Big Catamaran, Big Drop 'Test',....WHAM !!

The following quote is taken from a piece of literature (manual) that was utilized by the NidaCore company as a sales pitch in support of their PP honeycomb core product.

There are no other specifics supplied,...such as name of vessel, charter organization, island location or marina where this was carried out, what hurricane, etc. And it may have occurred before wide spread info dissemination by the internet came into being?

Is there anyone with any more knowledge as to the details of this 'event' ??

 

The description of the construction "65' commercial charter boat, cored entirely with NidaCore polypropylene honeycomb (less the hull bottom), including hull sides, deck and superstructure" sounds like it may be Gold Coast Yachts in st Croix, that's the type construction they use and they make a 65' Charter Cat.

http://www.goldcoastyachts.com/Commercial-Sailing/CS-index.htm

Steve

 

That would have been something to see! Some movie or pics would be great.
The choice of a chainsaw seems a little odd for final deconstruction, Strange marketing seeing as the bottom had apparently already been damaged so badly, so the bottom was solid glass?
.
Jeff.

 

This kind of non-attributable story is highly suspect.......anyone hoisting and dropping a 50,000 boat for two days straight is nuts......

If you do some research you'll find Gold Coast used wood cores for their first 30 boats, then switched to foam, they currently specify ATC foam cores. Not that they couldn't have built one honeycomb hull....

 

I think they utilized polypropylene in more instances that one might believe.

I was looking thru some specs on the Mather 57 (a friend of mine) and found a reference to their having used it as the flooring on the wing deck.

 

Suspicious tale. The cost of a crane for two days is far more than that of several chain saws and their operators.

 

May I suggest e-mailing NidaCore?

 

NidaCore was bought out by 3M, and I'm not so sure we would get an answer (they might claim do direct knowledge. But I do have one other idea.

BTW I heard back from Gold Coast Yachts, and they did not know of this incident.

 

Brian why don't you ask them directly since it's on their site http://nida-core.com/english/nidaprod_honeyinfo_sandwich.php

But it has the smell of deception, a 23 ton 65' boat dropped 50 feet onto concrete without any damage just once is stretching things well past the pale.

And the tall tale is in lie of actual material properties. Sandwich construction doesn't survive adverse collision, or grounding as well as solid GRP. 3 layer construction attempts to make the panels a bit more robust in collision but thin skins on the outside will always suffer extensive damage in collision because they are weak. The structure is stiff and resilient to sea loads but impact will always be it's Achilles heel.

If you really wanted an indestructible light construction hull for a cruising boat I'd look long and hard at Aluminium alloy.

 

I have sent them a direct mail asking what they know of the incident. I believe at least one of the persons currently working for the 3M nidacore division use to work at Nidacore Corp

 

OK here is the latest info I can uncover. This was sent to me by a gentleman working for nidacore division of 3M

I found these photos of one of his vessels,...I believe the one in the Bahamas

 

....on another forum...today
http://www.yachtforums.com/forums/general-yachting-discussion/21097-big-catamaran-big-drop-test-wham.html#post185590

 

I'm on the "it's suspect" list as well, if only knowing an insurance company wouldn't permit it, either the owner's or the yard's.

 

Don't know about the drop test, but I want to get a copy of that chainsaw that cut up a 65 foot GRP boat into manageable bits, damn fine machinery that !

 

Building a new boat I would still chose AIREX .