Origami steel yacht construction

The debate is not about opinions, we have seen quite too much of them, especially from BS side.
It is about facts. And BS did (by so far very successful) circumnavigate providing just one, let alone any valuable calculations.

 

Owners who vanish without a trace would not likely sue for damages.

Sueing for damages in Canada is a whole different ball game than sueing stateside.

 

that's because our lawyers are smarter than your lawyers

 

You sure about that. Sound like ours have set themselves up in a racket.

 

I meant us lawyers

 

What I find disturbing is a person who calls himself a designer, yet has no formal education or experience in that area, and is unable to answer questions - about his claims of his designs - that a designer should be able to answer. I also find it disturbing that this same person calls himself a fabricator & gives a lot of welding-related advice that is incorrect, performs work that is appalling.

What I find bizarre is a guy who has made one post on this site, 5.5+ years ago, returning to join this discussion. Seems contrived.

You've owned a steel sailboat before, right, Bob? Go back & take another look at the welding photos on this thread & tell us that they're acceptable to you.

Others: Remember the comments made about a Swain boat hitting a barge at hull speed? That there was no structural damage? Would it be more believeable if you knew that the barge was submerged at the time? That it wasn't the only boat that made this error and the others didn't suffer serious damage either, though being made of "dead-vegetation" in at least one case? (To the source: Thank you.)

 

What I find odd, is when new or even “old” posters come here and state such preconceived predictable and biased nonsense.

If you have bothered to read the whole thread and the other thread too:
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/classification/transverse-frame-calculation-32584.html
then such a statement is very disturbing! If you haven’t I implore you to do so.

Since clearly you do not approve of independent and objective evidence, especially to support a claim which is in fact mutton dressed as lamb, ie just an opine, and not a verifible fact.

For ref, one of many:


As Mike notes, ’those’ that think the images that have been shown of fabrication of/by BS boat is acceptable, are very clearly mypoic and have no bench mark to judge against. Additionally, not being able to provide an answer, a simple basic, extremely basic child like questions on either: fabrication, stability, structure, even financial to name a few, about ones one design is also bizarrely acceptable behaviour.

A person that supports such vacuous drivel by a “designer”, is simply a case of QED. Inexperienced, amateur and unprofessional attitudes attracts like minded. Thus, preaching to the converted of those that only understand poor quality, shoddy workmanship, unethical behaviour towards other people’s safety and poor money/time management. And more worryingly, don’t see anything wrong with this attitude…

Any rational sound and a person that has a pulse would ask:

"..Is that how “you” buy a house or a car??... you place a blind fold over your eyes, headphones on your ears, tie your hands behind your back and then bend over and say, give it to me please????...and willingly accept the salesman’s drivel? Or is it because a prize winning leak has suddenly appeared..?.."

 

Welder, yes, I did own a steel sailboat at one time. It was a 35’ Charles Whitholtz design. In a former career I was a marine engineer, with a DDE (Designated Duty Engineer) license. I know a few things about boats.

I poke around various sailing related web sites on a regular basis. My posting here today after 5 years is coincidence, not contrived. If you still find that bizarre, so be it.

Any thread that Brent Swain participates in is bound to be entertaining and this one is no exception. Think trainwreck. It’s his style, or lack thereof.

I do find it odd that he can’t or won’t supply specs and numbers. Maybe he only supplies the design details to paying customers?

However I do admire how he is building boats faster and cheaper than conventional methods. Cheaper, better, faster was the motto of a former VP in the company I work for. Maybe he can borrow the slogan?

And finally, professional design doesn’t guarantee quality and safety. Three examples that come to mind are; I35 bridge collapse in Minneapolis, the Hyatt Regency hotel walkway collapse in Kansas City and the Tacoma Narrows bridge collapse. In a sailboat an example would be the racer that killed Mike Plant.

 

Please provide the proof that this method is faster cheaper than any other method. Right from conceptional start to final launch of a complete boat.

 

Yes, Bob, I know who you are - from C&R forums - which is why I remember that you had a steel boat. So, do you find those welds acceptable? If you haven't read this entire thread, then I suggest that doing so may change your opinion of Brent. I did a quick comparison in build time between Brent's claims and Wynand's, on post #990 of this thread. You'll note that the time difference is small, yet, the quality of build is not. The person who directed my attention to the submerged barge info., actually e-mailed me a link to this recent post on the origamiboats site:

There is a lot to think about here, especially in the context of discussions in this thread & others.

Bob, these boats aren't completed, properly, any faster than the average 30-something foot steel sailboat. You know that it largely depends on the builder, not the design. Brent is, to this point, unable or unwilling to explain how his boats are as strong or sronger than a framed boat of this size, proofs that self-righting is to 175deg., etc. . He does not need to give away any details that would allow someone to rip off his designs, when addressing his claims. If you read the "Transverse Frames" thread and this one, you will note that one of the other members even offered to help him, for free!

Btw, I accept your point over structures that were professionally designed & failed, but surely you accept that these are exceptions, rather than typical?

 

That would be odd, indeed--especially since spec's and numbers should be crucial information when deciding whether to build a boat or not. Somehow I doubt his business plan is based on the proposition that to find out whether you want to build from his plans, you have to buy them first....

I think he's just a half-baked amateur designer who came up with a workable boat, and he's managed to sell his plans (such as they are) to other amateurs. There's no real harm there; if the boat works for him, it and reasonable variations thereof will probably work for others too.

The harm is in the fact that he's claiming to be an expert who has come up with a brand-new way of doing things, which has made all other methods obsolete. He's preaching that no one else in the industry can be trusted, because they don't know what they're doing, and/or they're deliberately ripping off their customers with defective, expensive design and construction.

In other words, he's trying to set himself up as a cult leader: "trust only me; everyone else is lying to you and out to get you."

And I don't buy it--particularly after seeing an actual video of the work he does, and after reading in his own words the contempt he has for traditional industry standards of workmanship in metal fabrication and welding, and for the workers who are capable of meeting those standards.

 

Yes that makes a big difference to the collision scenario. The vessel simply rode up on its stem. Not stopped dead in it's tracks as implied as BS tells the tale with the T-bone collision.

If you T-Bone a heavy barge at hull speed without much damage then either you were unbelievably lucky, or it rode up on the stem, or it didn't happen at all.

Brent revels in dishonest marketing, his anecdotal tales are demonstrably part truths with fiction added for profit.

Then to claim that the anecdotes vindicate the poor design work is laughable and malfeasant.

 

Troy sums up Brent's approach and attitude quite well.
Brent doesn't have the numbers because he's almost completely ignorant of the processes of Naval architecture. His concept is clever, but its not engineered, it's been altered as it failed. For example his early designs rotated their keel up on grounding, Brent beefed up the scantlings and added transverse framing. That's his engineering process.



Root cause failure analysis is the science of attributing a cause of failure. It's a discipline and it's thorough. The final attributable cause is the 'fact' the rest is observation. So if you want to look at failures identify the root cause and then only use it if it was the design or it's meaningless.

As for Mike Plant and keel attachments. If you read some of these threads ("keels and keels again" springs to mind) you'll find that the engineers are not happy with the keel attachments used by many "designers" and note here that designers are not engineers.

There were also national standards in use by designers such as the USA ABS OSRY which made serious mistaken assumptions about material properties and apparently neglected shear factors of safety in way of the keel. These guides are for non-engineered boats. ABS made a big blunder there.

 

It wasn't just one member, but many many.

 

Let me answer this;

• Faster? I had proven that wrong - I built quite a few v/d Stadt 34 boats to complete hull, deck and bulkheads, welded, keel and rudder fitted units in 18 working days flat each. That includes shotblasting and primer paint. Crew = one boilermaker/welder with two helpers.

• Cheaper? For years BS hassled me with remarks of ripping people off and when pushed a few times for a price for the Stadt 34, I supplied the price (elsewhere in this thread) he went to an all time low and racist in his remarks that I used slave labour under the apartheid regime. That I proved wrong as well but he made the statement later again....

• Better? I suggest you read the thread again. All this is about the lack of engineering practices shown in photos of his boats and his lack to answer legitimate questions on claims he made. Does that spell better?

BS deals with amateurs that has no clue about steel boat building or steel work in general - perhaps a bit afraid to tackle a real boat - and his claims about all the above, of course exaggerated - suddenly appeal to them, as well as his usual rant, making him seems well versed in engineering skills.
That is the danger of the whole issue.

I said it before; a good salesman will tell people what they want to hear and that is exactly what BS does successfully. But does that makes him a qualified boat designer?