Blue Pearl Sinks

[soverel]

Just curious if anyone knows the CE rating on this boat? I read the boat was registered in UK. Do boats have to be reinspected on resale for the CE cert?

Sent from my HUAWEI-M931 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[jtsailjt]

Originally Posted by robert sailor

Too bad about this Benni sinking but fortunately all made it home which is fortunate indeed. All the bad mouthing of Beneteau's is probably not well founded as they are not a do it all ocean crossing boat, thats simply not what they were designed to do. Stay in the right season and don't venture too far from the trades like MarkJ sails and odds are going to be with you. Don't expect to buy a boat built down to a price to be a jack of all trades as its not fair. Personally I think the Bennies are great boats and meet the needs of 99% of todays sailors. They are a fashion leader and most of their boats sail well. They seem to hold their value reasonably good and their owners are generally happy with them. Are there better built boats, for sure. Are there boats much better designed and built for upper/lower lattitude ocean crossings, yes of course but for the money its pretty hard to beat the value they represent in the market place.

I think you've pretty well summarized my own opinion of Bemeteaus and the proper uses for them, but unfortunately saying anything other than "Beneteaus are all ocean, any season, globe circling, seaworthy cruisers" is seen as Bendy bashing by many Beneteau owners. I personally think you have a very realistic view, and as you say, for coastal cruising on nice days or for crisscrossing the Sir Francis Drake Channel, they're just fine. Not so fine for the North Atlantic in early spring. But of course we could say the same about several other "built to a cost" production boats.

[captaindeb]

I read the boat was 7 years old.

[Jon Eisberg]

Originally Posted by Tx J

I agree Mr. Rorke is a nice guy and probably a pretty good skipper, even obtaining additional crew for a long passage beyond the watchkeeping range of he and his wife.

However, the choice to be 900 miles NE of Bermuda in early-mid April aboard what is still a small boat is not a reasonable choice. Even the USCG picket cutters on ocean stations in that neighborhood years ago got their tails regularly kicked out there.
With today's incredible weather and satellite information freely available to anyone with an internet connection, and given this particular year's very strong and frequent WX systems marching across the continent every few days, and oddly enough, continuing on into the North Atlantic ocean itself clear to Europe (/snark), embarking on the chosen route just wasn't a very good decision. Inherently sound vessel or not.

Most likely another "schedule driven" decision, like so many before, that end not very well. You just can't mess with Mama Nature, nor her inscrutable timetable (note to self: do not trot out old PMS joke here or you'll get skinned alive...).

Has anyone yet heard of a precise location given of the sinking? Initial reports cited 800 miles east of Newfoundland, which was apparently grossly off the mark... The generally cited "800 miles NE of Bermuda" might still be very vague, and would seem to place them a bit further north than one might expect on a passage from Provo to the Azores...

Easy to say in hindsight, especially after a winter and spring as volatile as this one has been, but looking at the pilot charts and Cornell's CRUISING ROUTES, they really weren't sailing THAT far out of season for that passage... Cornell endorses the route from the Antilles up to Bermuda in April, and cites May-June as the most favorable time for heading to the Azores, so they were really only outside of the conventional window by a week or two, no? Sure, that's a bit earlier than I might prefer to make that trip - especially this year - but it's not like they were leaving Hawaii for CA on a San Juan 24 in March, or NY for Tortola in January on an unproven prototype multihull :-) And, I've seen no reference to their having stopped in Bermuda, which would seem to indicate all was going well, and they'd had a favorable passage thus far...

Bottom line, of course, is that a 50-footer should be able to withstand the "battering of 40 MPH winds" offshore... Perhaps they were in or near the Stream, however, that's why it would be interesting to know with more exactitude where they really were...

Still, much of this one is more than a bit hard to fathom... Several published reports have cited that the boat was last surveyed in 2007, which would indicate they purchased it without a survey. That might be a possible reason for the lack of insurance, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, and concede the date of the most recent survey might be in error. Still, the decision to carry out the rudder replacement with the boat in the water, without at least a short haul for a more thorough inspection or survey - especially given they were aware that the failed rudder had been "worked on... after clipping a rock" - is pretty hard to justify...

Reading through the Loss of Rudder saga, they stuck me as the sort of cruisers who were unprepared for the sort of major expense that can suddenly arise while out there, and might have been cutting some corners to get it done on the cheap... And the fact that he didn't even know the composition of the boat's rudder post until the broken stub was removed, certainly points to a boatowner of lesser experience, than of greater... :-)

I hope these folks truly realize how lucky they are to be alive, most folks are being plucked off the decks of their still-floating yachts out there these days... The ship handling by the Master of the TILDA KOSAN had to have been extraordinary, to maneuver a vessel of that size alongside a life raft, in those conditions... Offshore abandonments and rescues of late almost seem to have become routine, there was an awful lot that easily could have gone wrong with this one...

[JazzyO]

I agree wholeheartedly with your post, Jon.

Onno

[MarkJ]

In my edition Cornel says from "late april" for Virgin Islands to Bermuda. Bahamas to Bermuda he says May to Mid june.

[Cavalier]

Mark,



+1



Everybody has an opinion, but you wouldn't find me mid-Atlantic eastbound on the Northern route in mid-April, Beneteau or Oyster!!


Sent from my Windows Phone using Tapatalk

[LakeSuperior]

Originally Posted by Tx J

I agree Mr. Rorke is a nice guy and probably a pretty good skipper, even

I don't think the available data presented in CF supports this statment!

[boatman61]

Out of season sailing is down to luck.. there was skepticism about my February crossing to the Med from Ft Lauderdale.. weather was fine..

[Polux]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

I have a better lesson, don't smash your rudder on a rock, replace it in the water, never haul out the boat for inspection, then take it sailing across an ocean.

It is not only haul out for inspection: Modern spade rudders should be dissembled for inspection at regular periods (each 3 or 4 years). It is an easy and inexpensive thing to do. Go look at how many do this, even before crossing oceans and you will be surprised

[SaltyMonkey]

Originally Posted by Polux

...Modern spade rudders should be dissembled for inspection at regular periods (each 3 or 4 years). It is an easy and inexpensive thing to do.

Interesting

[Polux]

Originally Posted by soverel

Just curious if anyone knows the CE rating on this boat? I read the boat was registered in UK. Do boats have to be reinspected on resale for the CE cert?

Sent from my HUAWEI-M931 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

It is a class A boat but many mistake the scope of what a class A boat is designed to do. The definition for a RCD class A boat is:

A class- A recreational craft given design category A is considered to be designed for winds that may exceed wind force 8 (Beaufort scale) and significant wave heights of 4 m and above but excluding abnormal conditions such as storm, violent storm, hurricane, tornado and extreme sea conditions or rogue waves.

[Polux]

Originally Posted by SaltyMonkey

Interesting

I see that you highlighted the inexpensive. Owning a boat is expensive. Discounting and mounting a rudder on a 40ft boat would cost about 1/6 of the regular annual maintenance or about 1/4 of the price of the insurance, not talking about the marina price to have the boat on the hard that is very variable, but if we consider that one too it can come from 1/7 to 1/20. And off course as that should be done not annually but regularly it is 4 times less than those percentages, since those are annual ones.

If we see it globally it will represent a very small fraction of the costs of having a boat.

I believe most don't do it because they don't know that it should be done regularly and misjudge the importance of that regarding the boat general good condition . Off course I am talking about normal boats. If I owned a Hunter of a given vintage I would be doing that every year as part of the regular maintenance schedule

[a64pilot]

To pull a rudder, I guess you dig a big, deep hole under it?
Do most yards allow this, or is done another way like paying for the lift again?

[Fiveslide]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

To pull a rudder, I guess you dig a big, deep hole under it?
Do most yards allow this, or is done another way like paying for the lift again?

I don't think most yards want big holes everywhere. The one time I have removed a rudder I was not allowed to dig a hole. And thank God for that, I'm cheap enough to think digging a four foot deep hole through hard packed gravel is a good idea. It's not.

Sent from my SCH-S738C using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app