Sydney-Hobart 2015

Wouldn't you just love to be the customs agent at the Hobart Airport this week.

Comanche's plan to ensure everyone would be facing aft when they whistled seems to have paid off spectacularly.

 

She's bits of the old Maximus (Elliott 100, line honours winner in 2011 as Investec Loyal) with a new Andy Dovell hull underneath.

The issue of the missing board reminds me that out of 4 100' supermaxis there was a 50% retirement rate, a 100% rate of significant damage, and a much-hyped race that had good competition for about 6 minutes and then a runaway win. It's a pity they don't go back to something like the Maxi 70s.

 

I wonder how the owner driver stats look on the 100'ers

 

All that and it wasn't even bad weather, just a bit more wind than they wanted.

PDW

 

It’s was described by Dovell as similar to vehicles designed for the formula one circuit having to cope with the Dakkar rally.

You want the marine equivalent of a Kamaz Truck to push hard, in heavier weather, with absolute reliability.

No keel failures, enough rudders broke across a variety of sizes in the fleet.

 

Didn't detect any satire in Ken Read's voice when he said it was the toughest race he's ever been in (though he wasn't there in '98). I think you're forgetting that it's a race, where everyone is pushing as hard as they can and gear is made to be as light as possible and just strong enough.

Carbon is unforgiving. There is rarely any warning when it breaks, but it generally does so with sufficient noise and violence that you're unlikely not to notice.

 

There are reports that Roger Hickman (winner last year and in the tough 2000 race, fourth in 1998 I think) who is a veteran AND a master mariner (ie professional big-ship officer) said it was the roughest race he's done. Another experienced guy called it "heinous".

It looks like it WAS a hard race (although I haven't checked any of the interviews from those who have finished) but the issue is that one type of boat (the "supermaxis") seems to have suffered a damage rate significantly higher than any other type. On checking further, I note that both of the 50 foot canters retired and as did about half of the TP52s, but I think two of the TPs retired due to startline crashes and the other two to rig damage - the other TPs seem to have come through well. The contrast between the leading-edge 60-40 foot fixed keelers and the canters seems to be pretty stark.

 

The bigger, higher inertia boats are going so much faster, hitting "underwater objects", which seems surprisingly common, is going to cause more damage. Might be a few sunfish out there MIA.

 

Wild Oats XI DSS

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Not a chance. If it looks like a DSS foil, works like a DSS foil and was originally done with the design consultation of Hugh Welbourn , it is a DSS foil and a major asset to the Wild Oats team.

http://www.dynamicstabilitysystems....-to-seventh-rolex-sydney-hobart-line-honours/

 

Re all the damage to foils, i guess with the current crop of canters the odds of having a sunfish, whale or ocean debris take one out goes way up when instead of just 2 foils you have anywhere from 4 to 6. It seems that most of the damage has resulted from impact rather than design/build issues so reliability has greatly improved. The fact that all the big boys were able to adapt and keep on racing is impressive.
I assume that if you lose a board you would still be able to sail on the compromised tack with the keel centered but you would have to balance the sailplanes for a clp that is further aft and reduced righting moment which seems to be how Comanche. dealt with it while Rags moved a 250kg board from side to side. Great race this year.

Steve.

 

I am beginning to suspect that a lot of the 'we hit something' damage on the big maxi's is actually under designed boards that sheer from impact loads when they launch off of waves. The number of breakages is just too high to all be from impacts with flotsam.

At least until someone can explain to me how 4/5 maxi's hit sunfish but so far none of the slower boats have reported the same.

 

Sh 2015

Interesting that neither DSS foil was damaged-Wild Oats/Rambler-as far as I know.

 

Sh 2015

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I seriously doubt that in the cases of Rambler and Comanche-both have thousands of ocean miles this year alone.
In one of the interviews -I think about Ragamuffin- one of the crew described exactly that happening: they came off a wave and snapped the board clean off.....

 

When the damage is coincident with a rougher sea state it's more likely that its incipient failure. But a quick look at the damage is usually enough and would certainly be required before anyone can conclude anything.

I often conducted damage reports. I have often been told that those onboard heard a bang, felt a shudder and a part of something had sheared off. We must have hit something, is the intuitive response, it's also convenient for insurance purposes . Usually it's clear that even if they did, it had virtually nothing to do with the root cause.

Doug
Highly stressed composites accumulate damage that can lead to catastrophic failure. So "thousands of ocean miles" rather than excluding failure can be a very likely precursor. That is unless they change the foils on a usage basis. They do this with rigs, do they do it with foils ?

 

Again, I forget which boat it was but in one of the interviews here it was described how one daggerboard was forced into the back of the trunk and when it was finally pulled out it had a significant "L" shaped indentation in the trailing edge.
Mike, when you say "accumulate damage" do you mean thru impacts or just through normal use? Or both?