Hull reliability

On that note.... does anyone know any good product liability attornies in FL with marine specific experiance? We have found one who seems pretty good and has defended some major marine manufacturers with success, plus he has offices in Jacksonville Fl where the boat owners lives.

Feel free to post or PM a reference.

Thanks, CG

 

Brunswick area. Just got back a few hours ago from Kingsland's 'Catfish Festival' and pee raid.
Here's an article for you that might be interesting. If you go to the sites 'home', there are a lot of different boats surveyed by brand name. Perhaps the guy whose site it is might know of a lawyer. Sam


http://www.yachtsurvey.com/Fiberglass_Boats.htm

Here's another interesting article at the site...
http://www.yachtsurvey.com/latent_defects.htm

 

Sam, thank you for the links. I have passed them on to my friend.
CG

 

Yes Sam, those are some of the photos that I had seen. Frightening isn't it? Nothing behind a thin skin but foam or putty. Some of this can be detected in a new boat with a tap from a hammer. You want a bong, not a thud.

You see stuff like this and wonder. What were they thinking? They certainly didn't have you in mind. They deserve getting hammered themselves.

 

I have directly investigated one such occurrence and been indirectly involved with the investigation of several other such occurrences. There are actually two questions here.

1. What caused the boat to spin out?
2. Why did the boat break? (in other words why did the hull not survive the spin out)

In the first case (and I am going by memory here from at least 10 years ago, because I no longer have access to the case file) a 19 foot boat was moving at very close to it's max speed (50-60) when the boat took a sudden right turn, tossed people out of the boat and then came to rest. The resulting damage was the hull seperated from the deck.

Conditions were a nice day. Maybe 1 foot waves and light wind. This was an inland lake. The accident occurred in full view of a restaurant on shore and another boat that was traveling with it so there were lots of witnesses. The owner claimed the hull/deck seperation caused the steering to fail and that's why it spun. The water cop wasn't sure but did a very thorough investigation. Then he asked me to take a look it.

I don't think so. What happen was the boat entered a state that is known as dynamic instability. Strangely enough this can happen to many different kinds of boats at speed. It has happened even to a Coast Guard surf rescue boat. Without getting too technical, it has to do with pressure differentials on the bottom of the boat. On certain types of boats, particularly ones with some convex curvature in the bow area negative pressures can occur, especially at high speeds, causing the bow to lower, casuing the stem to immerse, resulting in bow steering and a spin. The Navy has done several research projects on this.

But as was said a boat should survive this. In the case above there was in all probabilty a weak bond, or none at all, just pop rivits, holding the deck to the hull. It was a typical shoebox type connection. The twisting of the hull in the spin, sheared the rivits and the deck popped off the hull.

THis problem seems to occur most frequently in deep vee hulls around the 25 to 30 foot range. Why, because these boats are typically narrow and have a lot of top hammer, so they have a higher center of gravity and a short metacentric height. This is fine when they are moving at displacement of slow planing speeds, but when they are at max planing speed, wetted surface is minimized. the boat is higher and supported by less area. If it has any occurence to destabilize it as above, a sudden large wave, gust of wind, even a slight turn, it shifts to one side (usually the right), catches the stem, and spins out.

The first case I ever saw of this was a Bayliner back in the mid 70's. Since then, I've seen this happen in a lot of boats especially fast boats.

Of course I have seen accidents like this that had causes such as steering failure, trim tab malfunctions, and other problems.

 

Ok hind site is 20/20 the thing is that there is no regulations on how boats are built, no faa like airplanes, the coastgaurd dont have regs on standarts for quality or design, any commercial fishing boat that floats is ok with everyone ,the same with private boats ,,,(caviat emptor) this is why you can buy a 50 ft daysailor that is only good for calm seas and ,you better be home before dark,,,,or you can buy a boat that is 32ft that can cruise around the globe,,,you gotta do your homework. on the same lines,,what about insurance? I pay 200 a month just for liability,on my commercial boat I paid 900 a month , but also it is because year after year the same people know 10 days in advance of a hurricane is comeing but still choose to leave thier boats tied up at the docks on 3/8 rope ,,,go figure, and in todays world it is always someone elses fault,,,did the manufacturer tell them to drive the boat like that? what about your car ? if you do burnouts and snap an axel ,whos fault is it? the designers?,,,, time for people to take responibility for thier own actions ,,,longliner

 

Peter, I would like to share the photos with you. My email is varsanyi@bellsouth.net. Send me your email and I will pass along the pics for your opinion.... I would realy appreciate it. Thanks, Scott.

This way you could comment in the open as to the type and extent of damage without letting everyone know the builder just yet.....

 

Bumpski.

 

Why did you bump? We are waiting for pictures

 

I didn't bump anything.... My Donzi is sitting comfortably on the trailer ready to go.... My best friends boat however spunout...... this weekend should provide some answers for him.....

 

The thread. You bumped the thread so it doesnt get lost.

 

LOL.... gotcha..... for some reason I didn't make my "thread bump" correlation to your question.... I thought you were asking what did I bump with the boat..... sorry bout that....

 

Does this mean "end of story"? Just curious as to the outcome. SmithCraft64

 

I know I left alot of you "hanging", I kinda just wanted to let it play out for my friends sake. Sorry about the long delay. Here are the pics. The boat was 2006 32' Sunsation SS. Purchased in June 06. Accident was August 06... Well come Jan. They built him a new boat. They used what they could from the "old" boat on the new one...ie motors, drives, transom assemblies, gauges and controls...etc. He basically ended up having to claim it on insurance. And between himself the ins.co and the builder they worked something out... although I personally thought the builder shoulda ate it. But.. he now has a brand new boat that he will be trying to unload as his wife won't get in the new boat..... Anyhoo....theres the update.

 

Thanks for the photos. I'd forgotten all about the thing. Did your guy ever go to a lawyer? So he now has a brand new boat, just like the old boat, just like he started with. He'll lose a bunch trying to sell it, I would think at the least he could have given them the old wreck and they could have given his money back. The boats spin out problem is still there for him and all other owners. The wife's got the right idea! Sam