in some cases that the boat would not hold up. If I was the skipper and seing the boat falling apart (both engines not working, if working not charging !!!, both rudders fouled, taking water without even knowing where from, genset not working, battens are out of main sail, etc) and the worse of weather is still to come, I would definately do what they did.

It's sad for Mr Tarjan, but selling or sailing cats is different than making catamarans.


Cheers

Yeloya


The boat is definately not built up to these condition.

Just a curiosity, what is the equivalent of CE certificate for europenan boats in the US ? Can anybody make his boat and set sail offshore there ??
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