GUNBOAT Dismasting

[Jon Eisberg]

Originally Posted by tp12

I'm proud of you Jon!

Thanks... I've turned over a new leaf, I guess... :-)

For anyone still interested, Clean has finally put up Part 1 of his interview with Chris Bailet over on SA...

Hopefully, Part 2 will be a bit more interesting... There's not much of anything new, mostly previous assumptions now confirmed by the skipper as fact :-) Meticulous attention to detail regarding safety gear/ditch bag/ liferaft and tools carried to cut free the rig in the event of a dismasting, but no mention of para-anchors or drogues, but I'll refrain from making the assumption that such gear was not aboard...

Otherwise, the one thing that still doesn't add up, for me, is the significant discrepancy between the sailing speeds reported (a full night of 18-20 knots, feeling "underpowered" the next morning while only making 7-10 knots) and the report they were still only 200 NM down range of Hatteras 36 hours into the trip... Perhaps that will be explained later on...

post mortem | Sailing Anarchy

[RTB]

According to what Chris says, it was smooth sailing....until it wasn't. Kind of hard to believe really.

Ralph

[44'cruisingcat]

Why? Everything's going fine, then crash, the rig comes down. What's so hard to believe about it?

[neilpride]

White Squall.. spray everywhere , visibility 0 , blowing like hell and when all the drama end ,,, the rig down, genuine dismasting in my book...

[smj]

Originally Posted by RTB

According to what Chris says, it was smooth sailing....until it wasn't. Kind of hard to believe really.

Ralph

Sailing in 25-40 kts then a white out squall of over 70 kts. That's a big difference in wind strength. When are you heading this way Ralph?

[RTB]

Originally Posted by smj

Sailing in 25-40 kts then a white out squall of over 70 kts. That's a big difference in wind strength. When are you heading this way Ralph?

Sorry guys. I guess I just don't quite get that a 70 knot wind breaks a carbon fiber mast with the third reef in, and a little storm jib. From the info I've read, the rigging was ok, but the mast broke. How does that happen? I realize that some info out there could be untrue, so waiting for part II to come out. Maybe everything will be cleared up finally. Man, I hate the thought of that boat being lost, but happy everyone lived through it.

We were hit with close to that on imagine2frolics' 46' Simpson cat in the Caribbean. We had more sail up (1st reef and staysail) than that before I could get on deck to help John with the sails. Nothing broke.

Hey AJ, we're heading down to Rockport in a couple of weeks to do a bottom job. Heading your way ASAP. Now, if you are ready to come back to Texas, I'll just leave the key to my boat for you, and we'll fly there and cruise on your cat instead....

Ralph

[leftbrainstuff]

Originally Posted by pbr

It is all dependent on the moments of inertia rated for the section. The section can be engineered for lots of stay support, minimal support, or none! (Free standing mast) It can also be dependent on whether the mast is deck stepped or keel/bridge deck stepped. But to engineer a mast in this size range that is stiff enough with pre-bend to not suffer from excessive pump or failure is not difficult. What matters is if the builder is pushing the envelope or being conservative. I for one like the idea of reduced rigging and stronger mast sections, not the other way around. I have a new design in mind with a round tapered section, three stays and no spreaders that should be much more reliable than many conventional catamaran rigs.

It's the dynamic loads that are always the issue for things that move and need to flex. Durability, survivability and toughness have little to with basic engineering calcs unfortunately. Carbon is so stiff it is always a challenge to design in flexibility with toughness.

It's still not clear whether the root cause was a specific component or the mast. If a component failed then the mast design may have been fine. It's just not clear yet what the failure chain of events was.

With so little destructive testing of yachts it's left to those early adopters to find the failures at the extreme loading conditions.

Hopefully we'll eventually get some good feedback... (not holding my breath.

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[Polux]

Originally Posted by leftbrainstuff

....
With so little destructive testing of yachts it's left to those early adopters to find the failures at the extreme loading conditions.
...

Most of the "destructive" testing in sailboats is done in top racers. What is learned there, when sufficiently studied and having reached a desired reliability passes to cruising boats or at least it is like that most of the time. Not many top racing offshore multihulls in the US but plenty in Europe (and knowledge is shared). Masts in racing multihulls used to break much more then they break now.

Sometimes things go wrong. I don't really know what happened here, if an insufficiently tested design or if freak conditions contributed to the accident.

[Jon Eisberg]

Originally Posted by RTB

Sorry guys. I guess I just don't quite get that a 70 knot wind breaks a carbon fiber mast with the third reef in, and a little storm jib. From the info I've read, the rigging was ok, but the mast broke. How does that happen? I realize that some info out there could be untrue, so waiting for part II to come out. Maybe everything will be cleared up finally. Man, I hate the thought of that boat being lost, but happy everyone lived through it.

I can imagine it happening, quite easily as a matter of fact...

Remember, that 70 knots being reported is gonna be the equivalent of a greater wind strength, given the more dense cold air of January. And who knows how indicative that figure is of the actual windspeed, anyway? In the midst of such an event, I wouldn't expect the helmsman to be continuously monitoring the wind instrumentation throughout, that 70 simply could have been the reading of his last glance before he was 'distracted' by something else :-) The sea conditions were likely very chaotic, Johnstone mentioned a "large South swell", combined with the steep wind waves in proximity to the Gulf Stream coming from every which way as the breeze moved from SW to NW, could have easily produced shock loads on the rig that could be off the charts, and virtually incalculable...

And, we are still awaiting clarification on that early statement from a member of the CG, that one of the crew reported a large wave that "broke over the bows" (or words to that effect), simultaneous with the dismasting... It will be interesting to see whether there is any mention made of that in the next installment...

[smj]

Originally Posted by RTB

Sorry guys. I guess I just don't quite get that a 70 knot wind breaks a carbon fiber mast with the third reef in, and a little storm jib. From the info I've read, the rigging was ok, but the mast broke. How does that happen? I realize that some info out there could be untrue, so waiting for part II to come out. Maybe everything will be cleared up finally. Man, I hate the thought of that boat being lost, but happy everyone lived through it.

We were hit with close to that on imagine2frolics' 46' Simpson cat in the Caribbean. We had more sail up (1st reef and staysail) than that before I could get on deck to help John with the sails. Nothing broke.

Hey AJ, we're heading down to Rockport in a couple of weeks to do a bottom job. Heading your way ASAP. Now, if you are ready to come back to Texas, I'll just leave the key to my boat for you, and we'll fly there and cruise on your cat instead....

Ralph

Let me sleep on that Ralph:-)

[RTB]

Originally Posted by smj

Let me sleep on that Ralph:-)

Sure.....take your time.

Ralph

[nesscapade]

It's interesting to contrast Gunboats response to this event with the freeway fire incidents of a Tesla. Contrast GB's silence and hence a lack of transparency with Elon Musks immediate and full disclosure response to the Tesla fires and you see the difference between a culture of hiding at GB versus Tesla's culture of excellence. I had high hopes and was considering a GB after our 54' Hylas. Not now. Btw, yes I still plan to get a Tesla.


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[GoingWalkabout]

Originally Posted by nesscapade

It's interesting to contrast Gunboats response to this event with the freeway fire incidents of a Tesla. Contrast GB's silence and hence a lack of transparency with Elon Musks immediate and full disclosure response to the Tesla fires and you see the difference between a culture of hiding at GB versus Tesla's culture of excellence. I had high hopes and was considering a GB after our 54' Hylas. Not now. Btw, yes I still plan to get a Tesla.


Sent from my iPad using Cruisers Sailing Forum

Your hit the nail on the head of what I find most troubling about this whole incident. Thank you.

[Sailingcouple13]

It's extra quite, Peter is on the the 55 that was in Miami on there way to St Maarten for Heineken Regatta.

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[916senna]

Originally Posted by nesscapade

It's interesting to contrast Gunboats response to this event with the freeway fire incidents of a Tesla. Contrast GB's silence and hence a lack of transparency with Elon Musks immediate and full disclosure response to the Tesla fires and you see the difference between a culture of hiding at GB versus Tesla's culture of excellence. I had high hopes and was considering a GB after our 54' Hylas. Not now. Btw, yes I still plan to get a Tesla.


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I think I understand where your coming from but I don't understand your conclusion.
Yes Tesla responded 3 days after the fire incident, they had the failed item in front of them, the lump of steel that punctured the battery shield and a clear picture of what happened.
Contrast that to a boat damaged in a horrid storm, which has not been recovered and therefore they perhaps don't actually have any hard evidence of exactly why something failed. So many people seem to think they can just make it up.

I don't think they are hiding, I think they have been told to shut up for now. PJ seems to have been willing to discuss stuff in the past, I think he would be chafing at the bit to defend his company. I assume RM is insured (i know, never assume) so the lawyers will have clamped on saying anything, it will be a 2-2.5 million insurance claim. I bet they will talk in time, but their being advised now is not the appropriate time.