Comments interspersed.


"matt colie" wrote in message ...
Please do tell us -Oh (self ascribed) Great One

A. How can a mortal human determine that tubular spreader that has been
adequate to the purpose for eleven seasons is about to buckle in a long
column type failure when the conditions had lightened in the last two
hours?

Are you sure the spreader tube was the cause? I doubt it myself.
Not being there I'm just guessing but I'd find it hard to believe
there could be enough stress on the spreader to break it if there
were not something else that let loose first.

B. How (thirty-plus years ago - no portable ultrasonic inspection
available) does one assess the soundness of a twenty year old
formaldehyde-resorcinol joint that was closely examined as the owner had
sanded and varnished the spar three weeks before that day??

One gets rid of wooden junk after that many years. It should
have been replaced with an aluminum spar long ago. Wooden
spars, like standing rigging don't last forever. To be safe
replace wooden spars every ten to fifteen years.

C. How does a common citizen determine that there is an invisible crack
at the bottom of a finishing mark that has caused fatigue embrittlement
to an otherwise nice looking 316 stainless strap?

There are dyes available for this purpose.

This boat's
chainplates were later inspected by a professor of metallurgy in his lab
at a near-by well known university. I quote “We didn’t stand a chance.”
The professor had been on the helm at the time and was the person injured.

You should have checked them more closely
before they failed. Maybe if you had removed them
and sent them to the same lab prior to the time they
failed you could have gotten the news in time to do
something about it before the failure.

You are not totally to blame because the chainplates
were not made thick enough to begin with or they
would not have fatigued and failed. That should be
a little consolation to you.My chainplates are 3/16"
thick and 1-3/4" wide. They are as strong as the
day they were installed. You could lift the whole
boat with them.

S.Simon