Sydney Hobart

I was wandering what all the professionals think about the recent Sydney - Hobart race. The two leading "Super Maxies" had to retire. One lost its keel because the hydraulic jacks failed and the other buckled the deck near the mast. The conditions were "going upwind and falling from the top of big waves" as I understand.

Were the boats not designed for these conditions and did the crews just drive them too hard? Whey weren't they told during the race if this was the case? Is there going to be some sort of investigation to find out what exactly happened to better understand the forces and therefore be able to design better boats the next time? Who is going to share information like that? Only the original designers? Are all other designers still left in the dark if they have to design a "Super Maxi" in future and therefore potentially risk the lives of crews not to mention waste allot of money?

Guess these questions also apply to other extreme racing boats. I find it pretty embarrassing for the profession to see people climbing into life rafts from multi million dollar yachts that were allegedly designed for races like this.

Cheers,
Karsten

 

The Outer Edge of Technology

If you compare a super high end racing yacht with a F1 car you know that you are walking on the outer edge of technology.
If something fails, or breaks, or whatever, it is as it is, all in the game. As long as no lives are lost, we take the damage for granted and are looking for the next race.
Sydney Hobart is the Grand National of Sailing Yachts. No race for prissy's.
Of course, a boat can be driven too hard, as can an F1, this is all about the balance between weight versus safety. You care or not....
Back in the '80s I used to skipper an AC, when the owner brought his two extremely beaut's of daughters aboard I knew that I was on a safe ship.........

 

Point of note,

Nicorrette dropped it's mast yesterday, sailing with sponsors and small sails. They were left with a splintered stump about a metre above the deck.

That puts all of the big sydney/hobart maxi's bavck in the shed.

 

You might have a look thru this tread subject, "CBTF(Canting Ballast Twin Foil)" , and more specifically to designer Jim Pugh's observations at item number #83

Then this today.
STUFF HAPPENS
Ludde Ingvall's supermaxi Nicorette, only two weeks ago sailed triumphantly into Hobart, to win the 2004 Rolex Sydney to Hobart race on Line Honours. She had survived weather that brought her two rivals, Skandia and Konica Minolta undone, but it could be she suffered more damage that was believed at the time. This afternoon, during a corporate sail with Nicorette sponsor clients, the 90 footer was about half a mile seaward of the the entrance to the Gold Coast Seaway at around 3.30pm (AEST), sailing under main and headsail, in a flat seaway, at about 10 knots. Suddenly with a thunderous crack, her mast splintered and broke near the boom gooseneck and fell cleanly into the water. The mast and sails are in 22 metres of water and the total bill is expected be around AUS$1 million.

A Nicorette spokeswoman, Jane Hyland said the crew and guests had returned to the marina and Police confirmed no-one was injured. 'Unfortunately these boats are a bit like F1 racing cars,' she said. 'You can race them through Bass Strait and nothing happens to them and then in very moderate conditions we break a mast.' She said an early assessment suggested there was an engineering failure. 'But until our mast builder gets up there to have a look at it we certainly are not able to make any call as to why it happened and how it happened in very mild conditions.' Recovery of the mast, which is in 22 metres of water, will start tomorrow at 5am.

Unusually, its the second time in two years that Nicorette yachts have been dismasted after surviving the rigours of a Hobart race, only to fall down in mild conditions.
- Rob Kothe, Sail-World website, full story:
www.sail-world.com/


And then finally you might have a look at, Materials and Factor of Safety

 

so the Sidney Hobart 2004 final result for maxis is :
-2 dead on the battle field
-1 seriously injured, died two weeks after winning the battle

.....but fortunately we're just talking about boats, not people, fortunately....
Jim pugh's observations seems quite interesting; under a veil of polite diplomacy he told that both boats were not properly enginereed; a curious fact for such state-of-the art boats, don't you think???
we're not talking about AC boats, who get back to marina with 21 knots of breeze, we're talking 'bout Sidney-Hobart!!!!!!
may be 'it's time to build boats more similar to world rally cars than to F1 cars.....

Mistral

 

Mastbreak of Nicorette

When Carbon breaks it doesn't tell you so before. Carbon is a strange material. It can suddenly collapse. And when it does - a mast in this case - God may help you that you are not in the vicinity when it happens! It doesn't break, it explodes!
Carbon absorbs stresses till a certain point - then it collapses caused by internal overload of stresses. Then, Carbon has it's strength in the unidirectional direction, it's compressive strength is not that great. And Carbon hates vibrational environments. To get it practical for masts, you must compromise. In spite of that, mastcollapses will always happen, immaterial if it concerns Alu or Carbon. Only carbon splinters are very difficult to detect by X-rays......
:idea:

 

Now here's a fine mess

WHARINGTON SUES
Grant Wharington, owner and skipper of the maxi monohull "Skandia" which
capsized after losing its canting keel during the Rolex Sydney Hobart
race, released the following notice today concerning a lawsuit filed
against the designer of his boat's canting keel hydraulic system:

"The super-maxi yacht Skandia, previous line honours winner of the 2003
Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, was forced to abandon the 2004 Rolex
Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race when the hydraulic system designed to control
its canting keel failed.

"Extensive damage was caused to the yacht as a direct result of the
failure. The keel subsequently detached from the yacht completely, and the
yacht was towed to safe harbour.

"Today, proceedings were issued out of the Supreme Court of Victoria
against the designer and manufacturer of the hydraulic system, seeking
unspecified damages arising out of the failure. It is the intention of the
plaintiff to seek a speedy resolution to this litigation.

"We would like to take this opportunity to stress that we have 110%
confidence in our Chief Designer, Don Jones - in what he has done with
Skandia and what he continues to do with our latest VO 70 project. This
action should send a strong message to all that Don is in no way
implicated in any of this, and he should continue to enjoy his well earned
reputation as one of the most innovative and safest yacht designers of our
time.

As the matter is now the subject of legal process, no further comment can
be made at this stage."
http://www.wildthingyachting.com.au/

 

Core Shear Failure

Designer of Konica Minolta, Brett Bakewell-White gave his view on what
happened in a story posted on The Daily Sail subscription website. Here are
a couple of excerpts.)

"The damage to the boat was relatively minor. It consisted of a core shear
failure across the cabin top from window to window - approx. 1.8m long -
the skins remained intact. The transverse crease in the cabin top was about
150mm in front of the keel tower and behind the mast. Essentially it was
caused by the keel's momentum compressing the cabin top as the boat crashed
out of the back of a very large wave. This part of the cabin top had
received a significant design effort when the boat was designed and was
capable of exceeding ABS grounding requirements, so it is rather surprising
that sailing loads have managed to exceed these quite stringent requirements"

You might have a look at this tread subject as well, "Is there progress in composite construction"

 

Canting Messes

If something new is invented, not specifically in yacht racing, lot's of people are waiting for the first weakness or failure of the new designed boat, object, etc to show up.
When I started in the late '60's with epoxy (from Ciba-Geigy) everybody was not only sceptical but did not even know the purpose of the material. I glued and baked part of the steering house of my Lambo Espada with epoxy and baked it afterwards in the electrical oven. My wife screaming on the top of her lungs! Then Kevlar, came, then Carbon came and so many other devices that made boats (and cars) faster. Forgotten are the simple assumptions "that anything under the waterline does not matter" - the reality proofs different: all weight matters. Very lucky that even the Boyo's that can afford such fantastic plastic as Nicorette or Marie Cha (a boat I really admire) cannot afford the ultime material "Boron": 2 times stronger and lighter as Ti4V6 or the more complicated alloys like TiVaCr wolfram-carbide alloys.
The high carbon content in the latest engineering of wovens and non-wovens however, leads in straight line to such complicated damages as caused in Skandia.
The original designer of Skandia may downgrade the integral damage of the design he created, he must see to it and accept it that he cannot design, and is unable to, a configuration that is strong enough to cope with the forces inflicted by high speed, bad weather, vibrations, violent movements of weight, fast weightshifting - high impact loads throughout rig, rigging, stresses around the keel surface, - the week underbelly of the F1 searacer - I feel it unjustified, in spite of what I wrote before, that now the law is unleashed on that poor designer!
I advise the big sailing boyo's to have a look at the cost's of a F1 car team! And the engineering necessary to bring such a car on the circuit. Compared to that, Offshore racing is what Sunday's money is to a child!
So let Skandia take her losses, she is probably scrapyard material anyway, who says?
A Sidney Hobart is very good at that. Do you come with a boat that is insufficient whatsoever, Sidney Hobart will bring you back to earth. One should actually add the rule that one cannot hold designers responsible for the incapability to design a system that must be able to bring 6 or 7 tons of lead multiplied by the arm of the keel in seastate 5 to 7 at a speed of 10 knots plus multiplied by the weight of forward motion, subject to rollercoaster
accelerations from port to starboard or vice versa.
Right or not?

 

D'artois i may agree with you as long as we remember that those boat are not remote controlled, but they have a crew on board!!! I'm not worried because of a Tycoon who lost his new million-dollar toy, who cares about him!!! I'm worried because sailors may lose their life becuse they race an unseaworthy boat, that's all.
I wouldn't define what happened to Skandia a "minor damage"; the boat lost completely her keel and has been towed to avoid a complete loss of the boat, a total core shear failure is not a minor damage!!!!
Think about the same failure in a Volvo open in the southern ocean, in a force 8 gale, 700 miles offshore for the nearest coast, and tell us what will happen to the crew.....

Mistral

 

Canting Mess

Dear Mistral,

That's what I said, that it is NOT minor damage that came to Skandia. But you are right that I forgot to add those things you said about the crew, they may be good sailors but they cannot be expected to have any insight in the high end engineering of meterials that are, exproperly used. Underline that!
Kevlar, the ****** of Yachtbuilding, was originally designed to replace steelbelts in car tyres and carbon to make flightweight fishing rods.
No, you are definately right with those flinterthin racing constructions like that stupid French girl had, Isabelle? that had to be rescued by an Australian fregate that had almost to go to SA to get that girl from her ill-designed helter-skelter.
And therefore it should be said sometimes loud and clear, to bring those boyo's back to earth!
I wanted just to ventilate some criticism on this whole canting keel design business. It might work perfect in a boat with enough flesh in the guts to cope with the internal forces that such monstrum of equipment creates.

In order to get such a boat ready to take those forces they shoud design a Ti4V6 or Ti 318 webframe; build the boat with the webframe as an integral part so that the soft plastic doesn't have to absorb those hellish forces the canting keel wishes to produce, the webframe will do that and can. It will make the boat 600 kilo's or so more heavy, but it will stiffen the hull considerably so they might partly compensated by the fact that higher rigging loads might be applied. And faster sailing. Finally.......
:idea:

 

in military and civil aircraft engineers use to place a g-meter/recorder so that you can download datas of loads (accelerations) after every flight; many problems have been discovered during test flight checking carefully wich loads a structure has been punched by during a previous manoveuring cycle; i don't know if anything similar has been done for maxis or other boats; maybe just AC boats has been so intensively engineered (with poor results....); i have the sensation that canting keels are just pointing out how really poor is the knowledge that we have about dynamic stresses on the water during a seaway; we have to gain a deeper knowledge, something more complex than put a huge safety factor in a static stress calculations.

Mistral

 

Canting Mess

Mistral,

I think to open new post: Engineering in Modern Racing Yachts how do I promote that?

 

Perhaps a leaf should be taken from Sir Peter Blakes book,He maintained that you can push any boat past the point of no return wether it be of heavy or light construction,the secret to success is really in the hands of those that sail on these boats.Maybe its the sailers that should be recieving the bad press rather than the boats.
K4s

 

Canting Mess

Is that a Joke or what? Let's keep this discussion serious. If this gentleman expresses such wisdom, then he better sails the boat himself. Never say something if you are unable to do the job yourself.