WA: Bunbury and Return Ocean Race: Finistere (Davidson 50)

[IslandHopper]

Link from the other thread on the same incident, article states keel separation as the cause of the capsize....

https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/per...-ng-b88755727z

It is also understood the vessel’s keel separated from the hull, which caused it to turn over quickly.

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ml#post2584721

[JPA Cate]

The two threads have now been merged.

[44'cruisingcat]

Very sad news. There seems to have been a few keel failures lately, and in most of these incidents the crews have survived.

Very sad that hasn't been the case this time.

Condolences to families and friends of the deceased.

[sailorcherry]

Many condolence's to the family and friends.

Like many sailors lost, may they have lived life to the fullest, loving and appreciating it at sea to their last breadth.

[Seabeau]

Modern fin keel racing sailboats. Unsafe at any speed? Where is Ralph Nader, when you need him?

[Polux]

Originally Posted by Seabeau

Modern fin keel racing sailboats. Unsafe at any speed? Where is Ralph Nader, when you need him?

That is nonsense.

[IslandHopper]

https://thewest.com.au/news/7-news-p...-5740114728001





.

[JPA Cate]

That's interesting, I didn't watch the whole video due to data restrictions, but saw enough to note that it was still floating at daylight, rudder's there, but no keel.

My thoughts go out to the families. Very sad situation.

Ann

[Jim Cate]

Does anyone know about the keel design on that Davidson? I'm not familiar with it, and wonder how extreme it was... skinny strut and bulb or more conventional?

Jim

[sandy stone]

This is a quote from a related thread over on SA. No idea if accurate or not.

"The boat had a December 2012 vintage ORCi certificate issued and the name of the offset file used is is "FINISTnew keel.off" - so I assume that ORCi rating was done post a keel change to allow the boat to compete in that year's S2H - it was an entrant and S2H requires validated stability.
So the keel was only a few years old. "

[Seabeau]

Originally Posted by Polux

That is nonsense.

An yet, they keep falling off! An off! Its readily apparent that the interface between bilge and keel is too narrow and/or bolts not holding to their rated strength. And to not design for strikes by foreign objects or visa versa smacks of poor or limited real world knowledge, which has cost men their lives.

[Steadman Uhlich]

I am curious about a few aspects I have not yet seen mentioned. I have read a couple of articles and watched two news videos. Perhaps I missed the mention of these facts.

One man (I think was the owner) was found floating many hours after the other crew were rescued. I assume he was separated from the rest of the crew when the boat capsized. As I recall, he was 70 years old.

My Questions:

1. Was a life raft deployed? Or were the crew floating in PFDs and floated away from the boat?

2. Was the owner (man mentioned above, last recovered) wearing a PFD? Did he have a PLB or AIS SART beacon on his PFD?

3. Was the rescue service called by the boats EPIRB, or by a crew person's PLB or AIS SART?

4. What was the water temperature at that location at that time?

5. What were the sea conditions and wind at time of capsize?

[Polux]

Originally Posted by Seabeau

An yet, they keep falling off! An off! Its readily apparent that the interface between bilge and keel is too narrow and/or bolts not holding to their rated strength. And to not design for strikes by foreign objects or visa versa smacks of poor or limited real world knowledge, which has cost men their lives.

They keep falling very rarely considered the boats around and in boats that had been grounded, not properly repaired or on old boats that had not been properly maintained and even more rarely, on two occasions, on boats that had been badly designed/built.

Today even radical racing boats with complicated canting keels can circumnavigate without keel loss, unless they hit something big and solid at 15 or 20K. But at that speed almost all boats, racers or not would have big chances of losing the keel.

Saying that modern fin keel racing sailboats are unsafe at any speed makes no sense.

And by the way, one of the boats that lost the keel not many years ago was a steel Van der Stadt....that had been grounded and not properly repaired.

[Alan Mighty]

Originally Posted by Steadman Uhlich

5. What were the sea conditions and wind at time of capsize?

I cannot all your questions, Steady. But if you follow the URL of the race track (see post #2 of this thread), you can run the race with the wind overlay (you have your choice of PredictWind or Windy as the source of the virtual wind speed data).

Finistere's race track has been removed from the track data. Even without it you will see strange behaviour by three other boats when the incident happened.

The simple answer is that IMHO if the PredictWind data were accurate, the wind conditions were such that no seaworthy race boat would roll over.

According to my limited understanding of what happens next, the Western Australian police will complete a report and forward it to a coroner's court for an inquest hearing. The results of the inquest hearing should be made public.

[JPA Cate]

Hi, Steady,

I don't know about the life raft. There well may not have been time. And nor do I know the sea conditions, but they were not horrendous. Iirc, it was only 20-30, not something that should cause a keel to come off.

I do not agree with whoever it was that one should expect race boats to have hard groundings. It is that you have to finish to win, and that precludes taking the boat over shoals it can't make it over, and makes it mandatory to avoid hard bits, submerged or not.

The signal from the EPIRB went to AMSA, who waited till the race track didn't update for 15 min, then sent the chopper, which was in the area out to search. It is possible that no one was home at the emergency phone number for the land contact, so they couldn't confirm that way. The search organizations need to have the EPIRB data confirmed before they can launch. In addition, it ALWAYS takes some time to get rescue folks underway. In Australia, many of these are volunteers, who may have to come from home. This was not the case this time, because the chopper was already out, doing night practices.

He was undoubtedly wearing some kind of PFD, or he wouldn't have been found afloat so soon. Dead or unconscious people without PFDs initially sink, unless they have enough body fat to float them, and then it takes about 3 days for them to float, if they don't sink so deep the pressure keeps them down anyway.

Probably didn't have a PLB because they would have found him quicker, as AMSA would have relayed the position to the chopper. However, remember, the antenna has to be out of the water for them t o work, meaning you might have to hold it aloft, which could be a problem if one were injured. The injured crew woman was treated and released.


Water temp similar to that of Santa Barbara.

That's as much of a fill as I can give.

Ann