Beneteau First lost her keel, four good men lost at sea.

JumbleDuck said:
Much of their "science" was terrible, precisely because they refused to examine the real world, which they thought of as a messy place, not to be dealt with by those of higher, purer minds. It was only when scientists actively started looking at reality in a systematic way that things started moving forwards. Thank you, Brahe, Copernicus, Galileo ...
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It is clear that you never read Plato, or if you did you failed to understand, otherwise you would not have made this comment. Plato was all about understanding the real world, but he did it with the information he had. Had he not tried we would still be all living in caves. This is the essence. Even at those times however there were those outraged that someone was trying to give an explanation of how the world worked, and they killed philosophers like Socrates because of that.
 
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haydude said:
It is clear that you never read Plato, or if you did you failed to understand, otherwise you would not have made this comment. Plato was all about understanding the real world, but he did it with the information he had.
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He wanted to understand the real world, yes, but in general he thought you could do that by pure reason and without empirical evidence of any sort. A bit like Deep Thought which, when first switched on, deduced the existence of rice pudding and income tax before anyone could stop it.

Here's a bit from the Wiki of a Thousand Lies:

Socrates says in the Republic that people who take the sun-lit world of the senses to be good and real are living pitifully in a den of evil and ignorance. Socrates admits that few climb out of the den, or cave of ignorance, and those who do, not only have a terrible struggle to attain the heights, but when they go back down for a visit or to help other people up, they find themselves objects of scorn and ridicule.

According to Socrates, physical objects and physical events are "shadows" of their ideal or perfect forms, and exist only to the extent that they instantiate the perfect versions of themselves. Just as shadows are temporary, inconsequential epiphenomena produced by physical objects, physical objects are themselves fleeting phenomena caused by more substantial causes, the ideals of which they are mere instances.​

While Plato made huge advances in mathematics and logic, he left a curse over science: the idea that what should be was more likely to be correct than what was observed to be. You may find this material from the University of Virginia interesting.

Plato, then, had a rather abstract view of science, reminiscent of the Pythagoreans. In particular, he felt that the world we apprehend with our senses is less important than the underlying world of pure eternal forms we perceive with our reason or intellect, as opposed to our physical senses. This naturally led him to downgrade the importance of careful observation, for instance in astronomy, and to emphasize the analytical, mathematical approach.​

(http://galileoandeinstein.physics.virginia.edu/lectures/thales.html)
 
kristifercolumnbus said:
Not ones I was hoping to see of keel construction.The closest I have found are by the United States Navy & show where the keel used to be.A method of construction that I quite frankly find horrifying.
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Do you find how the design and construction of a mast’s rigging horrifying? Rigging is performing exactly the same function as the keel bolts, many small supports, none of which individually can support the mast, but requires all others to be functioning correctly.

The issue is not the keel design as it appears to be a sound design that produces a light weight hydrodynamic shape that offers performance advantages for the yacht. The issue is the misunderstanding of the importance of all the keel boats being sound. The EU and its CE process via the RCD is supposed to include a set of operating and maintenance instructions for all craft (or any device sold in the EU). This is where such matters as changing ones seacocks every 5 years and inspecting the keel bolts should be clear and obvious.

Perhaps if there had been a mandatory or prescriptive inspection instructions, then such lack of resilience could be managed better by owners and operators. I have never owned a new boat, I wonder if such instructions are included in CE marked vessels, probably not, marketing fail.
 
franksingleton said:
Apologies if the question has already been asked. Are there any statistics or analyses of catastrophic failures of yachts by manufacturer!designer? A very subjective view is that Beneteau would not show up well. Any data? Any hard facts?
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Frank,
I think you'll find that all high aspect keels have a record of failure - there's just not enough area to fix them securely to the bottom of a hull.

Whether Beneteau, would come out with a significantly higher failure rate than, say, Bavaria, would be be very doubtful.
Almost all the incidents of keel loss have had a previous, ignored grounding or botched repair. In one case a Bavaria charter yacht here in Greece was returned with no keel at all. The charterers, it's alleged, made no comment.
We have to hope for a slightly more objective report from MAIB than the (somewhat hysteric) comments in this thread.

As to thinking that liferafts are the answer...
 
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So, if life rafts are not to be relied upon, as a safe method of abandoning a craft that is/might be sinking in Gale conditions, it posing the question, should yachts be allowed to sail into gales, should yachts need to obtain CG or other permission before embarking upon crossing/sailing into dangerous waters.

After all, should the Rescue Services run an extended search mission in Gale conditions, risking themselves at the same time. Be foolhardy at your own peril, might just be the position.

Or should there be serious design of good life saving equipment?
 
Capt Popeye said:
So, if life rafts are not to be relied upon, as a safe method of abandoning a craft that is/might be sinking in Gale conditions, …..Or should there be serious design of good life saving equipment?
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An ISO9650 liferaft specification for Ocean waters have ballast pockets that are designed to fill unloaded and prevent the liferaft from being blowing away in heavy seas, waves and remain stable unloaded. They also have features for righting in capsize and special features for climbing in from the water. In rough conditions it is probably safer to board from the water anyway.

Asking the Coastguard for permission, ridiculous, a proposal that would warrant the fiercest rebuttal in my opinion; better to remove lifesaving services and rely of self preservation than that.
 
dylanwinter said:
I personally think that speculation is fine

it is the first draft of history

and where better to speculate than here

run a few theories around the houses


it seems to me the family will no doubt be thinking along the same lines if they are sailors themselves

I doubt very much that they will be reading this thread

I think that some of you guys think that this internet chat room - one of thousands devoted to sailing- is of more importance than it is

this is nothing more than a bit of bar room chat among a group of old sailors

and nothing wrong with that I reckon

as for some-one being successfully sued for a comment on here.... get a grip boys

D
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I am a relative of one of the crew sadly lost on the Cheeki Rafiki, James Male aged 23.

I have read a these posts and its interesting to read the various theories and to why there was a catastrophic keel failure however improbable some of them may be.

What is helping us is the debate this has caused and idea's that are coming out to improve safety at sea.

As a family we now have to wait for the outcome of the investigation by the MAIB and we are fully aware that we may never get all the answers to the many questions we have.

We would like to thank everyone for the support and the compassion we have received.

Please keep this debate going as it is already creating some good idea's to improve safety at sea. It might be your idea that saves the next life !

Kindest regards to you all.
 
Regarding the aft bolt . . . Very clear prior damage. Either fateigue or a grounding. Regarding fateigue, There seems to be an appropriate question whether the "full time commercial racing" use this boat has been put to matches it's intended/designed purpose (which is generally much much less hard use than that). It would seem that the maintenance program did not keep up with the gap between use and design purpose.

Regarding the middle bolts . . . Clear laminate/structure failure. The thing that bothers me most about this is the apparent lack of safety margin . . . That the single aft bolt failure can lead to a cascade of the keel falling off (yes in bad, but not unexpected sorts of wave conditions for a cat A boat). I would like to have either some clear flag that one bolt has been damaged or the safety margin to survive a one bolt failure. An interesting question is whether this attachment would pass the current plan approval process (Dogwatch that is in fact practically speaking how race organizers require/enforce minimum structural standards - they ask to see plan approval).

Regarding the forward bolts . . . We have a puzzle. I lean toward the nuts on top of cage theory as the most likely, but more investigation would be useful. The USCG does have a lot of photos they have not made public, both above water and under water. And there will be some maintenance records somewhere, unless they are being shredded as we speak.

Regarding keel design. . . . . this is not the best engineering approach. And I personally have never chosen to have a keel attachment like this for serious ocean crossing. But the relevant question is whether it is the most cost effective approach for the intended purpose (and that this particular vessel was being used beyond its purpose). And I believe Bendy will say that this approach pretty much never fails when the vessel is being used as intended. So, it would be interesting to hear suggestions on how it could be improved within a "cost constraint".

Regarding life rafts . . . Clearly owners and delivery crew should be well educated on the pitfalls of this (and other) locations and size (big:12- man). It simply does no good at all to have a raft that cannot be deployed in terrible conditions. I can see the rules usefully/potentially banning some size/location combinations. I think it will be rather more difficult to prescribe a particular location, although I do see some good value on a "best practice" study/paper (like I wrote for dyneema lifelines), which could be of particular value on new builds.

Regarding pfd's . . . I would like to see all the major models "wave tested". These things need to hold together not just in flat water but in difficult wave conditions. I would also like to see some education on the use of dry suits rather than foul weather suits for "chilly water" conditions. I do not know if the combination of those two things would have been "enough" to save this crew (they needed to be able to survive 8:30 hrs), but it sure might in other situations.

Regarding plb . . . Despite their early failure (due probably not to battery, but crew no longer being able to point them at the sky) they did in fact do the minimum necessary job of signally the emergency and allowing the awash hull to be located. This is a bit of good news. They did not allow the bodies to be located, but no-one who understood the limitations of these devices would really have expected that.

Regarding weather routing . . . I have not been able to determine what sort of routing these guys had (shore or on board). But they were significantly to the NW of the most prudent route (for that month). I have been curious if they were there for commercial reasons (time and fuel pressure). I have also been curious if there was any discussion with home base about slowing or even turning around, because this storm formation was visible in advance on the gribs, and even a 100nm further separation would have helped.

Finally, I agree with the thought that each and every sailing "celiberty" who spoke out about the uscg in the past week should now offer a very public gracious and grateful thanks, as should the RYA and each individual family.
 
BlowingOldBoots said:
An ISO9650 liferaft specification for Ocean waters have ballast pockets that are designed to fill unloaded and prevent the liferaft from being blowing away in heavy seas, waves and remain stable unloaded. They also have features for righting in capsize and special features for climbing in from the water. In rough conditions it is probably safer to board from the water anyway.

Asking the Coastguard for permission, ridiculous, a proposal that would warrant the fiercest rebuttal in my opinion; better to remove lifesaving services and rely of self preservation than that.
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Ah, perhaps any craft attempting the Atlantic should then be equipped with proper Ocean category life rafts, poss. a certificate of competence to go with it /them?
After all, tis a rather long way and well on extremes of S&R attempts.
 
Life rafts
How well does a modern raft with the ballast pockets perform in big seas and wind? Any pictures?
We keep on talking here of the 79 Fastnet lessons, but how have the improvements fared, eg in Sydney Hobarts?
 
Not sure where this fits in or how long the batteries last but plb and red flashing laser light distress beacon flashing to extend life solar panel like garden light? The floating laser would need long lasting batteries
 
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P
Resolution said:
Life rafts
How well does a modern raft with the ballast pockets perform in big seas and wind? Any pictures?
We keep on talking here of the 79 Fastnet lessons, but how have the improvements fared, eg in Sydney Hobarts?
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Last time I crossed, our yacht (US originally) had a self righting life raft, which had great write up from USCG tests.
 
Rigger Mortice said:
Oh, goodie. Let's have some more rules and paperwork.
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Disagreeable as it might be, but if lives are saved, well, so be it:-)

I do think, but have no knowledge, it would only impact on a very small number of yachties, mainly upon companies running schools etc.

The whole system could include passage plans, that would have to be submitted and agreed, so that amongst other matters the long range weather forecasts could be studied, properly.

Suggest that if such a passage plan is mandoratory before sailing into such waters, advice could be given about water temperatures for example which will greatly effect life span if overboard.
 
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