Design Costs

Trouty,

How’s the fishing going? I hope you aren’t talking about your boat.

Can you litigate? In the US that’s always an option, it keeps the lawyers employed.

In most cases the NA assures that the design meets the standards. If your contract asks him to push or exceed those standards I assume it would not include a guarantee of performance.

Gary

 

Trouty,

You ask a lot of pointed questions, some good, but some not worth answering.

First of all, the designer of the Australian boat is well known, and it is not my position, ethically, to talk behind someone's back. If you want to know who designed her, you have only to go back through the public record of magazine articles to find out.

In America's Cup design, it is understood that the boats are at the leading edge of technology. Failures are expected, although you would like to think they would not be as spectacular as that one. One of Dennis Conner's boat's sank in the last race, the newer one of the two, and that upset the entire team and had a big dampening effect on their effort. So it happens. The design fees do run to the hundreds of thousands of dollars--the entire design effort runs to the millions when you add in all the model testing and computer engineering. Since it is leading edge and everyone expects failures of some kind, little recourse usually falls back on the design team. They don't have to pay their fees back, but they very likely donate engineering time to make sure the salvage and repair is done properly.

In the last AC, with the Conner boat, the insurance company that covered the boat did attempt an investigation as to what went wrong. They were out the money to handle the repair, and in US law, the insurance company can subrogate the claim in order to get their money back. That is, they can file a lawsuit against whomever they deem responsible, and negotiate a settlement or go to trial. I do not know where that stands.

In general, naval architects and marine engineers have clauses in their design contracts that say something to the effect that the very nature of vessel design is experimental at best, and so if anything happens during the construction or use of the boat, then you the client won't sue me, the designer, and vice versa.

The reason we have such a clause is that we have no possible way to get professional liability insurance, called errors and omissions (E&O) insurance. That is because no insurance company in the world will insure any naval architect who produces original engineering and drawings for vessels that float. And this is because boats and ships are moveable objects, whose ultimate fate is to sink to the murky depths, forever to be unretrievable. No insurance company is going to cover a designer for an object that cannot be retrieved for the purpose of marshalling its own defense. If the insurance company cannot defend its client, it is foolish to take the risk.

This is unlike all other engineering disciplines where the thing that is being designed--a building, a bridge, or some other fixed-in-place object--will still be there after the failure. The remains can be inspected, the faults determined. The defense is relatively easy.

Some of the larger naval architecture design firms that do millions of dollars of ship design business can get E&O insurance, because they can build the premiums into their design contracts. But for us little designers, the cost of the premiums for a mere $500,000 is more money than we make in a year. And who sues for $500K these days? Aggrieved parties want millions.

This leads to an interesting question--why would a small craft designer want E&O insurance? By having it, you automatically obtain deep pockets, and in most product liability cases, the plaintiff goes after the deep pockets. If you have E&O insurance, you are asking to get sued.

It has been proven in a number of cases that naval architects did not have E&O insurance, and the remainder of their tangible assets--businesses, houses, bank accounts--did not amount to very much, and since there was no money there, the cases were dropped. There is no point in suing if there is nothing to gain.

As for our bad design stories, they are none of your business. We don't have to dry out our laundry for anyone and everyone to see. We keep them private, which is our perogative.

Most of us are professionals, and when we make mistakes--and we do make them--we handle them in a professional manner. Every situation is different. We realize that lives are at stake on the boats that we design. We do the best job that we know how, and we handle the aftermath as necessary.

Eric Sponberg

 

software help?

Do you designers in the field find all the utilities (stability and weight calc's) built into most yacht design programs cut your labor costs? I have little experience with them but have fiddled with the Vacanti demo's and it seems like a great tool to save a lot of paper and calculator clicks. I think the math would be cumbersome after hours and hours of tweaking the sweet spot for engine position for example. I find myself getting lost and second guessing myself when I'm in the heat of battle learning this stuff. As we all know those hours spent fiddling and tweaking are where the cost starts to snowball.
Opinions welcome 8Knots

 

I am going to stick my neck out a bit here.

I feel that I have an obligation to those I build for.

I have E&O insurance and I just design and build small boats cartopable to easily towable. I have deep enough pockets that my E&O insurance has a high deductable.

As far as modern boats failing. Boats fail for several reasons, but boats should never fail because they are on the leading edge of technology. It is a trivial matter to design and build the "strongest" boat for a given weight or design rule.

It is also a trivial matter to put up too much sail and break a mast, or to put out in weather that is too big and have the boat never come back.

There is always an obligation on the builder's part to inform the user what a boats limits are. Then it becomes the user's risk when the limits are exceeded.

 

Guest: I don't know what kind of experience you have, but it isn't leading edge technology. Boats, airplanes, cars and all kind of other experimental things fail. It is the nature of experimentation. Also, any race machine will sooner or later break. If it doesn't it was overbuilt. Ideally it would win an then need a major overhaul or be disposable. Your use of "trivial" is rather insulting.

 

Dear Guest,

"boats should never fail because they are on the leading edge of technology"

I'm sorry, but I agree with Gonzo... Your reply might have an interpretation other than that which I understand, however, for it to come immediately after Mr. Sponberg's explanation of the America's Cup Failures.... well, I don't know but I think I did understand it correctly and I very much disagree.

Engineering students study failures for a reason, because they may happen under almost any circumstances and because there is much to be learned from them. Elite racing by it's very nature lends itself to structural /design failures. Despite our ever increasing understanding of nature and our environment, the only way that we find the limit is by pressing and exceeding it (albeit, hopefully in a controlled & safe environment). Those boats are designed to perform in an environment that can only be described with probabilities. They must be as light and as stiff as possible... unfortunately sometimes they fail. To quote a great ski instructor, "if you don't fall you're not trying hard enough".

In my opinion the designer responsible for the most failures may well be the most desired... because he has the most experience with the limit.

You must appreciate the client... we're not talking about a family sailing across the ocean, but rather millionaires spending their riches to be the fastest... For them, they might as well have sunk if they finish second.

Sincerely,

Dave

 

trouty - well, you have asked a doozy of a question.
;-)

Steve

 

To all,

The Golden Rule of the America's Cup: The perfect America's Cup boat is the one that totally disintigrates one second after crossing the finish line to win the Cup.

If it fails beforehand, it was not built strong enough, and if it does not fail at all, then it was built too strong.

Eric

 

Eric speaks truth! (not an unusual occurrence, by the way...)
Herreshoff (Capt. Nat, I believe, but it could have been LF) reckoned that the perfect boat would be designed so that when the design load was exceeded, it would disintegrate totally. No-one has designed such a beast yet, or it has yet to reach it's design load. ;-)

 

Trust me

to 'liven up" any discussion by asking the politically incorrect questions!

Don't let it get to you - as a kid if someone said, "hey look a snakes hole" - I'd be the one to fill it with water to see if we could flush him out - or if it was a hornets nest i'd stick the boot in their front door then run like blazes to see who was slowest!

And so it is with topics that seem to be going along swimmingly...trouser trout showes up n pokes a stick in the beehive just to get a reaction.

Hey - thats what keeps bulletin / forum boards active - people learning something new...

Whats the saying?...there are no dumb questions - only dumb answers.

Reason I asked the questions was, on occasion I used to fish with a Naval architect a bit, and having interest in boats we'd always get round to disciussing really interesting things about boats when the fishing was slow...

Now - these guys KNOW - the inside skinny on everyones goofs, but as you've seen it's not considered polite to talk about em publicly...

Course - in the middle of the ocean on a slow fishing day is different - and it's amazing what you learn when you can get a NA to talk 'openly', which is why I prodded the Ants nest....to see what would come out.

The reason is - because we all learn something worthwhile when we do, and wheres the shame in that?.

Erics answer was refreshingly straight and written with much candour - for which I thank him, and it was also very professional in not naming names - again for which I thank him...

As for the example given - re fishing boat - no thankfully not mine, and I've no doubt they will reach a solution soon enough, it just won't be without cost is all...but with new technologys that is often the case - such as matching new drives to new gearboxes and new engines along with a new hullform - somewhere there has to be some trial and error...

Trouble is when playing with props is a large expenditure - you kinda hope to get it right at the first or second go...

Anyway - it's all part of boating and boating fun and knowing the upsides and downsides are just as important - whether it's me comissioning a new boat design, or someone commissioning a new piece of furniture off me....it's good to know the potential upsides and downsides at the outset for everyone involved IMHO.

This is all part of why it's so good to have the professionals here to give us the wisdom of their knowlege and experience.

Thanks indeed for the answers guys - very enlightening for all concerned.

I'll try not to ask any more 'pointy questions' for a while.

Cheers!

 

There is a long history of bridge failures.

One could argue that bridges at the cutting edge fail because they are at the cutting edge, but it turns out that is not why they fail.

There was a very fine arguement presented 10 years ago that laid the cause of faillure on using the wrong engineering model. After a failure someone looks at the engineering model and remarks too many terms were discarded. A new model with a few more terms is used until the next failure.

Using the wrong model was caused by being a poor engineer not by being on the leading edge.

What goes for bridges goes for airplanes and boats.

In high prestege racing boats being second is worth nothing so some people break the boat to save face.
In addition, racing boats leading edge or not are run much closer to design limits than non racing boats, so one would expect them to fail more often.

Currently, none of the materials used in boats are leading edge. They have all been used in other fields. And people in those fields know how to use them.

I have given three explainations for failure that have nothing to do with
being on the leading edge.

 

Guest, while I find you ideas interesting, and possibly true in parts, there are some ignorance shining through in your message...

You wrote:"In high prestege racing boats being second is worth nothing so some people break the boat to save face.
In addition, racing boats leading edge or not are run much closer to design limits than non racing boats, so one would expect them to fail more often.

Currently, none of the materials used in boats are leading edge. They have all been used in other fields. And people in those fields know how to use them."

I've yet to see anyone braking a boat on purpose to "save face", so can you back that up?

The materials used in race boats today aren't leading edge?!?! well there still is nothing to replace carbon for a while is there? And carbon is the material of choice in F1 cars as it is in raceboats power and sail.

And by saying "They have all been used in other fields. And people in those fields know how to use them" you imply that designers should know better than to design stuff that brakes... and that is just BS!

Loads and stresses on a boat, racing at sea, are extremely difficult to asess since they are very dynamic and affected by many factors.
If this was not what you meant it would be interesting to understand what you did mean...

ErikG

 

There are a couple things to consider when discussing failed designs. The first is whether high-tech design was proper for that type of boat in the first place. For instance, there is no good reason to build a commercial fishing boat with experimental drives or materials. The goal of the boat is to provide a platform for fishing, at a reasonable cost, thus ensuring the opportunity to make a profit. This is not the time to design anything outside the scope of more traditional design, designs that have worked for years and have proven themselves.

Secondly, many times owners want to push the envelope. But, when there is a problem, they want the designer or builder to pay for it. In that same vein, the designer has a responsibility to the client to let him know very clearly when the project is entering uncharted waters. At that point, the owner can decide whether to sail on or head back to more familiar territory.

There is always a risk anytime you design a new boat. Many things in boat design are not supported by science. Not because the science doesn't exist, but because boat designers don't have the time or money to conduct experiments and then examine the results and write a paper for peer review and publish it and . . . This is the case many times in planing hull design. There really is very little data available considering the number of planing hulls afloat in the world.

As for failures, I will admit to a few, but mostly these were construction problems, not safety issues. Once while I worked for Carver Boat Co., I watched as the deck was set on the first of a new model. Everything was going fine until the cockpit hit the exhaust and the deck wouldn't go down. Back I ran to the drawings to discover my mistake, I believe it was a dimension drawn from the wrong spot. It was embarrassing, but the glass patchers fixed the problem and the boat worked fine. Luckily, I have never had one split in half or sink!

 

This is somewhat related to the discussion, and interesting.
http://www.manufacturingcenter.com/dfx/archives/1203/1203sailing.asp

Gary

 

All this is why I support designing to a good set of structural codes/standards/guidelines (and agree with Olin Stephens that they should be made part of the America's Cup rule). For boats less than 25 meters in length the draft ISO conventions should be the most current, unless standards have been developed independently in Australia using Sydney-Hobart data.