another reason to love a Pearson yacht

[carl291]

This is a sad ending to 4 lives, not much holding a keel to this 40 footer. Evidently capsized before they could free the liferaft.

[ebb]

goggle
Four dead, one missing, after catamaran capsizes in Mediterranean

Suppose that's a catamaran upside down on a beach. But it looks like a SLICE, rather than remains of a whole boat. Terrible trajedy, probably didn't have to take lives. But there's no way to know the circumstances. Sad.:(

[carl291]

No ebb, this is four dead in Atlantic after going missing returning from Antiqua to Britain after sail week. Four Brits,Two in their 20s, two in their 50s. Just found the yacht 5/23, missing since 5/14.
Got it from the BBC website.

[ebb]

www.wbur.org/2014/05/23/coast-guard-hull-of-missing-british-yacht-found/
A US Navy warship found an overturned hull with a 'breach where the keel had been.'
It was the 39' Cheeki Rafiki. A Navy swimmer found the cabin completely flooded (no air pockets) and windows shattered.
Missing are Capt Andrew Bridge, 22.. Crew: James Male, 23 - Steve Warren. 52, and Paul Goslin, 56.

The search was abandoned and an armada of 40 or more yachts headed for the area, 1000 miles off the US coast, mid Atlantic.
The yacht was again found, I believe by the same warship.
Look into the blog at www.wavetrain.net/news-a-views/591-cheeki-rafiki-/
CHEEKI RAFIKI: Hull Found Again, Post Mortem. We finally discover the hull is from a Beneteau First 40.7.
Close up photos of the keel area show what appears to be REMAINS OF THREE RUSTY KEEL BOLTS, centered along the headprint of the keel.

Actually, it's SIX rusty bolts seen in the revealing photo of the bolt pattern inside the cabin. Any casual builder can see there should have been at least three or more wider apart pairs of fasteners.....to take stresses of LEVERED side loads on a keel. A sudden side load obviously snapped off the keel.
The flat of the keel head lifting as a lever on the leeside of the force, creating the breaking moment of the bolts. It is/was fastened thru the center of a stamped jelly-mold pan that looks unconnected to the hull framing (if there is framing in these boats.) Agree 100% with the writer's assessment (Charles Doane.) No spread to the fasteners, and probably 304 allthread bolts work-hardened from regular keel movement, was the cause of the accident.....NOT THE WEATHER.

BRUCE FARR FIRST BENETEAU 40.7
Turns out this boat is a 'high production volume off shore yacht not designed for ocean passage' as someone emailed. 800 were sold.
One of those phatarsed regatta racers you see photographed with 24 legs hanging off the windward sheer. This one is said to have been a charter.
'Charter boats run aground all the time, which always goes unreported. This activity weakens the keel. All 40.7's run aground and have weak keels.' ...from commentary....
It's more probable that competent skippers keep these boats going as long as they do, despite their feeble quality and suspicious keel engineering.

If they didn't do it, the guys should have had the boat surveyed before leaving. Crack, or caulk-in-crack, between hull & keel would have been noted.
As often done seasonally when these boats are raced, keel bolts get changed out for new ones. In the keel-pan photo, we are looking at ¿5/8" NUTS.
Maybe the keel bolts are embedded and can't be replaced on a 40.7? ......A little something about metal fatique, brittleness & corrosion.

However, if that 6,000lb keel really is held on by six center-line bolts, THAT is the most incompetent, bonehead, inept, unprofessional design
imaginable. AND it is un-imaginable, not possible, that the keel is designed to connect with the hull by fasteners in tension.
Isn't that the first law of engineering that you cannot do that in design? If this is true, the designer is responsible, imco, for the accident.
Persistent water leaks entered here. The Beneteau First 40.7 KEEL TO HULL JOIN IS DESIGNED TO FAIL. 800 of these time-bombs were produced.
►Last radio contact with Cheeki Rafiki reported they were taking on water, but not to worry, they had it under control...... ◄

Sailing Anarcy on the 40.7: 'wet boat, water sloshing around teacup sized bilge, starved vacuum layup (un-resined glass), flimsy soft areas, flimsy rudder tube, etc.' Also, some good words: 'a fun boat.' Consensus seems to be that 40.7's are too anemic to be driven across an ocean, given their light construction.... they are 'long in the tooth' now at only 10 to 15 years old. Tired and prematurely aged fiberglass boats.

The liferaft was phographed underwater still fastened to the deck.
That means the ballast keel suddenly snapped and all hell broke loose. There is no report of any part of the rig still with the hull. The rig, too,
probably snapped off. Overturned hull shows double rudders, spec drawings seem to show only one....?
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On the ALBERG 37 YAWL Mk II site is Alberg's famous Fastnet Race card playing quote:
"To bring home his point on seakind design, Alberg cited the example of an Alberg
35 (very similar design [to the yawl] but a longer forefoot) on its way to England in 1979 that encountered a fierce storm
off the coast of Ireland.

'It was really blowing and though they shortened sails and did everything else they could to keep going, they
eventually took everything off, went below. battened down the hatches and just ate, drank and played cards.
When it had blown over they hoisted sail and continued to England, where they were told they had just sailed through the
same gale that had taken sixteen lives in........the Fastnet Race!
They had ridden out the storm by just sitting in the cabin while everyone else was capsizing.' "


The Alberg 35 was made by Pearson exactly like Ariel/Commander 25.7. Balsa core decks that go mushy. Same ghastly
woodgrain formica on the bulkheads. It has a 24' WL, 9'6" beam, and carries 5200 lbs of lead ballast lifted into the hull
and encapsulated. Like no fasteners to go bad, at all.
The 1979 Fasnet Race I believe had 300 boats entered, 75 capsized. 15 sailers and 3 rescuers died. Many boats didn't finish.
A Contessa 32 (Sadler and Rogers) won the Race, unscathed. The disasterous race produced a 70pg document called the
'1979 Fastnet Race Inquiry'. Required study for anybody resuscitating an A/C...... and thinking about crossing an ocean.
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REAL BOATS DON'T LOOSE KEELS WHEN THEY RUN AGROUND To my knowledge this has happened at least once before
to another 40.7.
Some writers blame all 40.7 charterers and owners for running aground, weakening keels and forgetting maintenance.
Their fault for choosing a sleazy high volume production high performance boat with a sleazy keel to hull joint.
REAL BOATS DON'T LOOSE KEELS CROSSING AN OCEAN. But we do know sailing weakens the keel of a Beneteau First 40.7.
Keels will NEVER fall off commercial production sailboats. For any reason. This boat is a mad-dog.
Now FOUR GUYS HAVE BEEN KILLED.

ABYC should look into this and come up with guidelines for professional designers. And commercial brokers.
15 of these 40.7's are currently listed in yachtworld.com. 45 in the euro yachtmarket.com $100,000 to $200,000. They
were sold to bouy barons for $300,000 sailaway. CruisingWorld calls them a family boat. PracticalSailor was gooey eyed.
Homicidal boats should be removed from the market. This is about cheap design producing a throw away boat.
Or Beneteau should RECALL and fix them. Fat chance on fixing trash ..........THEY OUGHT TO BE DESTROYED.........

CHEEKI RAFIKI BENETEAU FIRST 40.7 - LOST IT'S KEEL BECAUSE THE KEEL DOES NOT ATTACH TO THE HULL CORRECTLY.
THE BLAME BELONGS ENTIRELY WITH THE DESIGNER & BENETEAU......
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This rant is IMCO. We'll see how the principals react to the tragedy, whether they'll take responsibity, or blame it on sailors and the sport.

[ebb]

What is defined as 'low cost production' in a $300,000 upper middleclass toy?

300,000 X 800 mutiplies out to a 240 million dollar business for this one boat.
Who gets what cut in this is obviously moot. With this mass of money, in my
opinion, Beneteau & Co had 800 opportunities to work out the problem of how
to BEST attach external ballast to a fiberglass boat. No doubt they saw the writing
on the keel. They saw the keel interface as a possible disaster yet choose to
wait it out until the impossible happened to Cheeki Rafiki.

Now the Bruce Farr Beneteau First 40.7 is jinxed. They aren't so much fun any
more, because now we know the 40.7's don't bring the boys and girls home.

It's not as if an engineer couldn't demonstrate to the yacht designer that what
others have tired and failed at might happen again. You don't just pin a great
weight, with great side loads, to the bottom of a plastic laminate.
This is poor design. That it remained unresolved for 800 copies shows that the
safety of the performers comes in second to making profit.
All that high performance fun on a deliberately compromised cut cost platform.
There's danger to spike the thrill. Danger on this macihine has proven deadly.

I'm not a yacht designer. Have no training in engineering. But some practical
solutions are so obvious that it is impossible not to believe that perpetrators of
bad design don't see the better way too.
You don't just attach a three ton keel to a boat like it's a hand rail.
You add $30,000 to the $300,000 and do it right, for crying out loud!

It's obvious to me that you bury a certain number of inches of the whole top
of the cast keel into the bottom of the boat, you don't just slap it on the surface
You give the keel some ROOT. Structure. Not just plates or rods.*
While doing this, you truss the framing for loads expected along the bottom
and up to the sheer. This is why retro fitting a 40.7 can't really be done. Should
have been done at the out set. Plans show a cabin table over the keel in the 40.7.
Enough extra framing could have been designed in, as well as the keel given
plenty of inboard bury to be bonded properly to the hull.

An external keel breaking off a boat is just as catastrophic as an embedded keel
tearing apart the fiberglass bottom in a grounding. Assuming the lead is hard
fastened to stringers that make up the framing of the hull. There's always going
to be one over-whelming side load or rock that's will tear the bottom out.

However, I imagine the keel head can be brought up into a form-fit waterproof box,
or housing - the box fastened to floors & stringers & engineered load spreading
reinforcements, but also bearing the lead or cast iron in a ring or collar of hard
rubber that will muffle the shock of side loads and groundings. Some of it.
Not suggesting gun-grade goop but actual O-ring type rubber that might be
replaced at intervals with the keel completely mechanically removed & replaced.
Everything must have been tried at one time. But the keel could be conceived to
move just slightly enough to slip shocks and curb breaking.
Bolts, rod fasteners or plates go sideways thru the box housing and the keel head.

This is fantasy. But only until something like it has been tried and proven feasible.
Or not...... And used to move forward toward a really secure external keel.
Or far safer than what Beneteau sells for $300,000.
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*http://www.sailmagazine.com/boatworks/why-do-fin-keels-fail/ KEEP YOUR KEEL ON.
SAIL in this essay shows with diagrams why 'traditional' keel-bolt designs fail.
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http://www.sailnet.com/forums/sailboat-design-construction/ ENCAPSULATED KEEL?
Forum menu pg3, 5/22/2013 - 42 posts - A year old interesting discussion
- includes posts by BobPerry.
Integral or external keels, if done right, shouldn't be a problem at all.

FARR DESIGNS FOR OCEAN CRUISING - pg17 menu - 11/15/2008, 31 posts.

Comments, anyone?
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ARIEL ENCAPSULATED BALLAST PROB.
Proponents of external keels point out that if you grind a hole thru the hull in the
area of an encapsulated ballast keel, you'd very possibly have no way of keeping
the water out. This was the case with A338 where the ballast was not isolated
completely from the bilge. A rip or puncture in the hull in the area of the not
completely encapsulated ballast compartment will produce a LEAK in the sump
WITH NO WAY TO STOP IT.
Anybody going offshore should make sure the ballast is fully enclosed.
While the one or two existing layers of roving over the 2500lb chunk of lead may
have been adequate to keep the ballast from shifting and coming loose, the lead
itself is not a snug fit.
About 6 gal of epoxy was injected into A338 in an attempt to fill up the spaces
around the ballast with solid plastic. Imco, a solid upgrade.

Also, if the A/C ever gets pitchpoled or rolled, you'll be mighty glad you layered
extra fabric over the ballast & up the bilge sides above the cabin sole to insure
that irresistable weight stays put.

[carl291]

Ebb, excellent points, It appears what is not obvious to the bean counters and engineers is very obvious to anyone who has messed about boats in the backyard of their home or marina. Rust stains?? prove culpability to me.