Cheeki Rafiki deaths: Yacht firm boss guilty

[lw395]

..

Can you expand on why you think sitting in the pub is significant?

1) It's safely ashore in the dry.
2) It is indicative of 'living it up', being down the pub midweek, flashing the cash. Off the back of other people's graft.
I have seen a bit of resentment among fishermen about that sort of thing. Maybe a bit of that attitude has rubbed off on the MCA?
Or whoever initiates prosecutions in these cases?
Generally in the world of H&S, decision makers deciding to take risks, that they personally are not exposed to, get a hard time.

 

[Mark-1]

1) It's safely ashore in the dry.
2) It is indicative of 'living it up', being down the pub midweek, flashing the cash. Off the back of other people's graft.

So what?

 

[Elessar]

So what?

I refer the honourable gentleman to the reply I gave a few moments ago........

 

[dom]

The Comet .....failure was when it was performing as designed, so a failure of design, not a failure because the product was not being used for the purpose it was designed.

Apols for slight drift; yes the Comet's partially squared off windows caused part of the problem. As a consequence future aircraft were fitted with the rounded windows we are all familiar with. But there is also a similarity to Hooligan V in that the windows were riveted as opposed to glued as specified. Glue was considered a bit out there and the rivets were badly fitted by de Havilland.

 

[lw395]

A long post which I won't answer in detail as I think the thread has run its course. They didn't prosecute over Hooligan V which was a much more open and shut case (fabricator made a modification to the design on his own initiative which produced a keel that was significantly weaker).

But the main reason I'm replying to your post is to refute the idea that standards are some holy gospel and can never be wrong. The RCD is weak in respect to this case because it does not cover the service life of this boat sufficiently. ....s.

The RCD is irrelevant.
R= recreational.
Commercial boats do not even need to be assessed for the RCD.
Neither do boats intended solely for racing.

 

[dom]

So what?

The prosecution certainly chose to ride around at length on the pub question.

I guess if this thread -- foolishly in my opinion -- chooses to concern itself with matters of guilt and prosecution, then it is very much relevant. Otherwise the judge would have stopped this particular line of questioning/attack.

 

[lpdsn]

Where is your evidence that the standard is inadequate? A boat is designed to be sailed and to withstand the loads of sailing. When has a production boat lost its keel through sailing loads? There is no suggestion that the design was not adequate. The comparison with the Comet is ridiculous as the failure was when it was performing as designed, so a failure of design, not a failure because the product was not being used for the purpose it was designed.

You really are falling into the trap of generalising from a particular. ONE boat with a unique history out of over 800 sisterships (and thousands of similarly constructed boats) fails in a unique way and you use this as evidence that standards are inadequate. Keep a sense of proportion - you are doing exactly what I warned against - seeing a one off as typical because it suits your argument.

The reality is that if you regularly ground boats in the way that is common in inshore racing you will damage the boat - however it is constructed. So if you don't want to damage the boat, don't run aground - and that is solely the responsibility of the skipper. Don't blame the failings of the user on the designer and builder.

The prosecution was based on wider issues than just the structural failure as you well know. I repeat 4 lives were lost, and a number of offences potentially committed. Quite reasonable for this to be decided in court as they were criminal offences.

I'm very disappointed that you believe this incident can be rationalised away as something that would only happen to racers or would only happen to this one boat. You're normally more logical than that.

The MAIB report mentions cases of de-bonding caused by slamming, so that alone undermines any idea that it would only result from a badly run boat that had been recklessessly grounded.

Second, the reported history of grounding post-repair is of light groundings. Are you saying cruisers don't ground at times coming into their berth at low speed? Depends on the location of course, but there are plenty marinas with restricted depth - and depth less than the marina/almanac claim.

Although Beneteau did produce instructions for repair it seems (based on the MAIB) report that they were only distributed internally or amongst their dealers. The repair wasn't carried out using them and no one knows if the boat was fully repaired when it left their yard. You think that's a unique situation? You think there shouldn't be major improvements to what information manufacturer's must publish and what repair yards must use?

Bear in mind that CR would've been at the the top end of the spectrum of use for a 40.7, so very hard to say that lighter used boats are not developing the same issues. All that clear is that the others still have enough strength to keep their keels at the moment.

I believe the design and construction were inadequate because they didn't sufficiently cover the whole life of their product. And I blame the standards for that.

The analogy to the Comet is very relevant. It had been tested through multiple compression and de-compression cycles. It too was strong enough when it left the factory. None failed at fewer cycles than to which they'd been tested. The shortfall in design was considering the whole design lifespan of the aircraft.

BTW I know about Hooligan, but it is a case unrelated to this one, so why make any reference to it?

I referred to it in a direct response to your post about previous cases. Have you forgotten what you posted? And it is relevant to any discussion of prosecution as it is an example where the blame to could be laid pretty unambiguously at one person rather than multiple people/organisations and is further relevant because there was no prosecution.

 

[lpdsn]

The RCD is irrelevant.
R= recreational.
Commercial boats do not even need to be assessed for the RCD.
Neither do boats intended solely for racing.

Can you give any examples of the RCD being skipped for sailing boats used commercially by sailing schools. I presume there are still a few that pre-date the RCD but I can't imagine a sailing school being able to use a boat that had been imported or self-built and not conformed to the rules.

 

[Mark-1]

is very much relevant

So people keep saying.

I'm asking why.

Mind you I've given up now. It's meaningless. The prosecution used it as a cheap ad hom and AFAICT from the reporting the Judge ignored it in his summing up.

 

[lw395]

Can you give any examples of the RCD being skipped for sailing boats used commercially by sailing schools. I presume there are still a few that pre-date the RCD but I can't imagine a sailing school being able to use a boat that had been imported or self-built and not conformed to the rules.

I think any boat built to meet commercial cat 1, let alone zero, would far exceed RCD cat A. RCD cat A:
‘A’ OCEAN: Designed for extended voyages where conditions may exceed wind force 8 (Beaufort scale) and significant wave heights of 4 m and above but excluding abnormal conditions, and vessels largely self-sufficient.

 

[westernman]

Maybe not. My biggest concern about this incident was that there was no well-documented procedure for indentifying and repairing damage to boats with potentially de-bonded frames. I just feel the blame for that has to lie with the manufacturers, surveying bodies, regulators and the industry in general and not be solely heaped on one bloke that was unfortunate enough to be responsible for managing one.

I agree with you.

1) How is anyone reasonably to know if a grounding was severe enough to cause damage, without any damage being visible?

2) In a charter operation, how is the charter organization supposed to know if a client has grounded the boat and caused damage, if this damage is not visible? IMHO is it unreasonable to expect a charter company after every single hiring to haul the boat and drop the keel for a forensic examination.

3) The poor skipper, how is he supposed to know the keel is about to fall off?
He had some water ingress which he could not explain. The water ingress may well not have been important enough to cause serious concern as they could easily keep up with pumping. The water getting in between the hull and the lining could easily be caused by a small puncture in the outer hull cause by hitting a small log or something. If that was the case, there was absolutely no reason to prepare to abandon, or call out the rescue services, nor any reason to heave to, or slow down.

No if he had seen a broken keel bolt, or severe water ingress around a keel bolt, you may well expect the skipper to react in a much more urgent fashion.

The manufacturers need to ensure that damage as important as to cause your keel to drop off, is easily visible and easy to check and to check at low cost between charters (e.g. an underwater scan with a camera or diver).

The aspect that the yacht was not coded to MCA Cat 0 and should may be have been coded to that category for this voyage which is commercial would be serious if the MCA had been enforcing this requirement in the past. Actually enforcing this requirement, would prevent almost all charter boats from going beyond 60 miles from a safe haven as it is well nigh impossible to get your average white boat coded to Cat 0 due to the water tight bulkhead requirements.

I think there is something to be said for EU RCD A to be upgraded to include a forward crash bulkhead such that the yacht would not sink in a head on collision with a container, and that MCA Cat 0 should be weakened to cover just this and not an arbitrary catastrophic holing anywhere in the hull. Currently MCA Cat 0 would require a yacht to be split into approximately 4 watertight compartments with substantial bulkheads.

Much of Cat 0 is very reasonable - two float free liferafts, float free EPIRB, survival suits, water rations etc etc and is very much appropriate for a "normal" yacht crossing the atlantic.

As it stands, if the MCA tightens up on what is commercial, but does not adjust what MCA Cat 0 means for small yachts, then this will render it impossible for UK charterers to charter boats for transatlantic crossings.

In this case the yachts will end up being flagged in a country which is much less demanding for transatlantic crossings (which is almost any other country apart from the UK). This will reduce the level of safety overall.

I think EU RCD should be upgraded such that this kind of keel damage must be easily visible. EU RCD A should include a crash bulkhead in the forward part of the hull.

I think the poor guys on the yacht a well as Stormforce were all very unlucky.

I think Stormforce is being made an example of, and they are certainly not alone in moving MCA Cat 2 coded yachts back and forth from across the Atlantic due to dubious rule bending on the MCA's very poorly defined "commercial".

The objective should be to improve the overall standard of all concerned (Charter companies, MCA Coding, MCA commercial rules, builders and building standards, MCA Coded boat surveys) - not just to find a scape goat for a very unfortunate accident.

 

[Tranona]

I'm very disappointed that you believe this incident can be rationalised away as something that would only happen to racers or would only happen to this one boat. You're normally more logical than that.

No, I am not. Do not put words into my mouth. I am saying there is no credible evidence to support your claim that the standards (or the design) are inadequate. It is only your opinion, and is not supported by the industry, the standards bodies nor the empirical evidence.

You are relying on ONE example where there were far more issues than just the structural failure, which in itself has never been fully investigated because there is no access to the boat. So it is speculation built on supposition and this is not good science. It all reminds me of a Dave Allen joke - hope you remember them.

It is important to recognise that grounding of racing boats is a common occurrence and worries operators of these boats (see Flaming's comments on Sunsail procedures) but in no way compares with the occasional grounding of cruising boats. I ask the question again - where is your evidence of structural weakness in boats that are used for the purpose they were intended, that is sailing, never mind ANY evidence that even racing boats have lost keels because of a failure this type of construction. Damage is of course common, but that is nothing new as I have constantly pointed out and you have recognised. It is not unreasonable that Beneteau uses its dealer network to disseminate information on repairing its products. That is what dealer networks are for.

I fail to see your logic in directly linking this case to a claim that standards and by implication this design of boat is inadequate. The MAIB certainly did not and they had every opportunity to do so, as they have done in the past.

I would suggest neither you nor I know the real reason why there was no prosecution in the Hooligan case. The Comet failures were not due to abuse and/or poorly repaired damage as is implied in the case of CR. So your claim that service life has not been taken into account, despite the fact that the other 800 sister ships are still sailing, never mind the thousands of boats of similar design and construction from a range of designers and builders simply does not stand up to any rigorous scrutiny.

As I say keep a sense of proportion about the implications of failure of ONE boat.

 

[Fr J Hackett]

I agree with you.

1) How is anyone reasonably to know if a grounding was severe enough to cause damage, without any damage being visible?
If you don't know you investigate when the consequences of not so doing could prove fatal.
2) In a charter operation, how is the charter organization supposed to know if a client has grounded the boat and caused damage, if this damage is not visible? IMHO is it unreasonable to expect a charter company after every single hiring to haul the boat and drop the keel for a forensic examination.
Much of the time CR had a company paid skipper on board he was responsible for the boat. It is not a question of every single grounding but when you have a series of groundings and the yacht has been known to suffer serious structural damage as a result of a "light grounding" it is only wise and prudent given the yachts forthcoming itinerary to do as much and whatever you can to ensure its seaworthyness.

3) The poor skipper, how is he supposed to know the keel is about to fall off?
He had some water ingress which he could not explain. The water ingress may well not have been important enough to cause serious concern as they could easily keep up with pumping. The water getting in between the hull and the lining could easily be caused by a small puncture in the outer hull cause by hitting a small log or something. If that was the case, there was absolutely no reason to prepare to abandon, or call out the rescue services, nor any reason to heave to, or slow down.
​To some extent I can agree with you in particular not apportioning blame to the skipper or crew but the evidence of the phone calls indicates a growing problem with water ingress, a worsening situation. Then nothing.

No if he had seen a broken keel bolt, or severe water ingress around a keel bolt, you may well expect the skipper to react in a much more urgent fashion.
Quite possibly but we don't know whether they did locate or attribute the leak to the keel and if they did change their plans or even have time to.

The manufacturers need to ensure that damage as important as to cause your keel to drop off, is easily visible and easy to check and to check at low cost between charters (e.g. an underwater scan with a camera or diver).
The boat was built in 2006 there is no remedial work that can be done to change the design, they did inform their dealers and repair agents of the problems and methodology for tackling them. It has been established that visual inspection is unlikely to detect either changes to the hull keel joint and it would not detect delammination or detachment of the matrix.

The aspect that the yacht was not coded to MCA Cat 0 and should may be have been coded to that category for this voyage which is commercial would be serious if the MCA had been enforcing this requirement in the past. Actually enforcing this requirement, would prevent almost all charter boats from going beyond 60 miles from a safe haven as it is well nigh impossible to get your average white boat coded to Cat 0 due to the water tight bulkhead requirements.
A good point so in the sense of a commercial venture it was not appropriate to sail boats to and from the Caribbean as CAT 2 they should be shipped. Of course there is the loophole of racing under ISAF regs that allow the voyage out and immediate return. Maybe that is not a good thing and should be closed.

I think there is something to be said for EU RCD A to be upgraded to include a forward crash bulkhead such that the yacht would not sink in a head on collision with a container, and that MCA Cat 0 should be weakened to cover just this and not an arbitrary catastrophic holing anywhere in the hull. Currently MCA Cat 0 would require a yacht to be split into approximately 4 watertight compartments with substantial bulkheads.
Cat 0 is as you point out a complete red herring in this case and is not intended for this type of boat.

Much of Cat 0 is very reasonable - two float free liferafts, float free EPIRB, survival suits, water rations etc etc and is very much appropriate for a "normal" yacht crossing the atlantic.
​Yes it's possible to envisage a new coding for commercial charter yachts including beefed up surveys.

As it stands, if the MCA tightens up on what is commercial, but does not adjust what MCA Cat 0 means for small yachts, then this will render it impossible for UK charterers to charter boats for transatlantic crossings.
Is that a bad thing?

In this case the yachts will end up being flagged in a country which is much less demanding for transatlantic crossings (which is almost any other country apart from the UK). This will reduce the level of safety overall.
​Then it becomes a personal risk in full knowledge of why the yacht is flawed and operated from that country, is that a bad thing?

I think EU RCD should be upgraded such that this kind of keel damage must be easily visible. EU RCD A should include a crash bulkhead in the forward part of the hull.
Quite possibly but you can't do it retrospectively.

I think the poor guys on the yacht a well as Stormforce were all very unlucky.
There is enough comment already on that although I think Innes was far from unlucky.

I think Stormforce is being made an example of, and they are certainly not alone in moving MCA Cat 2 coded yachts back and forth from across the Atlantic due to dubious rule bending on the MCA's very poorly defined "commercial".
​And dubious maintenance procedures, record keeping, coding and general operation.

The objective should be to improve the overall standard of all concerned (Charter companies, MCA Coding, MCA commercial rules, builders and building standards, MCA Coded boat surveys) - not just to find a scape goat for a very unfortunate accident.

When laws have been broken people tend to get prosecuted for the breaches.

 

[dom]

When laws have been broken people tend to get prosecuted for the breaches.

...so speaks the forum's self-appointed District Attorney!

 

[Fr J Hackett]

...so speaks the forum's self-appointed District Attorney!

You take exception to that statement? you would prefer to see some other sort of regime and application of the law?

 

[lpdsn]

It is important to recognise that grounding of racing boats is a common occurrence

No it isn't. In many thousands of miles of racing I've only been involved in one grounding incident (Caernarvon Bar close to LW) and we went on to win the race.

I fail to see your logic in directly linking this case to a claim that standards and by implication this design of boat is inadequate. The MAIB certainly did not and they had every opportunity to do so, as they have done in the past.

In general. I thought my logic was obvious. It is a design that is vulnerable to damage from groundings (whether heavy groundings or simply a series of light groundings is sufficient is an unanswered question raised the the MAIB report). It is a form of damage where there's no foolproof way of detecting it. It's a form of damage where there is not concensus on how to repair the damage or how to ensure it is fully repaired. Getting away from a cottage industry boatbuilding approach was one of the things the RCD was supposed to achieve. So why not extend it to get away from a cottage industry boat repair approach.

The MAIB seem to have eased off on challenging standards since the Ocean Madam report, so I don't put too much weight on that.

 

[Tranona]

No it isn't. In many thousands of miles of racing I've only been involved in one grounding incident (Caernarvon Bar close to LW) and we went on to win the race.

Once again - a single observation you are suggesting can be generalised to the whole population - or if you are not then why mention it? You really must take on board that you need more evidence than just one skipper to claim that there is not a problem!

You have ignored Flaming's post about Sunsail. They obviously think it is a big issue, sufficient from them to have procedures and equipment to monitor it. Unsurprising if you see the number of damaged boats they have had over the years. The ISAF see it as a big problem collecting as much data as they can and trying to influence designers and builders to be more aware of the issues. Their data clearly shows (unsurprisingly) that most lost and damaged keels come from grounding. Do you think that skippers should not take any blame?

Perhaps the MAIB did not find anything to challenge on the standards, so why would you assume they are hiding something or going light on criticism.

While boat repair may be still a cottage industry, simply because to be economic it has to be local and not specialise in one particular type of repair, but you can't call Beneteau a cottage industry. As the report shows there is minimal real experience of repairs on more than a handful of boats, partly because of the boats are well dispersed and partly because there are so relatively few examples overall.

You are quite right in agreeing with the MAIB that there needs to be more work done on detection and repairs of bonded structures, but that has been true of any new method or materials. However this must be seen in the context in which the apparent failure occurred, given that context is atypical.

 

[westernman]

A good point so in the sense of a commercial venture it was not appropriate to sail boats to and from the Caribbean as CAT 2 they should be shipped.

This makes it very very hard for UK charter companies to survive when all the competition is raking in money from paying punters who sail these boats back to Europe for them.

Have you seen how much it costs to ship a yacht from the Carribean? Compared to a making money on the transfer with a group of fare paying guests!

Either we end up with no charter companies in the UK, or they will all be operating under a foreign flag.
Neither is a good outcome.

 

[lpdsn]

Once again - a single observation you are suggesting can be generalised to the whole population - or if you are not then why mention it? You really must take on board that you need more evidence than just one skipper to claim that there is not a problem!

You have ignored Flaming's post about Sunsail. They obviously think it is a big issue, sufficient from them to have procedures and equipment to monitor it. Unsurprising if you see the number of damaged boats they have had over the years. The ISAF see it as a big problem collecting as much data as they can and trying to influence designers and builders to be more aware of the issues. Their data clearly shows (unsurprisingly) that most lost and damaged keels come from grounding. Do you think that skippers should not take any blame?

Perhaps the MAIB did not find anything to challenge on the standards, so why would you assume they are hiding something or going light on criticism.

While boat repair may be still a cottage industry, simply because to be economic it has to be local and not specialise in one particular type of repair, but you can't call Beneteau a cottage industry. As the report shows there is minimal real experience of repairs on more than a handful of boats, partly because of the boats are well dispersed and partly because there are so relatively few examples overall.

You are quite right in agreeing with the MAIB that there needs to be more work done on detection and repairs of bonded structures, but that has been true of any new method or materials. However this must be seen in the context in which the apparent failure occurred, given that context is atypical.

I'me aware that you're banging the drum about extrapolating from a single instance. I usually bang the same drum myself. However you're going beyond what is logical here.

OK, as well as the rareity of racing groundings experienced myself I've seen very few other boats run aground when racing. Last one I remember witnessing was nearly ten years ago, and that was a large fleet using a rock as a mark of the course - been around the same rock when racing dozens of times. My observations are not a single event. They represent many observed fellow competitors with only a few instances of observed groundings.

Next look at the statistics presented by MAIB. There were 12 reported cases amongst coded boats due to SLAMMING and grounding with an unknown number of undetected cases and no data gathered for private boats. How many UK coded 40.7s are there? 20? 30? 40? I doubt many more than that. So again, this data can't be dismissed as statistically insignificant.

Again, if we come to the number of 40.7s with keel loss. I believe there was an American case mentioned on SA, but I can't remember enough details to include that, so yes only one keel loss attributed to de-bonding.

CR did indeed have a poor history of groundings prior to coming under the management of Stormforce. It's history since appears far better and slow speed groundings approaching a berth are not unknown even for cruisers. So if you assume the repair was perfect then keel loss caused by those groundings is worrying and certainly can't be attributed to abuse that was well out of the ordinary. If you don't assumed that you have to ask why it wasn't properly repaired, which is something that I've been asking, which is a valid question regardless of what assumption you make.

Next, is there a plausible hypothesis why only one (perhaps two) keels have been lost out of 800 boats built? CR had certainly done many more miles than the average. She had certainly also suffered heavy groundings albeit repaired. It is therefore logical to say she was at one edge of the curve of wear and tear. Is it logical to assume she was way out there on her own. Almost certainly not.

So I don't accept that CR can be dismissed as a one-off that won't happen again. None of us know how many 40.7s, private or coded, are out there with some de-bonding*. I guess the MAIB or Beneteau could lift a sample and agree how to check, but I doubt they'll do that.

It's not good enough to say there's only been one and you can't prove there won't be another. There is certainly not enough data to predict how many there will be in the next twenty years (although I think we'd probably agree it will be a small number). You certainly can't prove that there won't be another in x years.

*And I'd argue that it is the method of construction rather than the 40.7 that is the risk factor under discussion.

 

[Fr J Hackett]

This makes it very very hard for UK charter companies to survive when all the competition is raking in money from paying punters who sail these boats back to Europe for them.

Have you seen how much it costs to ship a yacht from the Carribean? Compared to a making money on the transfer with a group of fare paying guests!

Either we end up with no charter companies in the UK, or they will all be operating under a foreign flag.
Neither is a good outcome.

It doesn't make it right either! Whether it's a good outcome or not is irrelevant. You strike at the very heart of the problem, finance overcame what was reasonable and good practice.
Maybe it would restrict a small section of the UK charter market if people actually thought about the risk and evaluated it so much the better.
Yes I do know the cost of shipping from the East coast of the US it is something I am considering at the moment as it happens.