Vo70

Although I cannot comment on wether or not Ericsson was over prematurely and what the RC will do with the filed protest. I have read from spectator comments that a recall over VHF was for both ABN2 and ERT. When not responding a new message was broadcasted.

All of this is just rumour and there is no way I can prove anything of this. I do agree that pictures and videofootage seem to imply that ERT was all the time behind Brasil1. But none is looking down the startline.

I am curius at the decision.

 

About the ram problems on Farr boats, take a look at this comments made by
Ward Proctor. He is a representative from Marine and Hydraulics, the company that provided the rams for those boats:

On reflection, Proctor says the weight limits given for him to work to by the designers, in consultation with the teams craving a lighter, faster boat, were “unrealistic”, but he doesn’t allocate blame. “We are all working for a faster boat”.
….
“The designer (Farr Yacht Design) suggested a particular cylinder which happened to be extremely lightweight, and in all honesty totally unrealistic, which is clear. We all strived to go towards that weight because that was a guideline. Of course the more weight we put into the boat the more the designer becomes unhappy and the more he has to change things to accommodate that extra weight. The driving force from the beginning was towards a super lightweight cylinder. The emphasis has been on keeping so much weight in the keel, but ABN AMRO didn’t do that and they are winning and don’t break down.”

“The difference, Proctor explains, is in the set up between the boats that have broken and those that haven’t. Cariboni provides a stainless steel frame that contains their stainless steel cylinders, keel and rams in a linear fashion. The Marine and Hydraulics system is similar in that the components are lined up straight across the hull. Where Cariboni uses a steel frame to hold them in position, however, Proctor’s company use the two bulkheads of the boat’s structure to contain the system. Problems arose when the bulkheads started flexing under unpredictable dynamic loads caused by the speed of the boat and, subsequently, the harder slamming on the hull in waves”.

Proctor observed, “There has been a certain amount of flex in these bulkheads which sometimes is normal and sometimes isn’t and that makes the difference. That flex was far more than we predicted and has caused the stress to the system. In normal circumstances the frame would be the total unit, whereas in the Caraboni boats, when the boat flexes, the frame moves as a complete unit.

“No (we couldn’t predict the loads). We were given total assurances by the boat builders, or should we say boat designers, that the constraints of the two rams and the keel system were fixed in a solid unit, whereas now we can prove it was not (because of the flexing).”

“I’m not taking any blame away from us, but we are a company that supplies primarily hydraulic systems and we are given certain parameters to go to and we will plan a system to that. “

Interesting comments

 

Proctor - and I can back this up - is a total nobody where it concerns the design of hydraulic appliances that have an industrial acknowledgment as well as a background as the likes of Cariboni/Holmatro, a winning team where it concerns complicated hydraulic systems.
It is just the way as I have describwed earlier: there were no subframes in the Farr boats to cater for the heavy movements of the rams and to spread the forces equally in the hull.
Nevertheless, it is a fault that will not be repeated: it is nonetheless a riddle to me why Farr and *** had so blundered here and being sent into the corner.Were the Dutch more Farr-sighted?

I think now that sponsors that are willing to pump a dozen or so millions in a project will be very reluctant to take everything for granted what a design-office wishes to push as "state of art" technology without actually knowing what they are talking about.

So I am sure that the VOR70 will not have such problems in the next one.
Better boats will be doubtless the result.

 

Who is at Fault??

This is begining to sound like our current BUSH administration with everybody blaming everyone else without accepting any responsibilty themselves.

WHAT WENT WRONG?
(Russ Bowler of Farr Yacht Design looks at the problems on the VO70s)

Leg two of the Volvo Ocean Race from Cape Town to Melbourne will go down in ocean racing history as the leg of the failed hydraulic keel canting rams. The rams actuate the canting keels and were all from the same supplier. These hydraulic rams were fitted to the boats movistar, Pirates of the Caribbean and Ericsson. There were two identical ram rod failures and one ram end cap failure. The major lesson is the revelation that several components in these hydraulic rams could not deliver the safe working loads that were specified by Farr Yacht Design.

Each individual team undertook ram design and selection. One of the challenges implicit in undertaking multiple boat design projects for the same event is the inevitable veil of secrecy that follows delivery of our drawings. Because Farr Yacht Design does not have contractual relationships with the ram suppliers, designers or manufacturers, we don't have a full and detailed understanding of where this process came off the tracks. However it is very clear that in the future there needs to be better coordination of these elements together with frequent reviews early in build programs to spot anything with the potential to go astray.

Pirates of the Caribbean had additional problems with the wet box surrounding the canting mechanism and went through a leg of high anxiety, superbly managed by Paul Cayard and his team. Seized keel bearings led to cracking of non-critical structure around the keel bearings. The bearings problem was something that plainly should not have happened but it did, due in part to the very tight last minute build program. New bearings and lubrication systems have been installed. Structural reinforcements have been added just in case the keel bearings bind up again. The boat has been surveyed, using thermo-sensing devices and appears to be good shape. Ram components have been replaced. Paul has offered to place accelerometers on the boat to be activated during critical times to help us quantify the violence of the movements during high speed slamming.
-- Excerpt from a report byRuss Bowler, read the full report:
http://sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=2136#2136

 

Video Footage of Pirates of the Caribbean

Video footage from aboard Pirates of the Caribbean at

http://media.putfile.com/The-Black-Pearl-Ripping

 

Not to say I told you so ... but ... I said the damage looked like off axis loads due to flex in the mounting system. The boats that assumed the ring frames and pivot to be flex-free have had problems. The boats that use a sub frame to tie the pivot and rams together have not had those problems.

Adding heavy rams that may not fail under the off axis loads is a band-aid, taking a yacht designer's word that a structure is flex free is beyond naive.

---

Movistar wins a leg! A Farr finally won a leg ... in a very light air finish ... by 9 (NINE) whole seconds over a boat that has a reputation for being S L O W in light air ... at least the keel didn't fail ... LMAO

 

No, the keel didn't fail. BUT the bomb doors have failed on Movistar. Seems like sailing at ABN ONE speeds is not good for Farr yachts.

 

The boats? You mean the designers

I agree!

Sure...it looks like they don’t understand the boats they are designing. If you do not believe in what the designer says to you... than what are you doing in someone’s boat?

Or the Desiger assumes that he really doesn’t know enough and asks for your opinion and collaboration to sort out a system, or the designer takes the risk and says exactly what he wants and give the parameters that you should follow.

It looks to me that it was the second case.

 

Good point ... you won't find me on a Farr boat anytime soon.

Flex in hulls is nothing new, the Oracle/BMW IACC team is using a computer model to evaluate the effect of flex on boat performance. Word is that the software is used in the design process of CF Formula 1 parts.

If off-axis loads caused the ram failures, what will be the result of changing the rams? If the flex that allowed the off-axis loads is not cured, all the heavier ram does is move the off-axis load to other parts of the system.

Movistar after the 1,500 mile sprint to Wellington:

"The boat was taken to a boat lift and immediately the hull cleared the water it was obvious that large parts of the keel wedges that fair the keel aperture and the sliding “bomb doors” had been ripped from the hull. There was also damage to the fairing at the hull aperture for the port side dagger board."

At least the rams didn't fail ...

 

Great Video Brian!

The VOC 70s are just amazing boats

Hans

 

i use to build exotic autos and custom cars, any way we build a dragster in 80 something and when the man got it to the salt flats the rules changed and he came back for double role bars and cage he still set a new record. if you notice the cars now (race) any of them they can hit a wall at 200 plus miles and hour and the driver will more than likely live. in the 60s there were no plates for the dragsters where the driver sat over the trans and needles to say after a few trans blew apart there was a safty plate under his sit and legs. some times heavyer is faster. and defenetly safer is faster.

 

Take a look at the solar car races too- in general, more reliable tends to beat lighter and faster. Lightening the car to milk out an extra 5 km/h might get you passing a few competitors- until your lighter chassis breaks up from fatigue, and you have to hastily rebuild. In many cases a stronger, safer but heavier car will take the lead over light, fast cars thaat fly but are easily damaged. The same goes for the VO 70s; the boats that have the highest speeds at the start of a stage seem to lose keels and masts en route, leaving the slower but stronger boats to take the lead.

 

What has got to be a ego-buster is that the two strongest boats are the ones that are posting the highest speeds. The ABM boats look to be faster in anything over 10-12 knots of breeze.

This leg (after all the rebuilding in Melbourne) will show if the rebuilt Farrs can run with the big dogs. I wouldn't bet on it.

 

I wonder who the lead designer is on the Oracle/BMW Team?

 

it seems that all the new matereals that are used to obtain lighter toughter boats (i won't just say hulls) are fine and good too. but they have a limit they were designed to. a limit is a limit no matter what the owner wants nature has its own design that no matter how we try we can't do better and when we get close its because we use natures theory in designing those materials. the corvett was the heavyest sports car around in the sixtys but it also was the only one that you could be sure of to take you to your destiney more often than not without breaking down, it could take all the pounding of the freeway and rough roads without coming apart. they used the modern materials in the way they were ment to be used and then some.