Bad day in Anacortes

amazing, glad no one was hurt.... I'm no boat designer, but lets face it... it looked top heavy!

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Firefly625 said:
I'm no boat designer, but lets face it... it looked top heavy!
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Agreed, but Northern Marine is not exactly a yard known for building unstable vessels.
If I should pick a mobo for an ocean crossing, there are just a very few which I would choose, before those built in Anacortes - so far, at least!
And Nordhavns are not among those very few, just to put my statement in perspective.

Btw, I've seen that boat last year, during a visit to the yard. They were building her in parallel with another of similar size.
Telling that the "under the skin" construction is impressive is quite an understatement.

Very glad that nobody was hurt, that's what matter most.
 
very true, as said I'm no boat designer!

So, in this case I wonder if the yard can claim on insurance? Or, due to what looks like a almighty design miscalculation would a claim be refused (if fault identified as a design fault..), perhaps designer liability insurance would take a hammering???
 
It seems the designer noticed it was a particularly light build, so asked the builder to partially ballast before launch, then final ballast for trim in the water. Perhaps this was overlooked, or the message didn't get through to the build team?
 
You might wish to have a look at this video of the launch, which is as interesting (aside from the commentator and his dog!) as it's actually sad:
http://youtu.be/lEBJjsdTyWY
According to the first speculations on YachForums, the transom door to the e/r, apparently left opened, due to the boat going down the angle of the ramp allowed water to flood the e/r.
Surrealistic doesn't come close to describe this accident, particularly for anyone who has seen how NM boats are built.... :(
...though this wasn't one of their best vessels, arguably.
 
That video is remarkable. I've watched it several times, skipping the dog of course

I was thinking the point load of the bow dolly would be the cause, and it doesn't help, but at the point the AVS is reached the boat is mostly afloat and the bow dolly is only holding the bow 1 or 2 m above DWL. You'd surely expect more stability from the aft part of the boat that is floating

Also the AVS seems to be around 40deg from the vertical ( it is reduced somewhat by the bow dolly of course). So that does make you wonder about a door being open or something

I'll be really interested to hear the final analysis on how this happened when it becomes available
 
jfm said:
I'll be really interested to hear the final analysis on how this happened when it becomes available
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Absolutely +1.
For all we know, I would agree with your thoughts, and I'm very skeptic that insufficient pre-ballast alone can be blamed, though it might have made the situation worse IF a flooding actually took place, with a boat already listed.
Apropos, also the degree of listing which they considered acceptable to go ahead with the launch is something which I found surprising.
In the owner's boots, I would have began screaming well before they went that far....
...though NM launched some quite stunning vessels before, in the very same way, so what do I know?
 
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Yes that video is remarkable except for that dreadful little mutt. I wonder whether the initial list was caused by the wheels on one side of the trolley supporting the aft end of the boat veering off the side of the concrete launch ramp but I can't begin to explain why the boat didn't right itself after it became immersed. Is the boat water ballasted? I don't think that the open transom door was a factor because that seemed to be out of the water when the boat was on it's side. I'm also amazed that the launch wasn't stopped when the boat started to list and some safety lines attached to it, especially as there were people inside
 
Deleted User said:
I don't think that the open transom door was a factor because that seemed to be out of the water when the boat was on it's side.
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Well, I would think that IF an e/r flooding had something to see with the capsize, once the boat was listing almost 90 degrees, the water inside must have flown completely to port side, with the overall buoyancy pushing the center stern door above the w/l.
At least till she sunk deeper, but that took some time, as I understand.
I fully agree with your last comment, instead.
 
MapisM said:
For those who followed this sad story - and also for those who didn't - here's a new video of the notorious launch, that has been recently published.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zy9pzAWaNLs
Un-be-lie-va-ble.
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Blimey! Absolutely unbelievable that they could get this so wrong. She doesn't look right from the moment she started to enter the water.

Very sad day but thankfully no-one appears to have been hurt.
 
Greg2 said:
Blimey! Absolutely unbelievable that they could get this so wrong. She doesn't look right from the moment she started to enter the water.
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I go back to what I said before. The launch should have been stopped when the boat first started to list and the boat secured with heavy lines whilst the reason for the list was investigated and an alternative launch plan agreed. To continue the launch, especially with people on board, was reckless in the extreme and if this had happened in the UK, the boat builder would have been prosecuted and rightly so
 
MapisM said:
For those who followed this sad story - and also for those who didn't - here's a new video of the notorious launch, that has been recently published.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zy9pzAWaNLs
Un-be-lie-va-ble.
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Thanks MM. Yes, it really does beggar belief. Continuing after the list had started, when there was a guy inside the e/room, was reckless in the extreme
 
It's been a while since I looked at the stability report, but even properly ballasted my recollection is that she was good only to around 65 degrees before she'd turn turtle. At launch she was only partially ballasted as the launch method was such that she couldn't be at full displacement, and if you look at the tires of the launch trailer you can see why. The excuses that a wheel fell into a hole as the cause are silly, as you can plainly see her floating free as she rolls over.

When she was brought upright in slings they tried letting her go again to see if she could be floated around the corner to where she was pulled, but she wanted to immediately roll over again. Don't know whether this was due to water in tanks, shifted ballast or whatever but she had to be moved while in the slings.

A CF from the git go.
 
Delfin said:
The excuses that a wheel fell into a hole as the cause are silly, as you can plainly see her floating free as she rolls over.
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I don't know about that. In the vid at about 0.50 you can clearly see that the boat lurches suddenly and starts listing to port. As the boat is still well out of the water at that point, there has to have been some failure of the launch trolley, either the wheels slip off the launch ramp on one side or the trolley itself fails structurally. By the time the boat hits the water it is still listing to port and yes at that point the lack of roll stability ensures that it goes over

The naval architect has stated

Since the accident, the project naval architect/Professional Engineer has confirmed that the yacht, as designed, had adequate stability with the amount of ballast aboard at the time of launch, provided that “severe heeling moments” were not induced during the launch.

So it seems that the initial lurch to port which may have been caused by the failure of the launch trolley was indeed the reason that she eventually went over. Of course this absolutely begs the question as to why the yard allowed the launch to continue when they presumably knew that a 'severe heeling moment' during the launch was going to put the boat in danger of rolling

Yup a complete f*** up

Anyone know what happened to the boat afterwards? Was she repaired, were any major changes to the weight distribution made and did the buyer agree to take delivery of her? What about Northern Marine? Are they still in business?
 
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