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Old 30-01-2015, 14:50   #46
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Re: Boats coming apart at the toerail...

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Originally Posted by Cheechako View Post
If you read it then you must have seen the picture of the damage. It sure doesnt look like this Pearson was "built like a brick sh*thouse" looking at the edges of the torn fiberglass.
They were trying to make headway against the wind and down to a triple reefed main that they were loosing stitching on even then. "every passing wave soaked us to the bone". They reported large seas, but saw the one huge wave that rolled the boat over. Not sure if they went 360 or not. The wave that rolled the boat caved the side in. Based on pics I'm not sure this was a terribly well kept boat.
But well kept or not shouldn't have much to do with the strength of the glass at the deck/hull joint.
I saw the pictures. I wonder, is there a construction technique that could guarantee the hull won't be torn from the deck if a vessel struck an immovable object in heavy seas and a storm? I bet there is but I don't think solid objects can float very well. Kinda like folks asking "why don't they build airplanes out of the same material they use for the 'black boxes'?".
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Old 30-01-2015, 15:15   #47
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Re: Boats coming apart at the toerail...

So at last we have the solution for the surplus of neglected old boats on the market - they are UV-degradable.

Early designers thought this was likely and made the hull superthick to cover it.
Superthick = longer time to get brittle and much longer fatigue life due to much lower stress.
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Old 30-01-2015, 15:24   #48
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Re: Boats coming apart at the toerail...

Old boat + poor technology = disaster.

Well built boats do not open up like this unless you hit the rocks.

b.
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Old 30-01-2015, 16:55   #49
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Re: Boats coming apart at the toerail...

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So at last we have the solution for the surplus of neglected old boats on the market - they are UV-degradable.

Early designers thought this was likely and made the hull superthick to cover it.
Superthick = longer time to get brittle and much longer fatigue life due to much lower stress.

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Old 30-01-2015, 18:04   #50
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Re: Boats coming apart at the toerail...

Well, Left Brain pretty well nailed the complexity of the vibration issues. Perhaps more comments are needed on the interfaces in structures. From a point of real world experience, there are some materials and designs that fail locally from vibration, and some that fail massively. Many times the latter failures will start at one point and then "unzip" the structure so quick that you can't believe it.
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Old 30-01-2015, 18:17   #51
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Re: Boats coming apart at the toerail...

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I have seen a few marinas where the boats are in motion almost constantly. They rock back and forth alarmingly in my view. Must place tremendous cycle stress loads on their rigging, keels and rudders. Just while sitting there, year after year.
There is very little force required to make a boat "rock back and forth", in its slip (think of the pendulum on a grandfathers clock).

Compare that to a boat, under a press of canvas, falling off waves and landing with a jarring crash on her beam ends, over and over.
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Old 30-01-2015, 18:25   #52
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Re: Boats coming apart at the toerail...

I don't know anything about fiberglass cycling and brittleness but I do know that my Cabo Rico is a 1987 and there are still Fiberglass boats from the 50's and 60's plying the ocean just fine. So, it makes "sniff-test" sense that I have at least 20 more years before this boat may start to show age related issues in the fiberglass.
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Old 30-01-2015, 19:19   #53
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Re: Boats coming apart at the toerail...

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Yes, but if you read the comments from those who opine that the FRP boats are bound to deteriorate no matter what you do - just by the aging process - tell me how you prevent THAT from happening. At least I can put some red lead paint on the old wood. How does one get INTO the fibers themselves, buried deep in the laminates, to prevent the unpreventable?


Why, that's exactly what I do for a living, in a nutshell. Prolong the life of boats through proper maintenance. Keep your bottom dry and barrier coated (no immersion), your coatings in good shape (no UV damage), and ensure the boat is built strong enough to only be cycled through a very small fraction of it's breaking strength. Unpreventable? No, certainly not in your lifetime. You just need to properly maintain a well built boat and it will last and last.
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Old 30-01-2015, 19:36   #54
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Re: Boats coming apart at the toerail...

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Why, that's exactly what I do for a living, in a nutshell. Prolong the life of boats through proper maintenance. Keep your bottom dry and barrier coated (no immersion), your coatings in good shape (no UV damage), and ensure the boat is built strong enough to only be cycled through a very small fraction of it's breaking strength. Unpreventable? No, certainly not in your lifetime. You just need to properly maintain a well built boat and it will last and last.

Well, my current boat is 53 years old. FRP. Been in the family since my parents bought it in 1962. I think we may have figured that whole maintenance thing out. :big grin:

But to listen to some here, her days are numbered and she is likely to fly apart during the next squall. On the other hand, no one thought the DC3 would still be flying safely 70 years after they were built. Who knew?
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Old 30-01-2015, 19:45   #55
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Re: Boats coming apart at the toerail...

Interesting how all of the usual suspects on this forum who repeatedly claim a boat should be built just strong enough not to break during regular use and no more, in the name of weight savings, have nothing to say here.
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Old 30-01-2015, 20:38   #56
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Re: Boats coming apart at the toerail...

My boat was a 30 ft Morgan Outisland. It seemed in perfect condition. The first storm I hit in the middle of,The gulf stream heading toward the keys, made water come in on my bed. enough that I could not sleep in it for a few days. well with some detective work I found that the joint between the cabin top and the hull was leaking. No good. When I got back to Guatemala I took enough cabinetry out too uncover the length of that joint. It was screwed together with some kind of pink resin putty inbetween the two parts. there was a large Stainless steel screw ever six inches. I ground out all the pudy and cauked the whole thing with 52 hundred. No more leakes Mac
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Old 30-01-2015, 20:42   #57
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Re: Boats coming apart at the toerail...

I did read the article in the February Sail magazine about the Pearson Triton. Further back in the same issue I also read the article on deck to hull joints. If anyone takes the time to look at the pictures in the magazine it is quite clear what happened. For those of you that have not bothered to look I will explain.

The picture of the underside of the deck shows that the Triton was built with an outward flanged deck to hull joint. The cheapest and easiest to build, and also the weakest according to the article on deck joints.

If you look close you will also see that there was about one mechanical fastener every 3 feet or so. Basically that deck to hull joint looks like that of a Bayliner!

It doesn't matter how old the glass was. A large breaking wave hitting the beam (of a Bayliner) just right is what happened by the way I see it. If the old glass was so weak and brittle to cause the problem, then the boat probably would have been finished off by the rest of the seas. Yet this boat still made it in to safety without sinking. Do you guys think there was some flex fatigue going on in the hull after the big wave crushed it?
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Old 30-01-2015, 22:30   #58
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Re: Boats coming apart at the toerail...

Quote:
Early designers thought this was likely and made the hull superthick to cover it.
Superthick = longer time to get brittle and much longer fatigue life due to much lower stress
I think the early addopters of fibreglass for boat building may have, in the abscence of any real engineering knowledge or extended experience of the material, built them as thick and solid as the wooden boats they had been previously building.

I would imagine that aircraft builders, in addition to their extremes of QA whilst building, have spent a zillion dollars on testing composites before they decided to start building aeroplanes out of it. Modern alloy aircraft have very clearly defined service lifes and overhaul and part replacement schedules.

If aging composites with stress cycle related problems is a concern for monohullers it must be a real concern for multihullers?
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Old 30-01-2015, 22:40   #59
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Re: Boats coming apart at the toerail...

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Originally Posted by crazyoldboatguy View Post
Well, my current boat is 53 years old. FRP. Been in the family since my parents bought it in 1962. I think we may have figured that whole maintenance thing out. :big grin:

But to listen to some here, her days are numbered and she is likely to fly apart during the next squall. On the other hand, no one thought the DC3 would still be flying safely 70 years after they were built. Who knew?
Well the serial number / plate will be original but more often then not, that's about all . The rest has been replaced bit by bit over the years and some bits replaced several times over; just like a traditional wooden boat
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Old 30-01-2015, 23:34   #60
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Re: Boats coming apart at the toerail...

That is really sad news. I looked in the net and found this:

Staring into oblivion | 3knots

I am assuming this is the boat.
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