ANOTHER MAJOR KEEL FAILURE: What Really Happened to Polina Star III?

[dunedin]

Please find the latest update on Polina Star III here

It is great to see Oyster responding with a much fuller statement on this concerning incident, thanks
(perhaps in part due to these threads, on a website used by many of the UKs yacht owners).

This must be a great reassurance to most current and prospective owners and/or crew of other models of Oyster.

In due course it may also be helpful if Oyster can respond to the suggestion raised in some reports and photos that the skin in some areas of the keel housing was just 15mm thick. This has certainly caused surprise to many

 

[FWB]

Of course I am aware of some instances where there was a grounding and the keel subsequently fell off, but not immediately.


And once again, I am unaware of a normal (non-racer) boat that has immediately lost its keel upon impact with something. Can you point us to an example?.

Yes POLBREAM
http://www.yachtingmonthly.com/specials/sailing-100-miles-without-a-keel-30486
Mind you it stayed upright, even sailed a further 100 miles.

 

[dunedin]

A new build process. 3 out 4 boats using that process rebuilt, 1 out of 4 boats sunk, and now abandoning that process from boat 5 onwards. Sounds like a pretty good admission that "we f***ed up" to me.

Alternatively, on the positive side, if there is a clear understanding of the cause of the accident and this is truly limited to only 3 or 4 boats, then this would both narrow the risk to other boats and to financial loss. Sounds like more stages to go in the investigation, but a known fault is much better and easier to resolve than an unknown one.

 

[30boat]

What looks like a pretty comprehensive response has just been put out by Oyster

http://www.oysteryachts.com/breaking_news/304/Update-on-Polina-Star-III-Southampton-08-December-2015/

It's light on specific technical detail, but the bottom line appears to be that they found a possible build process defect on the sisterships and have corrected it, and will be reverting to a process used on their other boats.

Good move.

 

[Sailfree]

I didn't see any evidence of an inner hull.Only stringers.

Thanks corrected post to read inner grid structure instead of inner hull

 

[dunedin]

For those of us who actually subscribe to our hosts magazine ........

Can anybody find ANY reference to the Polina Star story in Yachting Monthly magazine.

There have been lots of other news items of boat incidents (eg the unfortunate whose boat sunk under tow), but I could not find any reference to this hugely relevant news story.
Can anybody else locate any article in the last few months ?

If not I would appreciate Kieran Flatt's explanation as to why. Does seem rather odd

What about the other rags - PBO and Yachting World. Have they covered this story.?

 

[sarabande]

Having read numerous post-incident forensic reports in my former life, I note a couple of lines in the Oyster statement.

"Regrettably, the challenging salvage operations for Polina Star III was such that much of the structure was damaged during the recovery of the yacht and hence at this stage we are not able to confirm whether this possible weakness is related to the loss of the vessel."

They could start with the factory's engineering drawings, I suppose.

 

[sailorman]

For those of us who actually subscribe to our hosts magazine ........

Can anybody find ANY reference to the Polina Star story in Yachting Monthly magazine.

There have been lots of other news items of boat incidents (eg the unfortunate whose boat sunk under tow), but I could not find any reference to this hugely relevant news story.
Can anybody else locate any article in the last few months ?

If not I would appreciate Kieran Flatt's explanation as to why. Does seem rather odd

What about the other rags - PBO and Yachting World. Have they covered this story.?

Have you read this link. its a tad out of date since the Oyster press release

http://wavetrain.net/news-a-views/7...ilure-what-really-happened-to-polina-star-iii

 

[Capt Popeye]

For those of us who actually subscribe to our hosts magazine ........

Can anybody find ANY reference to the Polina Star story in Yachting Monthly magazine.

There have been lots of other news items of boat incidents (eg the unfortunate whose boat sunk under tow), but I could not find any reference to this hugely relevant news story.
Can anybody else locate any article in the last few months ?

If not I would appreciate Kieran Flatt's explanation as to why. Does seem rather odd

What about the other rags - PBO and Yachting World. Have they covered this story.?

Humm, understand from a 'search' that the August issue of Yachting World covered the story, but have no idea what was published.
Hope that it helps?

 

[KristiferColumbus]

The wall thickness around that keel joint looks far to thin to me.I'd be surprised if mines less than that & it's about a third the size!

 

[Koeketiene]

For those of us who actually subscribe to our hosts magazine ........

Can anybody find ANY reference to the Polina Star story in Yachting Monthly magazine.

There have been lots of other news items of boat incidents (eg the unfortunate whose boat sunk under tow), but I could not find any reference to this hugely relevant news story.
Can anybody else locate any article in the last few months ?

If not I would appreciate Kieran Flatt's explanation as to why. Does seem rather odd

What about the other rags - PBO and Yachting World. Have they covered this story.?

Don't hold your breadth - our intrepid hosts don't do real journalism very well.
Far easier to just reprint RNLI/marina operators/manufacturers/... press releases.

Still awaiting some in depth coverage of the Peters Opal bankruptcy.

 

[Ceirwan]

They could start with the factory's engineering drawings, I suppose.

I think what they're saying is that the defect would be present (as it was on all these boats until the process was changed), but they can't empirically say 100% that was the cause of this failure given the condition the hull was in when recovered.

 

[Tranona]

.

Still awaiting some in depth coverage of the Peters Opal bankruptcy.

Well covered at the time and a transcript of the court case around the most contentious issue was widely circulated including on here. Given that it clarified an important part of Trust law it was also widely publicised on legal information sites. There was also a long article in YM on the impact on brokers' practices and the changes to the requirements of client trust accounts to take note of the judgement.

Sorry you seemed to have missed all that.

 

[dunedin]

For those of us who actually subscribe to our hosts magazine ........

Can anybody find ANY reference to the Polina Star story in Yachting Monthly magazine.

There have been lots of other news items of boat incidents (eg the unfortunate whose boat sunk under tow), but I could not find any reference to this hugely relevant news story.
Can anybody else locate any article in the last few months ?

If not I would appreciate Kieran Flatt's explanation as to why. Does seem rather odd

What about the other rags - PBO and Yachting World. Have they covered this story.?

So in the absence of anybody else finding a reference to this in YM, it does appear that Yachting a monthly have been determinedly looking the other direction to avoid writing anything about this hugely newsworthy incident

I would appreciate a YM staff (or better editor if he ever frequents here) comment on this apparent blindness !

 

[dunedin]

Humm, understand from a 'search' that the August issue of Yachting World covered the story, but have no idea what was published.
Hope that it helps?

Couldn't immediately find anything in the August Yachting World issue - but as I was looking the digital version of January Yachting World arrived and I see it has a minor (one column) report on Polina Star. Largely looks like a reflection of the latest Oyster statement. Only extra info was being definitive that not related to the extended hull - which is stated to be a regular option allowed for in the build moulds.
Absolutely nothing in the YM this month

 

[Barbican]

What about the other rags - PBO and Yachting World. Have they covered this story.?

Can't recall it in PBO or YM, but it is in YW (Jan) and ST (Oct Dec)

Although Oyster have made their statement it will be interesting to see if anything filters out from the insurance company/owner, so perhaps they are waiting......

OOOOOh, you type quicker than me!

 

[Seajet]

I think we as Joe Public have seen all we're going to for a while, we've asked the relevant questions - as far as we can tell - and one can't blame Oyster for being a little cagey, at least they've come on here which in my experience of much larger outfits and fatal accidents is commendable.

Likewise, Yottin Munfly and Time have businesses to run, they are not ' Private Eye ' .

 

[Koeketiene]

Likewise, Yottin Munfly and Time have businesses to run, they are not ' Private Eye ' .

Is Private Eye a charity?

 

[Seajet]

Is Private Eye a charity?

Funnily enough no, Private Eye features investigative journalism by a magazine which does not have to rely on advertising revenue from the people it may upset.

You should try it, it's very amusing and informative.

 

[Richard Shead]

Whilst it's newsworthy it's more YW territory than YM given the size of the boat. Hence YW covering it and YM not. But I am not the Editor so cannot answer on his behalf.