Bart Senior wrote:
You have to be joking Bjarke! Even in racing boats,
keel bolts have backing plates. This is an obvious
error in construction and reveal serious quality control
and perhaps also a design problem.

I agree, it was such a silly comment I thought it better not
to respond. "It happens every day on performance boats" !!!

One of the bizarre outcomes of this incident was the
response of Bavaria Yachts who tried to initially claim the
yacht had hit a rock - since disproved - a panic damage
limitation exercise. All over the world, this model is being
modified to strengthen the keel mountings. But the
disquieting thing is of a company that lets such apparent
design and quality assurance failures out of the factory
door and its implication on the quality of other models,
perhaps unfairly. I hope so, judging by the vast masses of
charter boats out there from this company. Especially in the
Adriatic where this incident happened and where I also keep
my boat, which is what stimulated my interest as I see so
many there.

A damning preliminary survey report by the German marine
surveyors Zucker & Partners is here (in German):
http://www.adriatic-challenge.com/ne...survey-new.pdf
And a rebuttal by Bavaria Yachts (in English) is he
http://www.sailing.hu/files/pressrelease42m_4.pdf
And the response to that from the charter company
responsible for the regatta is here (in English):
http://www.adriatic-challenge.com/news.php?news=16

A further preliminary survey by a Croatian consultancy (in
English) with some very revealing photographs is he
http://www.adriatic-challenge.com/ne...cro-survey.pdf

BrianH.



"Bjarke Christensen" (nej,

But this is a MATCH. It's designed for performance over security, quality
and cost. It happens "every day" on performance boats. Just looking at the
keel design you can tell it's not the designed to last nor to blue water
sailing.


"BrianH" wrote

http://www.sailing.hu/files/82/82558_640x480.jpg
Here's a picture of a Bavaria Match 42 keel .....
Full photo set at:
http://www.sailing.hu/galeriak/verse...ira_mare_kupa/

Report in English at:
http://team.sailing.hu/Accident%20in%20Croatia.pdf

HTH.

"BrianH" wrote in message
...
Bart Senior wrote:
You have to be joking Bjarke! Even in racing boats,
keel bolts have backing plates. This is an obvious
error in construction and reveal serious quality control
and perhaps also a design problem.

I agree, it was such a silly comment I thought it better not
to respond. "It happens every day on performance boats" !!!

One of the bizarre outcomes of this incident was the
response of Bavaria Yachts who tried to initially claim the
yacht had hit a rock - since disproved - a panic damage
limitation exercise. All over the world, this model is being
modified to strengthen the keel mountings. But the
disquieting thing is of a company that lets such apparent
design and quality assurance failures out of the factory
door and its implication on the quality of other models,
perhaps unfairly. I hope so, judging by the vast masses of
charter boats out there from this company. Especially in the
Adriatic where this incident happened and where I also keep
my boat, which is what stimulated my interest as I see so
many there.

A damning preliminary survey report by the German marine
surveyors Zucker & Partners is here (in German):
http://www.adriatic-challenge.com/ne...survey-new.pdf
And a rebuttal by Bavaria Yachts (in English) is he
http://www.sailing.hu/files/pressrelease42m_4.pdf
And the response to that from the charter company
responsible for the regatta is here (in English):
http://www.adriatic-challenge.com/news.php?news=16

A further preliminary survey by a Croatian consultancy (in
English) with some very revealing photographs is he
http://www.adriatic-challenge.com/ne...cro-survey.pdf

BrianH.



"Bjarke Christensen" (nej,

But this is a MATCH. It's designed for performance over security,
quality
and cost. It happens "every day" on performance boats. Just looking at
the
keel design you can tell it's not the designed to last nor to blue water
sailing.


"BrianH" wrote

http://www.sailing.hu/files/82/82558_640x480.jpg
Here's a picture of a Bavaria Match 42 keel .....
Full photo set at:
http://www.sailing.hu/galeriak/verse...ira_mare_kupa/

Report in English at:
http://team.sailing.hu/Accident%20in%20Croatia.pdf

HTH.





What I can't get over is how few bolts the Bavaria keels are held on by,
especially given the size of boat/keel.

My little Foxcub has _10_ keel bolts!!!

I'd trust my little boat (17'6") over a big Bavaria any day, thanks.

Christine

I think "peter" was referring to blisters. Always a hot topic.
MMC
"Adrian Smith" wrote in message
...
"peter" wrote in message
ups.com...
Graham Frankland wrote:

a good 10-20 year old Hallberg Rassey, Contest, Rival, Westerly, Moody
etc. may
have a few blisters but will still be stronger than many brand new
popular
EU production line boats are today.

Oh no, here we go again :-)
Nobody mention the 'B' word...


Are we saying that modern EU production line boats are not as strong as
the
ones made in 'the good old days' when things was done proper:-)

I'm new here, but if the 'B' word is Beneteau. How strong and what is the
durability of their hulls?

--
Adrian Smith

David Balfour wrote:

I was interested to see the wreck of a Joint Services Victoria 34 (Ensis) in
Cherbourg last year.

I spotted that too. Full of shingle. Any idea what happened??? Did you
spot the steel boats nearby? Suffered massive impact but still bent but
sailable.

I was interested to see the wreck of a Joint Services Victoria 34 (Ensis)
in
Cherbourg last year.

I spotted that too. Full of shingle. Any idea what happened??? Did you
spot the steel boats nearby? Suffered massive impact but still bent but
sailable.


Yes I did see her - a similar thing happened once to my dad with his steel
boat. Somebody hit her hard whilst she was unattended on a mooring. Made a
right mess but because she only bent she didn't sink. He's pretty sure any
wood/GRP boat would have been lost. Never found out who did it either.

A story goes that Ensis was trying to get into Cherbourg in poor visibility
and missed, hitting the rocks on the shore. They didn't know what they'd hit
and abandoned ship to the liferaft but pretty quickly realised they could
stand up. I imagine somebody got her out quite sharpish, but there were a
lot of bits missing when I saw her in June.

There was a sleeping bag right by the hole - the guy in that must have had
quite a fright!

"Christine Sheffield" wrote in message
...

"BrianH" wrote in message
...
Bart Senior wrote:
You have to be joking Bjarke! Even in racing boats,
keel bolts have backing plates. This is an obvious
error in construction and reveal serious quality control
and perhaps also a design problem.

I agree, it was such a silly comment I thought it better not
to respond. "It happens every day on performance boats" !!!

One of the bizarre outcomes of this incident was the
response of Bavaria Yachts who tried to initially claim the
yacht had hit a rock - since disproved - a panic damage
limitation exercise. All over the world, this model is being
modified to strengthen the keel mountings. But the
disquieting thing is of a company that lets such apparent
design and quality assurance failures out of the factory
door and its implication on the quality of other models,
perhaps unfairly. I hope so, judging by the vast masses of
charter boats out there from this company. Especially in the
Adriatic where this incident happened and where I also keep
my boat, which is what stimulated my interest as I see so
many there.

A damning preliminary survey report by the German marine
surveyors Zucker & Partners is here (in German):
http://www.adriatic-challenge.com/ne...survey-new.pdf
And a rebuttal by Bavaria Yachts (in English) is he
http://www.sailing.hu/files/pressrelease42m_4.pdf
And the response to that from the charter company
responsible for the regatta is here (in English):
http://www.adriatic-challenge.com/news.php?news=16

A further preliminary survey by a Croatian consultancy (in
English) with some very revealing photographs is he
http://www.adriatic-challenge.com/ne...cro-survey.pdf

BrianH.



"Bjarke Christensen" (nej,

But this is a MATCH. It's designed for performance over security,
quality
and cost. It happens "every day" on performance boats. Just looking at
the
keel design you can tell it's not the designed to last nor to blue
water
sailing.


"BrianH" wrote

http://www.sailing.hu/files/82/82558_640x480.jpg
Here's a picture of a Bavaria Match 42 keel .....
Full photo set at:
http://www.sailing.hu/galeriak/verse...ira_mare_kupa/

Report in English at:
http://team.sailing.hu/Accident%20in%20Croatia.pdf

HTH.





What I can't get over is how few bolts the Bavaria keels are held on by,
especially given the size of boat/keel.

My little Foxcub has _10_ keel bolts!!!

I'd trust my little boat (17'6") over a big Bavaria any day, thanks.

Christine


The bolts in the Bavaria are probably a fair bit thicker than the ones in
your Foxcub.

The bolting and backing plates look OK to me. It seems the problem is that
the hull was simply not thick enough to withstand the stresses involved.
There is a nice square hole where one of the backing plates was located so
the bolts didn't let go of the hull. The hull let go of the boat.

wrote:
I fly glassfibre aircraft, sailplanes actually - structure lifespan is
a topic of interest when you are at 20 000' above ground level flying
at 200 kph plus and the outside air temperature is below -15 degrees
Celcius.


It's of great interest if you're sailing farther away from
shore than you can swim... or in some cases, wade...


The technical body that co-ordinates the efforts of a lot of research
and development around sailplanes ( OSTIV ) recently published a rather
reassuring article giving an estimated service lifespan of a glassfibre
sailplane of around half a million flying hours. and that was with a
safety factor of at least 1 order of magnitude.

Although yacht hulls are stressed by rigging and water loads I suspect
that the stresses involved ( in a normal cruising boat ) are somewhat
less than experienced by an aircraft structure.

I disagree. In fact I'd suggest that since yachts experience
structural failure more often, they are more highly loaded.
Also they experience greater load transients . (AFAIK... it
may be that aircraft experience more structural failures
that I don't hear about).

Think about how your airplane would react if you picked it
up & dropped it 10 or 20 feet (3 ~ 6 meters) three times a
minute, at varying angles, for several days.

..... The wings on my 25m
span Nimbus regularly deflect by a metre or so in normal flight. Even
using the same figure of half a million hours one gets 47 odd years of
'use', not just sitting in a berth.


I'd be willing to bet that this is well within the range of
unrelieved strain (ie does not accumulate fatigue) and the
wing is designed for this much deflection. Sailboats have to
be a good bit more rigid... I'm guessing that parts of the
plane are too, like for example how much does the fuselage
flex & deflect when you put on some rudder?


I would say that for all intents and purposes the useable lifespan of a
'well built' glassfibre hull is probably in the order of several
hundred years with only minimal attention to care.


'minimal attention to care' is the real killer in cases
where lack of maintenance allows water penetration into
coring, or increases UV exposure.


Of course if you insist on building a hull only millimetres thick out
of Nomex, Kevlar, Carbon and other exotics, sail it in across Biscay in
a gale with only one hull of three in the water and driving through 5m
high swells then 'all bets are off' and you may well run into
mechanical limits of the structure.


Could happen in planes too. And parachutes are cheaper than
ocean rescues

Fresh Breezes- Doug King

Sorry, if it's was a bit over-populistic. What I had in mind was just that
25% of the boats in the Challenge, Volvo Ocean race and so on are facing
equipment problem. - and we don't judge these bad quality. Just "high tech".

No doubt that Bavaria 42 Match has a problem. - and thereby Bavaria as such

Sorry for the customers that spend money on these. I guess it will be hard
to get a good price on a used 42 Match without extensive, and expensive,
improvements to the hull.

I'm not especially fund of Bavaria. I just think I should counterbalance the
little group of sailors that seems to think that onle ineffective,
non-computerised oldfashioned work is "good quality".

Remember the definition of "good qulity": That is when you get exactly what
you expect. Good or bad.

Bjarke

"Christine Sheffield" wrote in message
...

"BrianH" wrote in message
...
Bart Senior wrote:
You have to be joking Bjarke! Even in racing boats,
keel bolts have backing plates. This is an obvious
error in construction and reveal serious quality control
and perhaps also a design problem.

I agree, it was such a silly comment I thought it better not
to respond. "It happens every day on performance boats" !!!

snip

"DSK" wrote in message
...
wrote:
I fly glassfibre aircraft, sailplanes actually - structure
lifespan is
a topic of interest when you are at 20 000' above ground level
flying
at 200 kph plus and the outside air temperature is below -15
degrees
Celcius.

Hmm. And some airliners fly at 500kts at 40 000' in -40C

the test is how well an airplane survives going through a Cumulo
Nimbus Cloud -

and development around sailplanes ( OSTIV ) recently published
a rather
reassuring article giving an estimated service lifespan of a
glassfibre
sailplane of around half a million flying hours. and that was
with a
safety factor of at least 1 order of magnitude.

the requirement for a civil aircraft is not to cause more than 1
death in every 1,000,000 flying hours. And, on average, that's
achieved.

Although yacht hulls are stressed by rigging and water loads I
suspect
that the stresses involved ( in a normal cruising boat ) are
somewhat
less than experienced by an aircraft structure.

I disagree. In fact I'd suggest that since yachts experience
structural failure more often, they are more highly loaded. Also
they experience greater load transients . (AFAIK... it may be
that aircraft experience more structural failures that I don't
hear about).

Think about how your airplane would react if you picked it up &
dropped it 10 or 20 feet (3 ~ 6 meters) three times a minute, at
varying angles, for several days.

Yup. Just like flying through a Cu Nim. Only for an hour or so
though. Hundreds of feet. On lots of flights in its lifetime.

..... The wings on my 25m
span Nimbus regularly deflect by a metre or so in normal
flight. Even
using the same figure of half a million hours one gets 47 odd
years of
'use', not just sitting in a berth.

Watch the wings of your 747 next time you lift off. They flex
through nearly 4 metres! More in sever turbulence.

I'd be willing to bet that this is well within the range of
unrelieved strain (ie does not accumulate fatigue) and the wing
is designed for this much deflection. Sailboats have to be a
good bit more rigid... I'm guessing that parts of the plane are
too, like for example how much does the fuselage flex & deflect
when you put on some rudder?

Exactly. Airplanes are designed to absorb energy by being
incredibly flexible. Yachts are designed rigid. Bad news for
yachts, so they have to be overdesigned in strength to reduce
failures. But yacht failure isn't so critical anyway; yacht
manufacturers get away with the occasional lost keel . . . only
affects a few people.

Of course if you insist on building a hull only millimetres
thick out
of Nomex, Kevlar, Carbon and other exotics, sail it in across
Biscay in
a gale with only one hull of three in the water and driving
through 5m
high swells then 'all bets are off' and you may well run into
mechanical limits of the structure.

Some production yachts have failed in lighter circumstances - ask
Bavaria about Croatia . . .

Could happen in planes too. And parachutes are cheaper than
ocean rescues

Doubt it, there's a big industry looking after flight safety . . .

JimB

Remember the definition of "good qulity": That is when you get exactly
what you expect. Good or bad.


That's an unusual definition, are you saying that the quality of a product
is defined by the expectations of the purchaser?
Would that make a supermarket own brand cheap white loaf, quality bread ?
Have you ever read "Zen and the art of motor cycle maintenance" ?