Oyster Problems?

[Muckle Flugga]

Originally Posted by Polux

Yes I know, it was on the 2014 middle race and they brought the boat to port without assistance in the middle of a storm. Quite impressive as it is impressive the way they are sailing the boat now on the ARC.

Regarding the rudder on this type of light sailboats a rudder with more than 25 years, specially on a boat pushed as hard as that one, should have been replaced already or at lest remade to see if the interior of the rudder structure and the interior welds were allright, so regarding that I would not put blame on Oyster.

At that time (80's) Oyster had two lines, one of heavier cruisers and other of performance cruisers (Light wave).

Agreed.

[Muckle Flugga]

Originally Posted by Ann T. Cate

These are side issues to the construction failures, I admit. However, having just read the posts from overnight, and encountering where poiu wrote that there are "nice" guys at Oyster, I had to wonder about nice guys doing un-nice acts. I mean, trying to scapegoat Alessioconnoni by slander or libel is execrable! The man has industry respect and a livelihood at stake. It is the sort of behavior perpetrated upon less wealthy people by more wealthy groups, and IMO is detestable, not at all nice.

ALESSIOCONNONI, where I grew up, slander (defamation by spoken word) and libel (defamation in writing) are both illegal. Perhaps they are also in the country where it took place, or your country of residence. If you have not already consulted an attorney, I'm thinking you need a whole strategy to combat what is afoot here. Just one of many issues is to protect all the evidence you have of their malfeasance.

What a mess!

Agreed. If Oyster is indeed doing this, it should put up or shut up. Being evidence and detailed explanation, or else it should retract and indeed compensate both owner and Skipper. I believe Allessio. I don't feel it is likely he would be "going loud" here otherwise. This all needs clarification very soon. But the evidence so far is, in my view, pretty bad for the "new" Oyster.

[IdoraKeeper]

This episode is trashing my Oyster envy. Given that I will never have a new one, how far back does one need to go to obtain a sound design?

[leftbrainstuff]

Originally Posted by Alessiocannoni

Hello guys, in your posts there are a lot of questions to reply, I will try to reply to all of that and at the same time I will tell some "facts" about our story and about this building. I'm speaking about "facts" because the funny declarations released by Oyster can confuse the readers.
FACT 1: (why I know what I know)
The owner built the boat with the target to sail around the world, then he asked to me to follow the commissioning, to prepare the boat for this long trip and to choose and to organize the crew. I arrived in the shipyard in the April 2014, and I stayed there every day up to the launch of the boat in July, then I have sailed on her as captain about 10.000 miles: Southampton- Norway and back, Southampton-Las Palmas, ARC rally, cruises in Caribe, Antigua-Alicante (we never arrived).
FACT 2: (the crew)
The boat had two permanent crew member, to be able to manage this aspect I have organized a tourn-over of 5 people:
Alessio Cannoni
Dafne Mele
Giulia Visintin
Monica Rosini
Riccardo Salimbeni
during last trip the professional crew was: me and Dafne.
FACT 3the boat design)
the boat was not extended, she was designed and built by Oyster exactly as you can see in the pictures.
FACT 4: (the meteo)
we sunk in a sunny day we were reaching in 18 kn of TW with about 1.3 m of wave, sailing with staysail and 80% main sail.
FACT 5: (SHORT DESCRIPTION OF THE ACCIDENT)
3 JULY 2015 TIME 14:07'
strong noise with vibration from the hull
14:07'15"
big flooding in the engine room
14:07'30"
water over the service batteries; all systems KO
14:07'45"
I bear away, the crew prepare emergency bilge pump, life rafts, grab bags, furl manually the stay sail, send the may-day by standard-C and by VHF
14:13'
the keel disconnected completely and the boat capsized, in that moment I was standing up in front of the chart table (deck-house) sending the may-day, the water was already cooling down my balls.
a fishing boat "fished"us after a couple of hours.
FACT 6:
we made a video from the life raft, it show the two rudders pointing the sky perfectly intacs, a big hole in to the hull; the relic float upside down all night long, the following morning we found the boat still floating about 15 miles from the capsizing point, one missing rudder, the other one partially broken.
FACT 7:
the CEO of Oyster knows exactly this story, he sent two people on site the following day, I told them every single detail of the accident and I gave to them all the pictures and movies that I had and that I still have.
The relic of the boat and the keel was rescued in October. This operation was a month-long, I participated to this operation and I participated also to the survey performed by all the insurance company's surveyors. We are waiting for the response.

Thanks for posting.

Lots to learn

Sent from my SM-N900T using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[leftbrainstuff]

Originally Posted by Polux

They talked with expert boat builders and experts in composites and it seems that their opinion is that there was probably a manufacturing defect on the connection between the keel structure and the hull Laminate. Their sister magazine in Russia after talking with boat designers talks about undersized keel structure as the most probable cause.

(for the ones talk German: What is the exact translation of "Kielflansches"?- The structural transverse keel distribution charge system or that includes also longitudinal structural stringers?)

Both ruled out an impact as having contributed for the situation because there is not any mark on the keel.

Anyway it seems to me that this is covered by Oyster warranty that if I am not mistaken is 1 year on the boat and three years on the hull below waterline. The boat was launched May 2014.

The Photos are not from Yacht de but from the owner of the boat so I guess it is alright to post them here. They are very disturbing:

That last pic is the most disturbing. Total delamination of a key structural section. Looks like a resin issue...

I hadn't bothered to respond before because seeing the keel and the boat just indicated a catastrophic failure.

The other pic showing the square sections also depicts total delamination between the hull and the interior structure. Again I'm concerned about resin quality.

Destructive analysis of the remaining hull should be conclusive. It just looks under built in terms of composite through thickness. Perhaps there was a latent defect due to resin quality. I can't tell without conducting some destructive testing.

If the designer ran some fea this would be very useful in deciding what to test.

Will we see a formal investigation like we saw for cheeky rafiki?

Sent from my SM-N900T using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[transmitterdan]

Originally Posted by leftbrainstuff

Will we see a formal investigation like we saw for cheeky rafiki?

I doubt it because unlike CR there was no loss of life in this incident. Generally investigations only happen in fatal accidents.

[Muckle Flugga]

Originally Posted by IdoraKeeper

This episode is trashing my Oyster envy. Given that I will never have a new one, how far back does one need to go to obtain a sound design?

Well the vast majority of Oysters built are absolutely superb quality: tough, reasonably fast cruisers. Second to none. As to date? I would go with previous to Matthews' sale of the company in 2008. I attended an Oyster event in the year of sale. I spoke to a lot of staff who had been there for many years. Every staffmember who was there for more than a certain period (10 years?) was wearing their gift from the company of an Oyster Perpetual Rolex watch, a policy from the Matthews Era. A very high proportion of the staff had them. It was an extremely tight knit, careful and thorough company with a highly personalised business style. Several I spoke to indicated that they felt things were changing and not for better, and that they planned to leave. However this is definitely a momentary and anecdotal tale. Still, I did get the impression that the company ethos was changing at that time, and the older staff were not happy with the manner of that change. This may be simply the typical views of the old guard… but these events have suggested otherwise to me.

I do hope that Oyster manages to get through this and to hold on to its reputation, but of course only if that remains deserved as once it most certainly was.

[jmaja]

Originally Posted by Polux

All is relative. the 825 on the ARC is proving to be a fast boat. He is way ahead of other big fast performance cruisers like an Advanced80 or a BD80
World Cruising Club - Fleet Viewer

I understand what you mean, it is not fast as a Shipman or a wally but the D/L indicates a fast boat.

The problem here seems to be that on a fast performance boat there are lots of weight savings on the furniture on the keel type and keel structure, on the careful way the boat is built while on the Oyster the weight savings seem to have been made on the wrong places

The LWL of 825 is only 72' and the hull is only 79'. I don't know the specs of Polina. Wouldn't a Swan 80 be quite comparable performance cruiser? It's displacement is 36 tonnes and still it has about the same sail area. Even Swan 95 with 87' LWL is lighter than 825.

Racing boats at that size have displacements between 20 and 30 tonnes and much more sail area.

Also the earlier Oyster 82 had about the same displacement as 825. So I really don't understand the need for weight savings to reach 60 tonnes.

Actually I really can't see where did they put all that weight, if the laminate is only 15 mm around the keel. 15 mm laminate weighs about 22 kg/m2 and the hull is about 200 m2 (without deck). So 15 mm hull shell would weigh about 4.5 tonnes and leave still 35 tonnes to everything else except the ballast.

Of course a 80' boat is fast compared to small boats. But I don't see anything special about the speed of Maegan. 8.7 knots VMG in ARC is not much for a 80' boat in this years conditions with a new track record already made. Pogo 40 has been equally fast despite loosing its other rudder and having to stop fix it and now having to stop to switch the remaining one to other side at each jibe. X-562, Baltic 56 and Oyster 48 LW are just slightly behind with 8+ knots VMG from the start.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by IdoraKeeper

But they brew good diesel ehh?

Indeed.

The Russians produce lots of good stuff, but are not capable of being competitive if cost is a factor. Rockets, spacecraft, weapons, girls --

all world class, but none of it which you can afford

[otseg]

We can learn from this incident.

The structural grid appears intact.

Comments; "laminate that appears to lack resin". An infused laminate does have a low percentage of resin to fiberglass, however hand lamination with more resin suffering damage, as in a collision look like that too.

There is strength and there is stiffness. More than 22 years ago we built a 177' carbon fiber mast and the laminate design specified to keep adding material plys (prepreg Carbon fiber) until we achieved a side wall 1/2" thickness for buckling reasons, but this was many times the material plys required for strength.

A solid vacuum infused laminate will be much thinner than a hand laminate.
What was 18 mm or more hand laminated could be 12 mm infused.

The photos show a bonding failure to the grid. An infused laminate with polyester or vinyl ester resin has very different bonding properties from a hand laminated laminate. The resin is whats known as "air inhibited" meaning that the styrene which is 50 % of the resin will evaporate from the surface in a hand laminate, leaving an partially cured resin on the inner face. More layers bond molecularly in a certain time window. After that time, a few days or week, especially with Vinyl ester, grinding the laminate is required for bonding. Sometimes a resin is used which gives good cosmetics and it secondarily bonds poorly regardless. Building a 90' boat means that the structure is not completed in a week and bonding requires special attention.

An infused laminate is under vacuum, is not air inhibited and the bonding surface is thoroughly cured. Much harder to bond to.

It seems clear from the clean failure line at the transition of the core to solid glass, that detail that needs improvement, but was not the sole reason of the failure.

I am grateful for the sharing these photos. The only structural hull failure I ever had in 40 years and thousands of boats built involved several racing powerboats where we built two complete boats in three weeks and were directed to bond in a structural grid provided by a third party and with an adhesive specified. The shell we laminated was fine but the de-bonding of the grid looked just like the photos. To effect a repair the structural grids bonding flanges were cut off and the grid was secondarily tabbed to the hull with fiberglass and vinyl ester resin. Won't forget that lesson, ever.

Tremendous seamanship to not have a loss of life.

[four winds]

Actually it looks to me like the failure occurred at the innermost layers of the laminates of the hull. And not at the hull to grid bond.
On the Russian article there is a picture when just lifted from the water. The large area of damage below the water shows few open holes to the inside. Mostly three long holes down low. Then a later photo shows many holes, having exposed the inside through almost every opening in the grid structure.

So it seems to me the inner layers of the hull stayed bonded to the grid , then were later on the hard poked and broken away between the grid members.

Hull laminate failure, not grid to hull bond failure, maybe?

Also on the russian article there is a diagram of the hull in section showing the elements of the hull, with red arrows describing the forces involved. Also some curious points marked and labelled in Russian describing the failure I think.

Wish I could read the label's but it seems to be suggesting failure of the hull laminate.

[Polux]

Originally Posted by neilpride

... then another question is the CE A rating in this case like in others where a European boat brand get involved in a accident ,, definitely something is really wrong right there ,,

Some questions coming from a Spanish forum like ,,
For what is worth all those certifying companies and / or its inspectors?

Regarding certification process what is submitted is data provided by the boat builder and signed by the NA. That does not mean that the boat is built according to the provided data.

That is the same process used with certifying buildings. It is assumed that the data provided is true and that the boat builder will build accordingly. If not, that is an all together different matter and criminal charges will follow.

Regarding RCD, the requirements have been increased with time and are more specific and demanding today. The last more specific and higher demands regards rudders and keels. Keels was the last annex to be modified with more specific demands. Don't know if they have already finished it or if it is still on completion to be then part of the mandatory RCD demands.

[Polux]

Originally Posted by leftbrainstuff

That last pic is the most disturbing. Total delamination of a key structural section. Looks like a resin issue...
...
The other pic showing the square sections also depicts total delamination between the hull and the interior structure. Again I'm concerned about resin quality.

Destructive analysis of the remaining hull should be conclusive. It just looks under built in terms of composite through thickness. Perhaps there was a latent defect due to resin quality. I can't tell without conducting some destructive testing.
...
Will we see a formal investigation like we saw for cheeky rafiki?

I agree that picture is the more disturbing since it relates to what maintained the stub attached the boat keel structure and to the hull and the thickness of the composite and the apparent lack of resin is disturbing.

That was also what was pointed out as main problem by a Spanish independent surveyor.

Regarding the apparent lack of resin an expert in composites that was heard about that by the Yacht magazine stated that could also be due to repetitively over stress on that part of the boat.

I did not heard talks about an official inquiry. The inquiry is being made by the insurance company and by Oyster. However the interests are different, I would say opposed, in what regards insurance company and Oyster and unless they reach an agreement, that difference of interests may contribute for a bigger disclosure and a more clear public understanding of why this happened.

[Polux]

Originally Posted by Muckle Flugga

Well the vast majority of Oysters built are absolutely superb quality: tough, reasonably fast cruisers. Second to none. As to date? I would go with previous to Matthews' sale of the company in 2008. I attended an Oyster event in the year of sale. I spoke to a lot of staff who had been there for many years. Every staffmember who was there for more than a certain period (10 years?) was wearing their gift from the company of an Oyster Perpetual Rolex watch, a policy from the Matthews Era. A very high proportion of the staff had them. It was an extremely tight knit, careful and thorough company with a highly personalised business style. Several I spoke to indicated that they felt things were changing and not for better, and that they planned to leave. However this is definitely a momentary and anecdotal tale. Still, I did get the impression that the company ethos was changing at that time, and the older staff were not happy with the manner of that change. This may be simply the typical views of the old guard… but these events have suggested otherwise to me...

Another point related to that regards the considerable increase on boat production, not only regarding the number of boats but regarding the size of boats. Bigger boats need more work hours. That implies a big increase on the number of workers making the number of older and experienced Oyster workers a minority regarding the total work force.

That can have have negative effects on the average quality and experience of the workers. I remember that Halberg-Rassy, that went also be a big increase in production, have experienced some problems at that phase that seem to be now a thing of the past.

I hope that the same happens to Oyster but that depends also how Oyster will deal with this case. Halberg-Rassy has dealt reasonable well with the boats that had problems and in the end they maintained the reputation.

[poiu]

Originally Posted by Polux

Regarding certification process what is submitted is data provided by the boat builder and signed by the NA. That does not mean that the boat is built according to the provided data.

That is the same process used with certifying buildings. It is assumed that the data provided is true and that the boat builder will build accordingly. If not, that is an all together different matter and criminal charges will follow.

Not so with buildings in the UK and I believe the US, there is no assumption of what is going on; it is verified continually. Local government inspectors or independent controllers will visit often during the build to check that it is being built according to the design and regulations and will stop the job from continuing if it isn't.

I can't imagine most factory built boat builders will like that kind of regime very much. Might not be a bad thing on balance to have some oversight...