Cat A ocean standard need full revision

[geem]

New Zealand are quite well known for their tendency towards extra rules and regulation (surprisingly for such a generally laid back and relaxed group of people).

There have been a number of cases of yachts which have managed to sail half way around the world to get to NZ, being banned from departing as they don't meet the many NZ "safety" rules.

It took a fatality for them to change the rules. How many fatalities do you think it would take for the RCD to change rules?

 

[noelex]

We can either have more rules or accept the status quo

My vote would be to have fewer rules/regulations (related to sailing). The rules that remain should be sensible and deliver significant cost v safety benefits.

The UK does a better job at this than most countries, but there is still room for improvement and scrapping or heavily overhauling the RCD Cat A requirement would be a good start.

 

[TSB240]

I don't have any in hull windows. If I had them would I be concerned mid ocean?

I have had the experience of removing and replacing our 2000 bendtoy hard top screen and side windows.

No signs of leaking or UV damage to bonding and held strong when confronted by big greenies over the bow.
The bonding of the bowed screen was incredibly difficult to remove without any threat to 6mm thick polycarbonate which soon cracked! The flat side screens could have been refitted but made good patterns.
The GF took some time to be cleaned and prepared. The replacement of screens was done using the methods and bonding recommended by the Boat builder and their Agents.

This was not bodged with any type of silicone or double sided butyl tape available from Screwfix.

The reason for replacement was uv damage to the polycarbonate making it virtually translucent and very difficult to see through.

Is this a better gauge of need for replacement rather than a service interval?

I feel this concern regarding uv is overstated as with saildrive gasket replacement.

 

[dunedin]

It took a fatality for them to change the rules. How many fatalities do you think it would take for the RCD to change rules?

So what rules do you want changed?
Based upon number of fatalities I think we would need to start with rules to
1) Mandate wearing of lifejackets at all times when underway or in a dinghy - plus perhaps tethers when on deck and at night?
2j Ban mainsheets crossing cockpits and booms below 2m above decks?
They have caused a LOT more deaths than hull windows.

So do you want these rules mandated?

Personally I prefer guidance and skipper judgement over ever longer sets of blanker rules.

 

[geem]

I don't have any in hull windows. If I had them would I be concerned mid ocean?

I have had the experience of removing and replacing our 2000 bendtoy hard top screen and side windows.

No signs of leaking or UV damage to bonding and held strong when confronted by big greenies over the bow.
The bonding of the bowed screen was incredibly difficult to remove without any threat to 6mm thick polycarbonate which soon cracked! The flat side screens could have been refitted but made good patterns.
The GF took some time to be cleaned and prepared. The replacement of screens was done using the methods and bonding recommended by the Boat builder and their Agents.

This was not bodged with any type of silicone or double sided butyl tape available from Screwfix.

The reason for replacement was uv damage to the polycarbonate making it virtually translucent and very difficult to see through.

Is this a better gauge of need for replacement rather than a service interval?

I feel this concern regarding uv is overstated as with saildrive gasket replacement.

Where do you sail?

 

[geem]

So what rules do you want changed?
Based upon number of fatalities I think we would need to start with rules to
1) Mandate wearing of lifejackets at all times when underway or in a dinghy - plus perhaps tethers when on deck and at night?
2j Ban mainsheets crossing cockpits and booms below 2m above decks?
They have caused a LOT more deaths than hull windows.

So do you want these rules mandated?

Personally I prefer guidance and skipper judgement over ever longer sets of blanker rules.

See post #1.
Ocean should mean ocean on a bad day not ocean on a good day

 

[lustyd]

The UK does a better job at this than most countries

Didn’t the UK kick off the whole RCD thing?

 

[Sea Change]

Really interesting thread. So there are a couple of structural things, or risks, to modern boats and ocean crossing. Mitigated by several other things, faster passage speeds, better weather forecasting and ability to scoot out of the way of bombs, more comfort (downwind at least)

There is one other weakness on modern boats that comes up regurlarly as a failure mode on the ARC and that is unsupported blade rudders.

Interesting take on them here, all about the dollars;

I'm not sure there's anything startlingly new in that video.
As with most things, the spade vs skeg debate comes down to the details.
My old boat had a skeg hung rudder, but it was poorly engineered and you could almost say that the rudder was holding the skeg on.
In contrast, Noelex's boat has an exceptionally robust spade rudder with a very strong shaft.
I've had friends with both soades and skegs suffer orca damage. The spade was in some ways simpler to repair, they just dropped the rudder when they got to Morocco, and didn't even have to lift the boat out. The lower part of the rudder had broken away and they rebuilt it. In contrast, the theoretically more robust skeg rudder suffered a bent shaft and the boat had to be lifted out to get it repaired. I've also talked to a Nauticat owner whose rudder was reduced to a bare shaft.

Having said all that, my ideal boat would have a well engineered skeg hung rudder. But not all skeg hung rudders are better than all spades.

 

[westernman]

I feel this concern regarding uv is overstated as with saildrive gasket replacement.

I don't have much concern about the effects of UV on saildrive gaskets.

 

[seeSimon]

No, the point is that you know nothing of the history of that window so you’re just imagining something to suit your position. Literally anything could have happened before your conversation including the perspex being replaced by an incompetent person using bathroom sealant.

Ah!

Why have you assumed Perspex?

 

[lustyd]

Ah!

Why have you assumed Perspex?

Because they usually are made of perspex, someone from Lewmar commented on this on the forum a while ago and stated they don’t use polycarbonate. Could also be glass, but unlikely in a Bavaria.

 

[potentillaCO32]

Mmmmm. Got any actual statistics to support your “regularly”?

Let’s look objectively at the ARC. Boats are replaceable, people are not.
With 300 or so ARC/ARC+ boats with over 1,000 people crossing every year, with varying expertise and boats, there are bound to be a tiny minority if incidents.

AFAIK no lives have been lost due to boats sinking on ARC or ARC+, irrespective of reason for sinking.
Sadly occasionally there have been lives lost. Somebody would need to check the precise data, but from recollection I would suggest the top 3 causes of fatalities are:
1) Head and/or chest trauma usually due to an accidental gybe, and impact with mainsheet and/or boom;
2) MOB - often related to another incident such as these accidental gybes, and/or due to more relaxed lifejacket / tether rules in hot weather
3) Medical emergency - such as heart failures etc (partly due to age profile of participants)

So if we wanted to change RCD coding rules to save lives - perhaps the top priority would be banning mainsheets in cockpits, mandating these ahead of the cockpit or on an arch, plus mandating booms above head height.

In terms of boats “frequently failing to make it”, as another poster suggested, there are again a tiny minority (less than one boat a year) which are abandoned or sunk for a variety of reasons.

To my knowledge none have (so far) been lost due to window failure. And for years there has been guidance to have plans to board missing windows - eg with panels from bunk boards.
A very small handful of boats have been abandoned due to water ingress after a spade rudder failed - at least one was a Hanse. However, the vast majority of boats making the crossing have spade rudders (including the one I crossed on) without any issue.

A few boats have been abandoned due to a variety of other reasons which meant the (remaining) crew did not feel able to continue and requested rescue. Sometimes due to skipper fatality or incapacity, sometimes due to technical issues that the armchair experts on here felt could have been managed and the boat sailed on.
To my knowledge zero boats on the ARC have been abandoned due to keel loss or multihull capsize.

Yep.

https://klakamarine.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Klaka-IJSCT-rudder-strength-submitted.pdf

and you are the first person to talk about loss of life on here. The rest of the posts have been about boat loss or boat issues.

T save you reading all of it:

"Rudder failure happens with distressing regularity –
perhaps ten times as often as keels falling off. Casey
(2018) estimates that rudder failure occurs on “close to
1%” of all ocean crossings, Tibbs (2007) reports 4 rudder
failures on the ARC rallies between 2001 and 2006, which
attract on average about 230 boats each year. That amounts
to 0.3% of the crossings. 6% of the fleet suffered rudder
failure in the 1979 Fastnet yacht race (Forbes et al, 1979).
The 1998 Sydney to Hobart race resulted in 2% of the fleet
experiencing rudder failure (CYCA, 1999). "

 

[potentillaCO32]

Didn’t the UK kick off the whole RCD thing?

I can't imagine the UK wanting to bother anymore as there really isn't a UK leisure yachting industry anymore.

 

[RunAgroundHard]

... "Rudder failure happens with distressing regularity – perhaps ten times as often as keels falling off. Casey (2018) estimates that rudder failure occurs on “close to 1%” of all ocean crossings, Tibbs (2007) reports 4 rudder failures on the ARC rallies between 2001 and 2006, which attract on average about 230 boats each year. That amounts
to 0.3% of the crossings. 6% of the fleet suffered rudder failure in the 1979 Fastnet yacht race (Forbes et al, 1979). The 1998 Sydney to Hobart race resulted in 2% of the fleet
experiencing rudder failure (CYCA, 1999). "

Hyperbole to suggest "distressing regularity" with these probabilities. The data shows an improving trend. I think the data actually indicates that rudders are more reliable today and safer. Maybe if more data was analysed, or all known data from such studies collated the sample size the probability of failure would suggest otherwise. Of course, one then needs to look at the failures and understand why that failure occurred.

I think the window issue being discussed will go the way of fin keels and grids and become a widely known risk that boat owners will choose to address as solutions become more accessible. At the moment, anecdotally, it appears that bonded windows are only addressed when a fault develops.

 

[Ammonite]

No, the point is that you know nothing of the history of that window so you’re just imagining something to suit your position. Literally anything could have happened before your conversation including the perspex being replaced by an incompetent person using bathroom sealant.

So you think this is the second time the window has fallen out. I'd assumed it was just the once

 

[lustyd]

So you think this is the second time the window has fallen out. I'd assumed it was just the once

There are many reasons a window might be out. Perhaps it was crazed and someone replaced it, or cracked, massive scratch etc.
at that age anything could have happened in the intervening years and I doubt anyone would own up to a shoddy DIY replacement.

All I do know is I’ve tried to remove Sika before and it certainly doesn’t just fall off and neither does tge 3M equivalent

 

[ylop]

Why not simply recognise the higher standard with cat A+

Nothing stopping manufacturers far exceeding the minimums - as some top end brands already do. Anyone likely to care probably already can spot the difference between “just” cat A and “very comfortably exceeds” the standard.

I have to agree with geem that bonded windows are disaster awaiting to happen due the the poor drafting of the Cat A ocean class.

When did manufacturers start bonding windows? How many people have died as a result of their failure?

The regulations only came in as factory manufacturing run by accountants started to build floating apartments for the charter market rather than yachts for sailing in all weathers.

Didn’t the UK kick off the whole RCD thing?

I’m not sure who “drove” the RCD but what everyone forgets is most EU directives are not really about improving safety they are about opening market access! Manufacturers get themselves in a tizzy about having to comply - but the quid pro quo is that it’s a single standard opens access to an extra 450 million potential customers rather than 70 million. When you think of the rules as preventing individual countries from making up their own arbitrary rules to protect their own manufacturers whilst still achieving a minimum level of safety they make much more sense. But they certainly don’t stop manufacturers or consumers from going beyond the minimum. However when boats were made from wooden planks skippers prepared for and had plans to deal with sprung planks, and even solid GRP hulls are going to need contingencies if you hit a container, so if the skipper is really ready for “ocean” then bonded windows is not that different.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

There are many reasons a window might be out. Perhaps it was crazed and someone replaced it, or cracked, massive scratch etc.
at that age anything could have happened in the intervening years and I doubt anyone would own up to a shoddy DIY replacement.

All I do know is I’ve tried to remove Sika before and it certainly doesn’t just fall off and neither does tge 3M equivalent

I daresay many of us have tried to remove Sika, we are talking 291 here I assume. The brown stuff to a blanket expression is about 1% of it.

 

[lustyd]

I don’t know which one it is, I doubt it’s straight 291i but either way, keep away from blankets!!

 

[dunedin]

See post #1.
Ocean should mean ocean on a bad day not ocean on a good day

OK so you have swapped your position from post #141, when you suggested rules should be changed based upon fatalities?