Rudder Failures

[Polux]

Originally Posted by avb3

Smackdaddy, do you think capsize ratio is an important factor for a bluewater boat?

Run the numbers on your boat compared to some of the others that have been mentioned. Make your own judgement.

Here is the Hunter 40 Legend data:

HUNTER 40 LEGEND sailboat specifications and details on sailboatdata.com

You can find any comparable boat on that site, along with their numbers.

Then run them through this calculator, and assess.

Rate Your Boat-gosail.com

Again the capsize ratio story!!!! There is a long thread about it. That means nothing regarding a modern type of boat. It may have said something about 40 year old cruisers, for boats similarly design, with the same draft and ballast.
http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ios-71329.html

[Polux]

Originally Posted by neilpride

Smack i dont know if you are just Trolling us with the plexus debate or just having fun ,, its at builder discretion to use in the tabbing the right number of FG layers, in your test dont explain how many layers of Biax or CSM are used , then the test dont mean nothing to me since you can just shoot a bead of plexus,, with FG your options are wider.

Second no one here , not me, say something like plexus its crap in a boat no matter what, lets say Plexus have a really well bonding strenght in the right application, if you know what i mean, right application mean both surfaces clean and with the theorical designed loads v plexus, since bulkheads work in diferents ways, the most important for me is in shear and tensional loads, why is so hard to understand the Blue Pearl video and my picture?? if the stuff is so great Blue Pearl never should have loose the structure? right? and my photo show just a bond fail in a bulkhead..


The 80% of new owners , cruisers, dont know a crapp about bulkheads not even how the boat is holding together, when there is one problem most of the time is to late , or a big repair is in order, look at the Bene , ok, the owner is really lucky that the bulkhead is not holding a masive tie rod chainplate, in other words, just few cabinet doors open when sailing in one tack..

You say it really well, shoddy workmanship ,, not care for details, etc...
Now go ahead and keep going scrachting the internet to move the whole thing to your side, dude !!do the Minaret test, is not so hard, even a kid can do it, waxed surfaces with plexus and FG , try to bend it and come here with the result... just a sugestion he he...


In the picture show a hell of failure in a Bavaria sailing in the heinekken regata in fair weather, just figúrate why the cropp the tie rod chainplate pull the whole structure by the deck, Plexus remind me rod rigging, when it fail it fail!!!!!!

Hum I don't understand why you post that. It is hard to say because there is epoxy bottom paint over it but that is the main bulkhead isn't it?, the one that take the shrouds and those on Bavaria are laminated.... maybe if it was well bonded with Plexus....

[neilpride]

Look again because the part broken is the inner grid liner, the chainplate end is linked to the liner.

This is the original poster statement...

My pal Owen Morgan in St Maarten (SXM) took the two photos below - they show the damages sustained by one of the race entries in the recently concluded Heineken Regatta.

This yacht lost her rig when the partial bulkhead (in way of the galley) connected to the windward chainplate(s) (via a tie rod up to the deck) parted company with the hull.

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...eaddamage2.jpg

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...eaddamage1.jpg

The conditions were reported to be fairly typical tradewinds weather, definitely not extreme, and the crew were apparently not flogging the boat hard.
And she is not a new yacht - she has apparently completed three trouble free transatlantic passages, hence one could perhaps rule out a manufacturing defect.

I know what type of boat she is, but I shall leave it up to you to see if you can recognise her......


To me looks like the whole inner liner pull away with the tie rod broken the bulkhead at the same time, the inner liner is glued with plexus, remember??

[Polux]

Originally Posted by cpa

Last I heard Maestro was building the Jonmeri line. I am not sure if the quality is still there and you might be right it was maybe 10 years ago when I was looking at them. I spent a bit of time with the Jonmeri Rep in Connecticut and fell in love with them there. I spent some time on a few 40s and a 482. You might be right about Wasa, I got some info back in the early 2000s from them and the website was the exact same.
...

Many think I like only modern beamy cruisers with a hill based on solo racers hull because I try to be fair about them, their advantages and disadvantages but the truth is that they are not my personal preferred type of boat. I like all kind of boats that sail well including narrow ones and if you prefer that type of fast classical narrow beam sailboats you should check up these ones that are still made and are successful sailboats. From those I tried a Luffe 40.04 on the Baltic and it was a blast. Speed is not everything, pleasure of sail counts a lot too. My preferred is the Finflyer 43 (eh eh, that is really a fast one). I had saw one: fantastically beautifull hull and the inside...Just gorgeous.I was instantly in love, not only fast but with an interior with a great quality and very well designed...if it was not so expensive:
Finn Flyer 42 CR | Finn Flyer
- LUFFE YACHTS -
Faurby
And if you like more classic there are the swedestar, that recently bought the Najad. A very fast and seaworthy boat too.

The sexy Swedish Swedestar 370 - YouTube

Swedestar 415 Test sail in Stockholm with Håkan Södergren, August 2012 - YouTube

Off course they are all small production high quality boats and therefore expensive but not more than for instance an Halberg Rassy.

[Polux]

Originally Posted by neilpride

Look again because the part broken is the inner grid liner, the chainplate end is linked to the liner.

This is the original poster statement...

My pal Owen Morgan in St Maarten (SXM) took the two photos below - they show the damages sustained by one of the race entries in the recently concluded Heineken Regatta.

This yacht lost her rig when the partial bulkhead (in way of the galley) connected to the windward chainplate(s) (via a tie rod up to the deck) parted company with the hull.

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...eaddamage2.jpg

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...eaddamage1.jpg

The conditions were reported to be fairly typical tradewinds weather, definitely not extreme, and the crew were apparently not flogging the boat hard.
And she is not a new yacht - she has apparently completed three trouble free transatlantic passages, hence one could perhaps rule out a manufacturing defect.

I know what type of boat she is, but I shall leave it up to you to see if you can recognise her......


To me looks like the whole inner liner pull away with the tie rod broken the bulkhead at the same time, the inner liner is glued with plexus, remember??

Liner what liner? You should know that the bulkheads on a Bavaria are bonded or laminated directly to the hull. And the bulkhead that has the chainplates is a partial bulkhead not a main one? That doesn't make sense. We are not looking to a broken bulkhead?

[Polux]

Originally Posted by robert sailor

The older Swans were offshore racers and were built accordingly, this newer batch while drop dead gorgeous are more for marina to marina in the Med. I'm not suggesting the build quality isn't there but they are appealing to a different market.

Sure, the new Swan are med boats...but wait a minute, I saw them racing across the Atlantic, on the Caribbean, on the Sydney Hobart....no, I should be mistaken

[neilpride]

Ok Bro, diferent picture , big size, the tie rod is conected to the grid liner in that especific Bavaria, the grid liner take the tie rod chainplate load, as you can see right in the picture, l... before you answer take your time to scan the picture...

[robert sailor]

I looked at a near new Swan and it had minimal gear for anchoring, light weight. I mentioned this to a fellow sailor who was a local and he said that they were no longer appealing to that segment of the market. Boy's with that much money didn't live life on the hook. Yes I'm sure they were wonderful offshore racers, they are sure easy on the eye and I'm sure are very well built. I'm a total sucker for the old S&S designs but I know that that was then and this is now.

[robert sailor]

Neil what would cause that to fail? It looks like the load was well spread out over a substantial area.

[Polux]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

..

Stability -- a big challenge for mobo designers -- is not so hard for boats with ballasted keels, and is not really a measure of a good boat these days. Deep bulb keels have a huge effect on CG and dramatically increase stability, compared to older designs. The bigger question for boats like Hunters is structural integrity. Not stability.
...

Yes I agree with that even if I doubt the Hunter 49 has not the necessary structural integrity to deal with normal offshore conditions on the right season, that includes some bad weather. I don't know the boat but I did not heard stories of Hunters, even smaller ones, abandoned with structural problems. Some lost rudders on some older models is what I have heard on the negative part.

Mass production boats are not all the same regarding that and one of the more vulgar problems on big boats (over 45ft), that is not really dangerous but that has implications on the boat sailing performance, is the way some boats move excessively (flex) under heavy weather. That does not mean the boat is going to break but limits how much you can push the boat. Oceanis and in a lesser extent some Bavarias are known to do that (Vision are better). The Jeanneau is a bit better than Oceanis and Hanse and Dufour are more rigid. All mass production performance cruisers don't do that, The Grand Soleil, the First 50, the Salona 44 the Elan 450 are rigid boats that can take a beating without flexing.

This has nothing to do with the use of structural bonding or laminated on the bulkheads, but with the structural design of the boat and with the type of hull (cored hulls flex less).

[Polux]

Originally Posted by neilpride

Ok Bro, diferent picture , big size, the tie rod is conected to the grid liner in that especific Bavaria, the grid liner take the tie rod chainplate load, as you can see right in the picture, l... before you answer take your time to scan the picture...

I don't understand what you mean. The tie rod is linked to a massive plywood bulkhead. Bavaria use that system for many years and I had a Bavaria that had the chainplate linked like that.

We can see on the bigger picture that is not Plexus or any other glue. What I saw is broken fiberglass on the base of the bulkhead that was laminated to the hull. It still retains the hull shape.

[robert sailor]

I agree on the hull flexing, we saw this many times on some boats with high freeboard and unsupported large panels, we call it oil canning. Doesn't seem to hurt anything but it doesn't give you a good feeling.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Polux

Yes I agree with that even if I doubt the Hunter 49 has not the necessary structural integrity to deal with normal offshore conditions on the right season, that includes some bad weather. I don't know the boat but I did not heard stories of Hunters, even smaller ones, abandoned with structural problems. Some lost rudders on some older models is what I have heard on the negative part.

Mass production boats are not all the same regarding that and one of the more vulgar problems on big boats (over 45ft), that is not really dangerous but that has implications on the boat sailing performance, is the way some boats move excessively (flex) under heavy weather. That does not mean the boat is going to break but limits how much you can push the boat. Oceanis and in a lesser extent some Bavarias are known to do that (Vision are better). The Jeanneau is a bit better than Oceanis and Hanse and Dufour are more rigid. All mass production performance cruisers don't do that, The Grand Soleil, the First 50, the Salona 44 the Elan 450 are rigid boats that can take a beating without flexing.

This has nothing to do with the use of structural bonding or laminated on the bulkheads, but with the structural design of the boat and with the type of hull (cored hulls flex less).

I didn't say Hunters don't have adequate structural integrity. I've never even seen, much less sailed on a Hunter, and have no idea how they are built.

What I meant was that the challenge for the designers of cheap production boats in general is to achieve the necessary structural integrity - that Bav in the previous photos obviously failed. Saving cost and streamlining production means you have to design in less structural reserves. Better engineering could theoretically make up some of the difference, but I'm not convinced that much serious structural engineering goes on for yachts, even those with the largest production.

Stability is easy.

Oil-canning is the natural result of light uncored construction. Strong balsa core construction is too expensive for this type of boat; nor can you afford to build the massive solid FRP construction of Oysters or Nordhavens. You can have strong, light, or cheap - choose any two. High production boats choose light and cheap. Oysters choose strong while being neither light nor cheap. I prefer fully balsa cored hulls, which is what you find on almost all high end boats - strong and light but not cheap. I would not, personally, be able to live with a boat which had a tendency to oil-canning, not in the harsh conditions at the latitudes where I sail (above 50N and even above 60N).

Until the early 2000s, Jeanneau Sun Odysseys and Sun Fasts did not use hull liners, and were stick built. The hulls were not as lightly built as many production boats. Fantastic boats; tremendous value for money.

[smackdaddy]

Originally Posted by neilpride

Second no one here , not me, say something like plexus its crap in a boat no matter what, lets say Plexus have a really well bonding strenght in the right application, if you know what i mean, right application mean both surfaces clean and with the theorical designed loads v plexus, since bulkheads work in diferents ways, the most important for me is in shear and tensional loads, why is so hard to understand the Blue Pearl video and my picture?? if the stuff is so great Blue Pearl never should have loose the structure? right? and my photo show just a bond fail in a bulkhead..

I'm not trolling. I'm just very interested - but I'm also skeptical. I don't usually just accept stuff people say in forums. If interested, I put some time into researching it.

To me, this is actually a very important issue because it deals with how newer boats are being put together. If there are serious, recurring issues with the use of Plexus (which is apparently being used a lot), I'm very interested in knowing that. I think many people are very interested in knowing that.

Blue Pearl is NOT a good example. When you say "If the stuff is so great Blue Pearl never should have loose the structure? right?" Wrong. With what that boat went through with the damage and sub-standard repairs, it means very little to this debate.

So, the bottom line is that any reader has two things to consider:

1. A vast majority of the industry appears to be using adhesives like Plexus more and more to replace tabbing. As the reports I've posted show, there is scientific evidence that this is a viable alternative.

2. Some repair guys are providing some examples of bond failure - and strongly implying that the industry and science is wrong. That the traditional building means are categorically better.

Which of these is a discerning reader going to put his faith in? I think the answer to that is the amount of good, reliable evidence behind each. If I see enough credible evidence that these Plexus bonds are failing in significant numbers, I'm perfectly willing to accept that it's not a good direction to go - and people should be concerned if their boat has been built this way (mine has from what I understand). But until then, I'm just not buying argument 2 above.

As for this part...

Originally Posted by neilpride

You say it really well, shoddy workmanship ,, not care for details, etc...
Now go ahead and keep going scrachting the internet to move the whole thing to your side, dude !!do the Minaret test, is not so hard, even a kid can do it, waxed surfaces with plexus and FG , try to bend it and come here with the result... just a sugestion he he...

What is this about "moving the whole thing to my side"? Is that what we are trying to do here? Interesting.

As for Minaret's suggested test - it has nothing to do at all with what we are discussing. That test seems to measure flexibility. The report clearly says that Plexus is realtively stiff. So what? We are talking about bonding strength here. And when you tab a stiff bulkhead (instead of wax paper) do you really want it to be able to bend in a circle - or do you want it to maintain the joint and bond - exactly as was shown in the report's test?

[smackdaddy]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I am actually surprised at the lack of better handholds in those boats, but can confirm that some Swans I have been on were inadequate in that department. On one long upwind passage on one Swan, we had to rig a rope across the salon -- otherwise it would have been impossible to get to the heads.

This is the Moody 54:

Attachment 91677

Rather better, but still not enough, for a long upwind bash, like I did for 3000 miles this summer.

The problem is worse, with larger boats and interiors. My old Pearson 365 did not really need special handholds, because you could hold on to elements of the fitout. Plus you never sailed that boat upwind and so rarely on much of a heel.

This is actually one of my primary points. I'm writing up a blog post on it now. When you look at the list of the items that have always been the differentiators in the "bluewater debate" - you see that most of those things are going away in even the traditional bluewater brands. You have to ask yourself - why?

For example, here's a brief list of the "proper bluewater" considerations off the top of my head:

1. Displacement/weight of the boat (and comfort ratio, etc.)
2. Hull shape
3. Size of cockpit
4. Size/orientation of companionway hatch
5. Handholds
6. Seaberths
7. Capsize ratio
8. Layout of galley
9. Keel/rudder configuration
10. Rig configuration

And probably lots more I haven't listed.

So, when you look at the new boats from these brands, how many of them are lining up with how you've always defined the above? And how many of them are looking more like the production boats you swore you'd never sail?

On this...

Originally Posted by Dockhead

The bigger question for boats like Hunters is structural integrity. Not stability.

Bingo.