Bavarias keel falls off..

Re: Slow news day?

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Let me guess, next you will be posting a link to Neil Armstrong's first moon walk?

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PMSL.... Is that not new news as well then!!! /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
...but there has been a fair bit of denial from bavaria (and even owners?) it would seem, as though this was a theological point that can be discussed and argued at leisure.

I understood that more than one keel fell off or had problems, no? This would reduce the plausibility of the "went aground" theory - they can't all have gone aground can they?

Separately, even if they did go aground and that did cause the problems, that's not too good either - a keel impact should surely be within the normal duty cycle and should not trigger total failure.
 
Unfortunatly it does not look so; Just check the Bavaria site and You will learn a lot about the misdeeds of the press and the right doing of the Bavaria Company.

Sad story,
Gianenrico /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif
 
Let me guess?...you like large sausages, big german girls named heidi, weiss-wurst with sweet mustard with a side of blau kraut and a Mas of Helles Beir ..oh yeh and you own a bav....

Dave
 
Re: Did anyone see this one?

woofy - suspect you are refering to the MOB marker which is floating on its side - just means that they failed to put the batteries in the thing..
 
they can of course all of gone aground but I agree it's unlikely..... /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

however it would appear from the photographic 'evidence' that a lot of the fleet in question have hit things with their keels (and I take it the tidal rise in that area wouldn't lead to a lot of boats gently rubbing their keels in sand at anchor) - actually a lot of the boats seem to have hit a lot of things.

The only conclusion I have come to reading around te whole sorry mess is that there is no such thing as unbiased reporting, and that everyparty seems to have an axe (or keel) to grind here.

I agree that hitting something with the keel shouldn't cause a total loss but there must be a design limit somewhere along the way - ie how fast should it have to survive hitting a completely imovable object? hull speed say 9 knots? absolutely maximum boat speed including following sea, wind, tide and allowing for a degree of 'planning' ie 18 knots? how often - there is more than a little suggestion that this boat was involved in a serious grounding incident with another but that only the other was repaired.
 
"Always go for the bilge keel model then"

No - they leave you with two holes in the hull as fastening to hull presents the same problems. Mind you - they draw less water !
Ken
 
----No - they leave you with two holes in the hull as fastening to hull presents the same problems. Mind you - they draw less water !----

Beg to differ - the kinetic energy would be shared and thus halved in the local fixing area, not allowing for a tangential blow which would skew the results, but also have a lower resultant force vector.

You are right in that you could probably step off it, as most bilge keelers draw about 3 foot.
 
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Always go for the bilge keel model then ?

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Why not rubber keel then /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif
 
Jimi

The blige keeler has twice as much chance of hitting a keel, and the rudder adds one more, also the hulls tend to flex between the keels and laminates weaken and sometimes the keels fall off.

Fin keels on the other hand seem to do more damage to the hull when hit at very low speeds, how many times have we seen a large boat that has hit a sill at 3 or 4 knots tear its keel off - look round the yards you will find lots of them.

These are just observations over a long period of being around boats
 
this is doublespeak. The bolts didn't fail, but the attachment of the keel did fail - it came off with fatal consequences.

Surely a keel should be able to withstand loads including some significant grounding and occasional impacts without failing as this did?

There again, if you're happy, what the heck...
 
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however it would appear from the photographic 'evidence' that a lot of the fleet in question have hit things with their keels (and I take it the tidal rise in that area wouldn't lead to a lot of boats gently rubbing their keels in sand at anchor) - actually a lot of the boats seem to have hit a lot of things.

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No need for change in tidal heights - it would be quite normal in the Med for the keels of boats to have quite a few minor rubs and bumps when mooring bows to in smallish harbours/anchorages eg. when the rocks get a bit shallow close to the quay. To my untutored eye, the damage on the bottoms of the keels look as though they are caused by this.

Certainly doesn't look like impact damage (I have at least a little experience of this having repaired the chip in my own boat's keel last winter from hitting a rock. The damage looked nothing like that in the pictures of the Bavarias.)

As for the damage at the roots of the keels... I'm glad I'm not Bavaria
 
Bavaria Match Keels..

The shame of this issue is that we all appear unlikely to ever get the truth of what went wrong.

I guess yachting publishers will find it difficuly to report negatively against a major advertiser like Bavaria - and who is to say they know the truth anyway!

It's a fact that this model is not the only production yacht built lighter so it could go faster - the same keel / hull join problems was reported of the first Grand Soliel Race models - and they also were subsequently beefed up to presumably prevent keels falling off.

But with the Bavaria Match 42, someone actually died as a result of the above. In my book that should have led to an impartial investigation and the identification of the cause.

It would be a shame if the issue was buried without it being clarified - but as I said when opening - I suspect we'll never really know.

Shame

JOHN
 
we chartered in Croatia last year, and when we got back to Split within half an hour there was a chap walking along the pontoon with a clipboard talking to a snorkeller in the marina (yuk!). I thought he was checking all the mooring lines but it turned out he was inspecting the keels and rudders of all the returning charter boats. Fortunately for us, nothing to worry about, but I reckon they must find a few scrapes.
 
Look at the Bavaria web site mentioned earlier in the thread and click on mast damage, it shows alledged mast damage to the yacht in question and it looks remarkably like the damage to another yacht which suffered damage to its mast after grounding a 6knts.- no I dont own a Bavaria.
 
I am saddened by many peoples desire to bash Bavaria boats and wonder whether it is merely expressing anti- Bavaria sentiment or anti-AWB.

This is a tragic incident that resulted in loss of life. Mixed reporting currently leave me with the "feeling" (no evidence) that:-

1. The ever increasing commercial pressure to reduce weight (for racing) and less materials (also means less cost) may have gone one step too far on this occassion.

2. How much a possible grounding contributed to this is not clear.

3. While denying any fault Bavaria seem to have issued post production strengthening suggestions to the dealers.

Whenever technology is taken to the limits there are lessons to be learnt and few industries can claim to be blameless. Construction (bridge failures), Cars (that too easily catch fire or have projections that cause severe injuries) and Aerospace (Apollo program and Comet aircraft immediately come to mind).

In Business circles the "Perrier" water problems with contamination is held up as the correct way to deal with a problem. Hands up for what is wrong, what you are doing to put it right and give confidence to consumer that in future their product will not have any similar problems. This stops the public speculation. It is only my impression but it is in this area that Bavaria appear to have significantly failed. There is still much speculation and only the unaware appear to have confidence in the product IMHO.
 
Is the bav keel attachment method specific to them?

not anti-bav or anti-awb.

Different safety margins apply to the engineering of various machines, and even of diferent parts of the same machine. A world record attempt will cut every weight limit possible, and the crew wd be ready for failure at any moment or know of the likley fatal risks eg spacecraft.

The same merciless focus on weight doesn't apply to the keel of a production boat, and the fact they they are supposedly racing boats matters little - they are simply "matched" sailing boats, to be raced against each other.

IF there's just one boat with keel fallen off then it could be all manner of things either during or *especially* after manufacture. If it's more than one, well that wd point to manufacturing.

One important point is - is the bav method of attaching keels specific to them? I was suprised to see no single large backing plate of the same dimensions as the keel x-section as it meets the hull or bigger, to transmit impacts/loads across all the bolts and more of the hull. Does nobody do this? From earlier pix, bav seem to have simply used largish washers under each individual bolt.
 
Re: Is the bav keel attachment method specific to them?

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One important point is - is the bav method of attaching keels specific to them? I was suprised to see no single large backing plate of the same dimensions as the keel x-section as it meets the hull or bigger, to transmit impacts/loads across all the bolts and more of the hull. Does nobody do this? From earlier pix, bav seem to have simply used largish washers under each individual bolt.

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I had also wondered about this after seeing photographs. Though it might be naivety on my behalf and over engineering of an amateur type, but I would have expected a full internal lattice framework with the bolts coming up through the frames rather than just hanging the keel off the bilge.

I would also expect a two part keel, so if she was heavily grounded the bolts would sheer and half the keel left in place, rather than a big gaping hole akin to a cartoon animal shaped hole in a door!

I had heard of some problems with drying Bavs against walls years before the keels dropping off, problems such as the keels pushing through the hull or limited to just flexing or warping the bilge when dried out.

This to me shows serious issues with strength in this area, that has now been played out to loss of life. I hope they do a full enquiry and do not try to white wash the issues. If other manufacturers are also using similar attachments as Bav, I hope they too have a good look at this and modify their fleets accordingly.

But this is all supposition and based on personal opinion, which I think is still ok on the forum, though I could be wrong!
 
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