On 2008-06-08 13:35:54 -0400, Bruce in alaska said:

Must be a USCG Training Base for SAR or something. Up here in Alaska,
those conditions are called "FLAT CALM".... We don't even broadcast
Wx Alerts till the Winds are over 40 KPH, or the Seas are bigger than
10 Ft. Double that for the Bering Sea..... Gulf Coast Sailers must be
pussies, wossies, or some sort of Limp Wristed Mammals.....

Local conditions matter greatly.

I've enjoyed romps in the Atlantic in 6-8' waves over 8' swells, some
of the greatest sailing I've experienced, but anything over 3' on the
Chesapeake can be life-threatening where the depth is in the 8-12'
range. Those waves are steep and come in rapidly with significant
force. "Washing Machine" starts describing the conditions, but until
you've experienced them, you really can't understand.

Sailors who have survived hurricanes at sea have been seriously spooked
by our fairly-usual summer squall lines. Luckily, they're usually short
duration, under an hour, but during that time, you're under extreme
conditions that will stress the most prepared and professional sailors.

--
Jere Lull
Xan-à-Deux -- Tanzer 28 #4 out of Tolchester, MD
Xan's pages: http://web.mac.com/jerelull/iWeb/Xan/
Our BVI trips & tips: http://homepage.mac.com/jerelull/BVI/

I certainly wish them well. The sea is a dangerous place. Sounds like the
keel ballast fell off, if they found the boat upside down. Perhap another
example of stainless used incorrectly?
Steve


wrote in message
...
Let's hope they are in the raft.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5825012.html

By JENNIFER LEAHY
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

"A sailboat participating in the Regata de Amigos race from Galveston
to Veracruz was found capsized 11 miles south of Matagorda Saturday
morning.

All six aboard the 38-foot sailboat Cynthia Woods, a Cape Fear 38R,
are missing. The missing are four students from Texas A&M-Galveston
and two university staff members, the school said.

"All aboard are experienced mariners and two are safety instructors,"
said U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Renee C. Aiello, who noted that
there was an inflatable raft on the sailboat.

Participants in the Regata de Amigos, a 630-nautical mile race, left
Galveston on Friday at about 2 p.m.

The Coast Guard received a phone call at 8:15 Saturday morning from
the emergency contact for the sailboat who said they lost
communication with the sailboat at approximately midnight.

The sailboat also missed its 8 a.m. radio check.

A Falcon jet crew located the empty sailboat and a search is under way
for the six missing people."

Fred

"Scott Sexton" wrote
Send out some prayers/good thoughts, they'll need them.

"Roger Long" wrote:
They sure will. If the later information that the boat lost its keel is
correct, the prognosis is very grim. Keel failure is the worst case
scenario, as sudden, unpredictable, and difficult to manage as a wing
breaking off an aircraft.

This was an almost-new boat. IIRC it is ~2 years old and donated to
the university sailing program last year.


There are a lot of problems with interenal encapsulated ballast keels but I
sure appreciate not worrying about 38 year old keel bolts when I'm out in
the dark.


38 YO keel bolats can be pulled & replaced. Have you considered adding
a layer or two of glass over you keel, especially around the more-
highly-stressed garboard area?

Fresh Breezes- Doug King

"Roger Long" wrote:
I don't have keel bolts.

Yes, I gathered that when you said you had an encapsulated keel


... My ballast is encapsulated (see my post on
encapsulation).


I did

My suggestion that "38 year old keel bolts can be replaced" was a
suggestion that it is needless to worry about keelbolts even if you
have them.


Yes keel bolts can be replaced and should be. If they are replaced because
X-ray shows that they are necked down and need replacement, there is a good
chance they will break off at the keel/hull joint and then you'll be faced
with drilling new ones.

Yep. Is major PITA

... The best tactic is to replace them frequently while
sound enough to be pulled but almost no one does that.

Stainless steel keel bolts are death.


How about Monel?

Fresh Breezes- Doug King

On Mon, 9 Jun 2008 16:10:39 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

....
Stainless steel keel bolts are death.


How about Monel?

Fresh Breezes- Doug King

Durable, if you can pay the $$$s

Brian W

"Richard Casady" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 7 Jun 2008 20:38:04 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

"A sailboat participating in the Regata de Amigos race from Galveston
to Veracruz was found capsized 11 miles south of Matagorda Saturday
morning.

Amazing thing is that it didn't sink. I am sure it would have, had
there been much in the way of waves.

Casady

A yacht called Moquini, a Fast 42, lost its keel just south of Madagascar a
couple of years ago. It was found several months later about 500 nm off the
South African coast. Uupside down with a huge hole where the keel had
dropped off, but very much afloat. It had drifted about 800 nm. Sadly, the
crew was never found. http://www.sailr.com/news35939.html
J

On Jun 10, 8:44*am, wrote:
On Tue, 10 Jun 2008 07:19:44 -0400, "Roger Long"

wrote:
I can tell that you are not an engineer. *Are you familiar with those
pictures of stainless steel shafts that have had a rubber band put around
them and immersed in salt water? *That's what can happen at the keel hull
joint if it is not kept watertight and there is no joint on a boat harder to
keep tight.

Do you have any good tips on how to keep the dust bunnies out of my
bilge? If I could keep out the dust bunnies, I'd feel more comfortable
about storing fresh bread wrapped in a paper napkin down there.

Just out of curiosity, what kind of boat are we talking about here? *I
haven't seen many bolted keel installations with structural glass backup.

I don't think of the epoxy/glass as "backup". It was also not original
to the boat when manufactured. The keel is held on three ways. There
are 6 bolts. The keel is bonded to the stub with 3m5200, and the
outside is wrapped and epoxied. You can remove the bolts and the
fiberglass and still have a very hard time removing the keel. I tend
to think of all three elements as backup for each other. No single one
alone would be enough to satisfy me that it was secure.

If it really is structural as you say, stainless steel bolts would be OK but
there would also be no reason not to use plain double dipped galvanized with
cast iron or bronze with lead.

They used what they used. Who knows why...

BTW, I have nothing against bolted keels and have designed a few myself.
I'd probably use a bolted keel if built a new boat for myself. *

But, but... You said they were DEATH!

When buying
a 28 year old boat with a poorly documented maintenance history like I did,
it's nice to have encapsulated ballast.

You are right that keel failures are rare but few people drive their boats
hard.

Here's an email to someone about how my wife and I spent this past
Sunday afternoon:

We had quite an adventure yesterday (6/8/2008)on the Long Island
Sound. We got caught out in a line of severe thunder storms. Boat got
knocked down twice while under bare poles. From the time we saw the
threatening line on the horizon, to when it hit us was less than a
half hour. I knew what I was looking at, and wasted no time getting as
prepared as possible. We immediately doused sails, donned PFD's,
clipped on, and secured everything possible. We were too far out to
make it into any port. Once it hit, trying to get into anywhere for
shelter would have been a deadly mistake. Horizontal rain so hard it
burned as it hit. I couldn't see the GPS and RADAR just inches in
front of my face. Wind gusts were in the 70+ mph range. Maybe higher.
This was later confirmed by another sailor who encountered parts of
the same storm 30 miles west of my position. His max windspeed reading
was over 57 knots. My wife reported to me during a discussion
afterwards that at one point she had the odd sensation of very hot air
blowing on one shoulder and cold air blowing on the other at the same
time. I'd guess that means we were experiencing wind sheer, and were
directly in it.

It takes an awful lot of wind power to knock this boat over sideways
with no sails up. Whenever there was a slight diminishment, and I
regained some steering ability, I headed straight out to give me more
room for the periods when we were taken wherever the wind wanted us to
go. VHF radio announcement by the CG that it was coming didn't
commence until maybe a few minutes after the first rain had already
hit us. They were also way off about how hard the gusts were inside
the cells. It was actually a string of cells. We encountered two of
them, the second being worse than the first. That's when we got
knocked down. There was no way to escape them at 5 knots. I could see
them clearly on the RADAR. They came rolling up the Sound like that
famous stone ball in Indiana Jones, except there was a bunch of them.
One person was killed by lightning and several injured on a beach just
a few miles northeast of our position at Hammonassett Beach. They were
under a pavilion. Heard panicked pan-pans and maydays on the radio
during lulls when I could hear it at all. Haven't seen any reports yet
of boats sinking or on the rocks, but it wouldn't surprise me. Some
small boats may not be reported missing until someone on land realizes
they didn't show up for work or whatever. In over 45 years of sailing
on the LIS, I've been caught in some bad weather before, but this was
exceptional. Taking half a day off today to go down, dry out the sails
better, and and straighten out the boat.

Racing boats usually become uncompeditive long before keel bolts
reach a critical age. *When you sail hard, as I do, the rig is enough to
worry about. *Not having to think about keel bolts, even not a statistically
significant worry, just makes watching the boat working hard a bit more
enjoyable.

I apparently stress test my boat occasionally as well. :')

Keel bolts was something I didn't worry about at all.

Nice story salty, thanks for sharing. What were sea conditions like?

Fred

On Jun 10, 4:19 am, "Roger Long" wrote:
....
You are right that keel failures are rare but few people drive their boats
hard. Racing boats usually become uncompeditive long before keel bolts
reach a critical age. When you sail hard, as I do, the rig is enough to
worry about. ...

Well, folks have been bolting ballast to the outside of keels on a
regular basis since like the 19th century. Many boats with external
ballast have been driven very hard even in their old age. The retired
IOR racer is a popular class of cruising boat on the Pacific circuit.
Bolt on fin keels are the norm for them. Folks run them aground, sail
them in the Souther Ocean and the like. You sail your boat hard, but
trust me, lots of other folks sail their boats at least as hard and
put many more hours on them. For instance, I recently got an note
from a couple who are heading back up to the islands after their
seventh trip to Tasmania (that's 14 crossings of the Bass Straight).
They've been cruising their old IOR warhorse hard in tough conditions
many weeks a year for 20 plus years. They're both ex-racers and they
always push pretty hard. It just so happens that they are friends of
mine so I'm aware of what they do, but there are hundreds of other
folks out there quietly doing similarly hard sailing. AFIK,
catastrophic keel bolt failure is very rare. I know of many more rig
failures and injuries and deaths resulting from them than keel
failures.

Not having to think about keel bolts, even not a statistically
significant worry, just makes watching the boat working hard a bit more
enjoyable.

Which is cool. But it's kind of like saying, "I wont drive a front
wheel drive car because CV joints are prone to failure and I don't
want to have to worry about that..." That's aesthetics not risk
analysis.

-- Tom.

On Jun 10, 5:26 am, "Roger Long" wrote:
....
... I seen enough "easy riders" that I'm sure
it skews the keel failure statistics to the point that they are not a true
reflection of the fleet wide state of keel bolts. ...

Fair enough. I don't know that anyone is keeping score and I'm not
sure that the population of keel bolt failures is big enough to
produce meaningful statistics any case.

Unless you are in the
insurance business, it's only the condition of the bolts of the boat you are
on that are important. ...

Hmmm... I can't agree with that, but for sure the only one's you're
likely to be able to do anything about are your own.

-- Tom.

On Tue, 10 Jun 2008 10:39:40 -0400, "Roger Long"
wrote:

The oxygen in this region
of stagnant water was not replenished fast enough to keep the surface of the
stainless intact and crevice corrosion started.

I have a text published by Babcock and Wilcox titled 'Steam'. I got
the impression reading it that boiler water should be oxygen free. The
things are made of plain carbon steel.

Casady