Rudder Failures

[Polux]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Smack,
Any boat it "good enough" until you exceed the designs limitations this is true for any engineered product.
A product that has more margin between it's average use and it's limitations will fare better when it's operational envelope is exceeded, simply because it's ultimate load limit is higher.
So your correct any production boat is a blue water boat, as long as the weather is good.

Originally Posted by smackdaddy

Okay - so what's the "operational limit" of, or "ultimate load" for, your Island Packet?

And what is the ratio of that limit/load to that of a production boat?

An Island Packet 38 is a bluewater boat?

"Thank God we're alive!' says skipper...The yacht had been knocked down three times and was overwhelmed by towering waves as Ben from Bristol tried to slow the yacht down amidst 60-knot gusts....The first of the three knockdowns happened in the early hours, causing the failure of the electronic navigation instruments and structural damage. The sprayhood was lost and water was flooding into the boat...the skipper suffered a blow to the head when the boat was flipped upside down. After the third knockdown in seven hours, Coastguards were asked to mount a rescue and the crew huddled together in the forecabin, which was least damaged by flooding. "

Read more at 'Thank God we're alive!' says skipper | Yachting Monthly...

Gusting 60K does not look that bad to me. I would have prefered to be on my boat that on that Island Packet 38...more stability and less chances to be capsized. Of course I would have preferred to be on Steve's Boreal 43 but in case that was not possible, I would take instead a mass production 50fter, for the same reason: more stability and less chances to be capsized. Probably that structural damage that was referred had to do with the three knock-downs, at least a roll, if i understand well what he said about being flipped upside down.

[a64pilot]

Keep trying

[Jim Cate]

FWIW, I was under the impression that IPs were indeed production boats...

Jim

[smackdaddy]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Keep trying

So what is your answer?

[smackdaddy]

Originally Posted by Polux

An Island Packet 38 is a bluewater boat?

"Thank God we're alive!' says skipper...The yacht had been knocked down three times and was overwhelmed by towering waves as Ben from Bristol tried to slow the yacht down amidst 60-knot gusts....The first of the three knockdowns happened in the early hours, causing the failure of the electronic navigation instruments and structural damage. The sprayhood was lost and water was flooding into the boat...the skipper suffered a blow to the head when the boat was flipped upside down. After the third knockdown in seven hours, Coastguards were asked to mount a rescue and the crew huddled together in the forecabin, which was least damaged by flooding. "

Read more at 'Thank God we're alive!' says skipper | Yachting Monthly...

Gusting 60K does not look that bad to me. I would have prefered to be on my boat that on that Island Packet 38...more stability and less chances to be capsized. Of course I would have preferred to be on Steve's Boreal 43 but in case that was not possible, I would take instead a mass production 50fter, for the same reason: more stability and less chances to be capsized. Probably that structural damage that was referred had to do with the three knock-downs, at least a roll, if i understand well what he said about being flipped upside down.

Okay - now that's a funny story...

The yacht had left Plymouth as part of an expedition to Greenland under the flag of the 'Carbon Neutral Expedition'. After the planned arrival in Greenland, Ben's two crew - Raoul (40) a landscape gardner from Jersey, and Richard (31) a physiotherapist from Bristol - had planned to cross the Greenland ice cap.

The three crew are now nursing their bruises on their way to Maine, USA where they are due to arrive on Friday.

Their relief was tinged with a sense of irony as the rescue craft sent by Falmouth Coastguard for the environmental expedition was an 113,000-tonne oil tanker.

[neilpride]

60 knts are in my book hurricane forcé winds or close , whats the point here? curious!!

[smackdaddy]

Originally Posted by neilpride

60 knts are in my book hurricane forcé winds or close , whats the point here? curious!!

a64 was saying the "ultimate limit/load" of production boats is only suited to good weather.

So, I asked him what the "ultimate limit/load" of his IP is. If production boats are only suited to good weather - what exactly is his boat suited to? What are the roughest conditions he's comfortable sailing his IP into? And how much higher is that limit than a production boat?

He obviously has calculated this in his head - and presumably bought the IP with it in mind. So I'm interested in the calculation.

Still waiting.

[robert sailor]

Armchair sailors for sure, someone that says that 60 knots does not look that bad has never been out in weather like that. The forces go up exponentially and if you think 60 knots is double 30 you are wrong, the forces are much higher. I have a reasonable amount of offshore sailing and I'd like to make up some stories but the strongest wind I have sailed in was mid 50's and not for that long. The roughest weather I sailed in was a sustained wind of around 45 knots for over 2-1/2 days about a 150 miles off the Wa/Or coast. If I add 15 knots to that I would have had an absolute ride from hell. Yes bigger boats do add more stability but the recent boats that have come to grief have done so in conditions much less than this.
I'd move off this subject because I suspect few of you have any idea what it would be like sailing in 60 knots of wind.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Polux

Gusting 60K does not look that bad to me. .

Have you ever been out in a F10 far out at sea which has been blowing for a few days? I'll bet not. That's survival conditions for any small vessel, and very different from the sea state you get from a strong but brief gale on the coast.

[Polux]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

FWIW, I was under the impression that IPs were indeed production boats...

Jim

As 99,5% of all the others. Some mass production, some small production, others even smaller with some customization. The one offs are really rare and more usual on the racing scene and they are not necessarily more reliable. When you do a production boat that is made in large numbers, after the first boats any obvious defect would be spotted by the dealers through clients complains and that would be modified. After having made 200 boats the clients feedback trough dealers would probably have erased all main defects.

On an one off you will have to find out those shortcomings and pay to have them repaired. On a new sailboat there is always something that does not work properly or that can be easily improved.

Anyway the type of boat has nothing to do with the type of sailing it has designed too: racing, cruising racing, performance cruising (coastal and offshore), coastal cruising, coastal and offshore cruising, voyaging, daysailing and so on.

[a64pilot]

I don't know why I keep coming back, this is like argueing with a teenager, good observation.
Of course an IP is a production boat, vast majority are, I don't want "homebuilt" to use an aircraft term, nothing wrong with them, I just don't have the knowledge and experience to pick though and find a good one. Why I usually say something like high volume production boats when talking about Bayliners, Hunters, Bene's and the like.
Article said 60 kt gusts, not wind speed, but it's irrelevant anyway.
Tell me please how the boat failed? Article claims she was knocked down three times in a few hours and apparently was upside down.
The generator broke loose, lost her dodger and solar panels and electronics all mods, not factory installations. Nothing about the seaworthiness of the boat, and if she did get over on her back, how many boats keep their rig when they do that? How did the boat fail?
No this was apparently an incompetent crew that got in way over their heads, and truthfully in my opinion in a lesser boat, they may not have survived.

You meant this to denigrate this IP, but you did the opposite.

I'll tell you something else, there is no boat ever made that the sea can't tear up and sink, it takes a competent crew AND a competent boat to pull through a bad situation.

Now I'm not an experienced Sailor, I don't pretend to be, but even I know that, money can't buy safety, but a craftsman needs quality tools to perform at their best and even a novice will do better with quality tools, and a boat is just a tool.

[Polux]

Originally Posted by neilpride

60 knts are in my book hurricane forcé winds or close , whats the point here? curious!!

It seems you did not read the article. They said gusting 60K, that means probably established 40 or 45K. Recently on a med race, with mostly modern performance cruisers and cruiser racers they got that kind of winds, many boats retired the race but none has to be abandoned due to "irreparable storm damage" and none was capsized and many did not stop racing, including a 33ft performance cruiser with a crew of two.

On the med that kind of winds generally make a worse sea than on the Atlantic with steeper breaking haves, short period too.

Regarding hurricane winds: "If the wind speed is less than 75 mph it is not a hurricane at all and the most severe hurricanes are more than 150 mph"

"A typical hurricane has sustained winds of 100–150 mph. Winds in some stronger storms may exceed 200 mph."Sigda, Robert. Earth Science. New York, 1977.

Note that I am not saying that the Island Packet 38 is not an offshore boat. you have to put it on the contest. It was a reply to someone that said that:
"So your correct any production boat is a blue water boat, as long as the weather is good."

I think that is a vast exaggeration but I am quite sure that no small sailboat is designed to sustain really heavy weather but all of then will fare well on moderate to strong weather, if the boat and the skipper is prepared. Really heavy weather is an almost static impossibility on most regions on the better season (even in what regards to cross Oceans) and a well prepared production boats with a well prepared crew will risk very little crossing those waters.

Any relatively small sailboat going to the wrong place at the wrong season will take considerable risks, even if many succeed without problem. Only with a huge dose of luck a relatively small sailboat will survive a major storm.

Of course, all boats have not the same seaworthiness and generally bigger boats have a bigger safety margin. I posted that to take away the impression that, what by many is considered a seaworthy blue-water boat, is a safe bot in a major storm. That IP, in a not major storm had terminal problems. Also to point out and that the difference between the so called bluewater boats in seaworthiness, towards mass production boats, is in no way as big (if any, depending on the boat) as many want us to make believe.

[neilpride]

Originally Posted by Polux

As 99,5% of all the others. Some mass production, some small production, others even smaller with some customization. The one offs are really rare and more usual on the racing scene and they are not necessarily more reliable. When you do a production boat that is made in large numbers, after the first boats any obvious defect would be spotted by the dealers through clients complains and that would be modified. After having made 200 boats the clients feedback trough dealers would probably have erased all main defects.

On an one off you will have to find out those shortcomings and pay to have them repaired. On a new sailboat there is always something that does not work properly or that can be easily improved.

Anyway the type of boat has nothing to do with the type of sailing it has designed too: racing, cruising racing, performance cruising (coastal and offshore), coastal cruising, coastal and offshore cruising, voyaging, daysailing and so on.

Sorry , but i dont get this BS, read the dozen of Fountain Pajots blíster horror historys, since when they start to fix the problem? since the claim number 376?

For a builder ,change a small miserable link in the chain cost a lot of money, i mean for example the first 40,7 still use the grid liner in the keel área and the keel bolts are still troughbolted to the flat bilge área with ridiculous backing plates right?

2 first 40,7 incidents with the keel, in one with lost of lifes , do you think Beneteau is thinking in do something with the original design construction?? i hope so.... yes i know what you think, if there is 1.000.000 first 40,7 sailing out there and only 2 lost the keel and just 4 sailors die in the incident , not big deal,,,, this is just a isolated incident, ...

Not a strong point in this debate,, not really.

[a64pilot]

I don't believe there is a certification basis for boats, where limit loads and ultimate loads are established.
If there was, then an A category rating would mean something, as it is, it doesn't.

[Polux]

Originally Posted by robert sailor

Armchair sailors for sure, someone that says that 60 knots does not look that bad has never been out in weather like that. ... The roughest weather I sailed in was a sustained wind of around 45 knots for over 2-1/2 days about a 150 miles off the Wa/Or coast. ...
I'd move off this subject because I suspect few of you have any idea what it would be like sailing in 60 knots of wind.

As I have said, gusting 60K, not established 60K. Probably 45k sustained and that was what the skipper said and if I would abandon a boat probably, even not intentionally I would tend to inflate the conditions.

Here you have a photo of the conditions were the boat, with irreparable structural damages, was abandoned:



I don't know why you doubt the experience of others in what regards stormy conditions. Contrary to you I had already experienced hurricane force winds. I cannot say the wind force because with just a 3th reef on the main and the sail lose and catching no wind, I was knocked down at 90º for the force of the wind for several minutes and the wind sensor stopped to work. Even with the sail lose and a 3th reef the sail was ripped out of the mast and the boat banner shredded.

But I can tell you that the sea was all white, the waves were kind of rounded by the wind force and a deep white mist made of water particles was everywhere. All the scenery was quite surreal and even more because I could only see it trough the almost continuous bolts and thunder-stone lightening. Certainly a lot more more than 60k gusts.

I was on a mass production boat that, happily for me, survived that. Not any desire to try it again though.