So what went wrong???

it appears that however it was launched may be irrelevant, once launched it would have capsized

 

I agree when launching a boat stern first there can be a number of stability issues, maybe a cable got caught .But the thing I find interesting from a design point of view is if this boat was launched at around the 80 ton hence 5.5 ft draught its centre of gravity was 10.7 ft as per audit .So I spent 30 minutes with freeship and approxiamated all the variables length, beam displacement ,waterplane the meta centre was 3.1metres a bit of a worry when your cog is 3.2 metres .Question what happens when your cog is greater than your metacentre? I would be interested if anyone can calculate metacentre from stability data when the boat is 80 tons?

 

If that were the case, the builders are truly in a pickle. Their only defense is, "We didn't know nuthin'."

 

looked like that to me

 

I hacked out a rough example of the boat at 110tons design draught .Forgive me for my basic example I cant seem to get a meta centre any thing close to the 3.9m (13ft)in the stability report only with a hard chine design I can achieve this. I hope freeship is accurate with calculating meta centre . This designs meta centre is 3.2m( 10.7ft) ,alright if your cog is 8.7ft as per stability report but doesn't look if you are launching with a cog of 10.7ft

 

I am sure many harsh words have been heard behind closed doors !

 

the owner got what he asked for, thats always a big mistake for a yard to make.

 

The builder is being sued for failure to complete another boat and seems to be doing nothing to mitigate damage to the one that fell over.
Some suspect he may have just walked away.

 

if he is already deeply in dept, and has been losing money, the yard owner has nothing to loose. His credit is likely already shot, and too deep in to recover even without this disaster. Even if it can be proven the yard did everything per the NAs plans, it will be a long and costly ordeal to prove they were not liable. The yard may have been hoping the final payment from this launch would give them some financial breathing room, but now that that is not likely to be coming, the best option might be the bankruptcy court. The owner at least might be able to keep his family home and any retirement money he has saved.

If there is now no financial alternative left for recovery, it is faster, cheaper and easier at this point to just file bankruptcy. Get it over with now, and let the trustees fight over the value of his few remaining assets, and get on with the rest of his life rather than suffer several more years in courts and under a media microscope.

 

Get on with his life. Hmmm...
How about all the employees that are out in the cold?
Allegedly the law suite on the other boat charges he was billing the owner for work not done and misrepresenting how much labor would be required.
As far as following the NA's plans? It's said major changes to the topsides were made without consulting one.
This is from online sources and has not been verified.

 

I don't know whether or not that's true, but Northern Marine do have their own in house NAs, headed by Mark Allred.

 

Sounds like you have never had employees before; They can find other work. I can tell you as one who as run several small businesses, NO ONE has had more invested, and lost more time and money, than the owner of the business. The employees are only out a job, the owner is financially wiped out, starting over with nothing likely at an older age. I have been there and done that, it is very painful. The owner was likely borrowing money to keep his employees paid long after he was tapped out. He could have (and perhaps should have), laid them all off a year ago when the economy was even worse. He likely keep people working as long as he possibly could, for the sake of the employees as much as anyone else. What else was he supposed to do if the owner was long tapped out? Give blood? Many years ago, when I realize I could no long keep my small business going, I paid off all of my smaller creditors with the little money I had left, the ones who would get hurt the most, and than closed my business and found work to slowly pay off the others I owed. No one likes to not pay their obligations, but there is only so much you can do. It looks like this last incident put them completely under. Everyone suffers.

Possible, that is what business owners often do when they ran out of credit and they are trying to keep their business open. The owner is hoping he can get "caught up" on his past due bills the next project. It might also be a false accusation as a strategy by savvy lawyers to get their client higher up in line on the creditors list during the coming bankruptcy hearings. If some kind of fraud or misrepresentation can be proved, than you get first priority when the asset liquidation occurs. We do not know who is telling the truth at this point, too early to tell.

it seems rather foolish to make changes large enough to affect safety and stability without the NA of record involved. I doubt anyone in that business is really that stupid, but you can never really overestimate how stupid some people in responsible positions can be, particularly if they were in a financially desperate position, it clouds judgement. It is just speculation at this point.

 

Someone was stupid enough to launch a $10,000,000 yacht without due care.

 

I don't know if it's true either and tried to make that clear. A lot of pieces to this puzzle along with the usual finger pointing and *** covering.
It may take some time to unravel.

 

how do they launch their bigger boats?