Bavaria 39 loses keel

[spannerman]

Thats why I strongly urge anyone buying a boat from us to have a depth sounder if nothing else, the coastal waters here are strewn with shoals and submerged rocks. A Fairline 58 went down two days ago near Arendal on the south coast on its delivery cruise with two 'qualified' skippers onboard, they blamed the electronics, but turns out they were belting along at night in unfamiliar waters (sound familiar, the cruiser recently lost on the UK south coast) their liferaft was U/S and they were sinking in it as the lifeboat arrived, the £1.2 mill Fairline was already on the seabed, shame to see a brand new boat destroyed needlessly.
Even with the most up to date gear onboard you should always be aware of your location and hazards just in case the electronics pack up, and have paper charts to hand.

 

[jonjo]

Re: Just a guess

Just a guess but the chance of simultaneous failure of 12 keel bolts is so low I think it was a Friday afternoon boat and on Monday morning the chippie arrived to fit the cabin sole boards and no one noticed the absence of keel bolt nuts.

Bavaria mate the keel to the hull using a hard sealant so it is possible the keel remained attached during the first stage of the trip through adhesion alone. The strange fractal patterns left in the hull at the keel root look like the effect of the adhesive tearing apart under high stress.

 

[alant]

Are Bavaria owned by MFI?

Are Bavaria part of MFI then?

Surely the 12 nuts left over in the bag must have suggested something!

or perhaps if this is their production quality control, they are taking lessons from Microsoft.

 

[Sailfree]

Re: Just a guess

One of the basics of QC is to stack all the parts and check they are all used. Bavaria may be cutting costs but I do not believe missing nuts are a possibility.

Famous last words!

 

[jonjo]

Re: Just a guess

[ QUOTE ]
Bavaria may be cutting costs but I do not believe missing nuts are a possibility.

[/ QUOTE ]
The pictures triggered my thought about missing keel bolt nuts. I cannot imagine how all 12 bolts would sheer so cleanly at the same time. I have heard from a good source that it takes a major effort to change a Bavaria keel after the nuts are removed if the rigid adhesive layer is still intact.

The whole story is a bit fishy, I do not believe a crew would miss the departure of the keel because the motion at sea would become different. Most of us could tell blindfolded if our mast was not fitted, surely a missing keel would have a profound affect on the motion of the boat.

A grounding and snapping of all the keel boat sounds like a half-arsed attempt by the Bavaria PR department to cover up another problem.