Cornish Cruising has incredibly safe boats.

[HoratioHB]

Well a lot of companys do, and they remain in business... You should read my earlier post in reference to my thoughts on the impact on costs..


I will leave this subject on one point...

Would you be happy to wave all your legal rights, in regards to the liability of the charter company for a accident, should they hire you a boat which was unfit for purpose and unsafe?

If Yes, then of course there is no need for a inspection.

If No, then why is it unreasonable, when so many others are doing so, to carry out a inspection?

How else can a company be sure that a charterer has not caused damage?

Right so every time a boat is returned, a diver or a camera has a look and it will see:
a. Nothing
b. the keel missing
c. some damage, ranging from a paint scrape to a dent maybe.

If it is c. what do you do then? - haul out every time a flake of paint is missing. I suspect the charter companies who do it are in warm areas where a quick swim is easy and the vis is good and it gives them and excuse to refuse to refund the deposit. And I'll go on to bet that if they do find some damage they do sod all about it. If the state of some of the above water fittings on charter boats I have skippered around the world is any measure then I'm sure I'm right

 

[photodog]

likely to be a one in a hundred thousand or one in a million risk. (I notice you didn't come back with your own estimate of the risk.)

I think the risk is lower than you estimate.

I dont think that doing a inspection is necessary to mitigate soley against the risk of not having a keel...

That would be excessive..

Combine this with the costs of damage caused by the normal habit of charterers running aground and then lieing then a inspection starts to make a lot of sense...

I think if a charterer knows that he will have a inspection he will be honest if he runs aground, and possibly will be more carefull as well, ergo run aground less...

Both of these will offset the costs of the inspection... which if your doing every boat in the fleet you could do quite easily with a couple of fixed cameras on a berth that every returning boat would tie up to....

Read all of my earlier banging on!

 

[Ubergeekian]

If No, then why is it unreasonable, when so many others are doing so, to carry out a inspection?

Would you insist that a yacht you were chartering had its mast unstepped and inspected, along with all the rigging, before you took it out? If not, why not - bearing in mind the relative frequencies of dismastings and unkeelings?

 

[photodog]

Right so every time a boat is returned, a diver or a camera has a look and it will see:
a. Nothing
b. the keel missing
c. some damage, ranging from a paint scrape to a dent maybe.

If it is c. what do you do then? - haul out every time a flake of paint is missing. I suspect the charter companies who do it are in warm areas where a quick swim is easy and the vis is good and it gives them and excuse to refuse to refund the deposit. And I'll go on to bet that if they do find some damage they do sod all about it. If the state of some of the above water fittings on charter boats I have skippered around the world is any measure then I'm sure I'm right

So, I take it that you would you have been happy with the operators if you had hired the boat in question and it had turned over and drowned your crew?

Or would you have expected them to have had a system in place that would ensure the boat was safe?

 

[photodog]

Would you insist that a yacht you were chartering had its mast unstepped and inspected, along with all the rigging, before you took it out? If not, why not - bearing in mind the relative frequencies of dismastings and unkeelings?

READ MY POSTS!!!

ITS NOT JUST ABOUT LOSING THE KEEL!

But.... I regularly inspect all of the key systems on my own boat... including the steering, Keel bolts, (Its a Bavaria after all...) rigging, fire safety gear, stopcocks, engine, bilgepumps, etc.

And I do the same when I charter.

But again... ITS NOT JUST LOSING THE KEEL that is a reason to do a inspection..





Of course we have to realise, that a inspection will NEVER show up a lost keel... this incident has been a total freak, a one off, a once in a gazzilion... in reality if you lose the keel the boat will not be coming back. (At least not right way up...)

 

[FullCircle]

So, I take it that you would you have been happy with the operators if you had hired the boat in question and it had turned over and drowned your crew?

Or would you have expected them to have had a system in place that would ensure the boat was safe?

Been watching this for a while PD.
What are the statistics for ANY boat, chartered or nor, killing their occupants through catastrophic failure in the UK?

We all die sometime, you can't derisk life (entirely).

An unfortunate chain of events, just like any accident. Please don't put my hire car through an MOT before I pick it up, I like to live dangerously.

 

[aquaplane]

I'm glad I have a Centaur, if one keel falls off there is still one to keep things upright.

My kettle keeps falling off the stove since I developed a significant list to Stbd, what could be the problem do you think?

Despite all the "who's fault was it", "they should have noticed", how can we stop it happening again", it's such a rare occurance it's not even believable (according to the first 8 pages of the thread) so after doing my own personal risk assesment, it's not a problem.

Before anyone says "unless it hapens to you", don't charter a boat you don't know the full history of, or stick to your own boat. It's a non-subject really. Interesting to hear about though.

 

[jimi]

I strongly feel that the charterers who knocked off the keel and did'nt tell anyone ought to have some come back. They must have known they were leaving the boat in a dangerous state with the intention being that future use by other parties would hide their guilt. It is only by luck that this did'nt end up with one or more people dead. If there is no legal remedy to give these people their just deserts, then I feel they should be named and shamed unless they make a significant contribution to the RNLI or similar. And I'm thinking at least £20,000.

 

[TiggerToo]

Would you insist that a yacht you were chartering had its mast unstepped and inspected, along with all the rigging, before you took it out? If not, why not - bearing in mind the relative frequencies of dismastings and unkeelings?

but given the relatively trivial cost involved in getting hold of the underwater camera from Maplins, I, for one, will try to get our managers to carry out underwater inspections after charter. Just as they do on the hull and fixtures and fittings. Of course it will not GUARANTEE ABSOLUTE SAFETY, but it will just add that little peace of mind for me (the owner) and perhaps the next charterer. We might not spot the slight scrapes, but a misssing keel would be pretty evident, I would have thought.

Last year, for example, some punters bumped into somthing and damaged the propeller (on their way to the I o Scilly!). The ability to look underneath and assess the damage done would have saved me, the insurance company and the guilty charterers a load of grief and thick wadge of greenbacks.

Mast and rigging should be inspected after every charter. Not unstepped, but looked over nevertheless. Same for fire-extinguishers etc....

Again, is this not just good seamanship? Incidentally the skipper also had a duty to do this sort of thing before setting off.

Fortunately in this country there are no laws specifying what you have to do down to the last comma, but a commonsense system seems to work well. Long may it carry on.

 

[photodog]

Been watching this for a while PD.
What are the statistics for ANY boat, chartered or nor, killing their occupants through catastrophic failure in the UK?

We all die sometime, you can't derisk life (entirely).

An unfortunate chain of events, just like any accident. Please don't put my hire car through an MOT before I pick it up, I like to live dangerously.

I hear you! But I simply cant see anyother way for the operator to ensure that damage from groundings is picked up on.... (if only to ensure that the next bugger doesnt have his holiday ruined..) and his obligations to the MCA are met.

Sailing is one of the safest sports full stop... so this isnt really about mitigating risk to life... its more about mitigating risk of loss to the operator by picking up damage at the first opportunity, and ensuring that the costs can be passed on ...

Its more about the risk to the business than to the customer..

But I still think the question is relevant... when you charter a boat with a fault, do you blame the operator?

 

[TiggerToo]

Been watching this for a while PD.
What are the statistics for ANY boat, chartered or nor, killing their occupants through catastrophic failure in the UK?

We all die sometime, you can't derisk life (entirely).

An unfortunate chain of events, just like any accident. Please don't put my hire car through an MOT before I pick it up, I like to live dangerously.

FC, I am afraid I can think of at least one not a million miles away from our home port.

I agree with you. We all die at some point. But if I can can still mitigate the chances of it happening on Tigger to my charteres (and us), I am happy to try

 

[dt4134]

I think the risk is lower than you estimate.

If the risk is lower than one in a million then it really is low.


Just to emphasise I'm not talking about the risk of real keel damage which I accept would be far higher, just the risk of loss of keel with no signs that could be spotted by a bilge inspection.

 

[photodog]

If the risk is lower than one in a million then it really is low.


Just to emphasise I'm not talking about the risk of real keel damage which I accept would be far higher, just the risk of loss of keel with no signs that could be spotted by a bilge inspection.

I agree! I dont think, again, that this is needed just to check if the keel is still there!

Hell, you could do that with a broom handle... no need for a camera!

 

[dt4134]

But.... I regularly inspect all of the key systems on my own boat... including the steering, Keel bolts, (Its a Bavaria after all...) rigging, fire safety gear, stopcocks, engine, bilgepumps, etc.

And I do the same when I charter.

Just to add a bit more fuel to the fire. I'm not trying to be argumentative really, I'm just disagreeing with the case you're putting forward.

Do you, for example, carry out a regular ultrasonic inspection of your quadrant?

I don't. But I almost lost a boat a couple of years ago when the cast aluminium quadrant shattered at an inconvenient moment. Only getting the anchor down pdq saved the day. A MoBO had been sunk in the same location a month or so earlier after engine failure.

Interestingly when I talked about it, a surprisingly large proportion of the people I knew had either lost a quadrant or knew someone who had.

So there is a risk, significantly higher than a repeat of the Cornish Cruising Missing Keel Incident, yet I still don't carry out a regular ultrasonic inspection to mitigate it, and I suspect you don't, because for both of us it is impracticable.

I'm not saying that a responsible skipper, owner or charterer shouldn't give the boat a good check over, but you have to be pragmatic about what can reasonably be done.

 

[dt4134]

Hell, you could do that with a broom handle... no need for a camera!

You could patent that.

 

[photodog]

Do you, for example, carry out a regular ultrasonic inspection of your quadrant?

.

Egads man, now your really gonna get me worried! I was on my back inspecting the quadrant/cables/attatchments etc in mid August...

Steering failure is one of my big fears... the other one being losing the keel when working upwind... If I lose the rig I would brick myself.. but I dont think it would mean the loss of the boat...

I would rather not blow up at breakfast as well.

 

[Ubergeekian]

READ MY POSTS!!!

ITS NOT JUST ABOUT LOSING THE KEEL!

But.... I regularly inspect all of the key systems on my own boat... including the steering, Keel bolts, (Its a Bavaria after all...) rigging, fire safety gear, stopcocks, engine, bilgepumps, etc.

And I do the same when I charter.

But again... ITS NOT JUST LOSING THE KEEL that is a reason to do a inspection..

Does that mean you would insist on having the mast removed and checked, then, if ITS NOT JUST LOSING THE KEEL?

And would you expect them just to look at the keel or to check that it was still securely attached?

 

[jcpa]

Bent and sheared keel bolts

While I have been fascinated by this episode, I am also confused.

Please can someone please explain why the keel bolts are bent and sheared? I assume being bent is why the heads were not popped up into the bilges leaving nice holes in the hull for water to flood through. So are bendy bolts a safety feature? Even so, I am surprised the bolts were a close enough fit in the hull that water did not seep past them. Or did it, and did an automatic bilge pump get rid of it? Probably not if a bilge inspection showed nothing untoward.

But again, why did the bolts bend first and then sheer off lower down? I've never seen the boltholes or the mating surfaces between the hull and the top of the keel. Possibly the threaded section of the bolt holes in the keel is somewhat recessed, giving some play in the “reamed out” part of the hole - above the shear surface at the top of the thread (if so, is this a deliberate design for this eventuality). Alternatively, had the bolts possibly worked loose allowing some bend before they sheared? Is it just “Bavaria keels that wobble a bit”?

Any explanations?

 

[Tintin]

While I have been fascinated by this episode, I am also confused.

Please can someone please explain why the keel bolts are bent and sheared? I assume being bent is why the heads were not popped up into the bilges leaving nice holes in the hull for water to flood through. So are bendy bolts a safety feature? Even so, I am surprised the bolts were a close enough fit in the hull that water did not seep past them. Or did it, and did an automatic bilge pump get rid of it? Probably not if a bilge inspection showed nothing untoward.

But again, why did the bolts bend first and then sheer off lower down? I've never seen the boltholes or the mating surfaces between the hull and the top of the keel. Possibly the threaded section of the bolt holes in the keel is somewhat recessed, giving some play in the “reamed out” part of the hole - above the shear surface at the top of the thread (if so, is this a deliberate design for this eventuality). Alternatively, had the bolts possibly worked loose allowing some bend before they sheared? Is it just “Bavaria keels that wobble a bit”?

Any explanations?

Perhaps glassed over like they are on my leisure 27? always concerned me.

 

[oopsmykeelfelloff]

While I have been fascinated by this episode, I am also confused.

Please can someone please explain why the keel bolts are bent and sheared?

Any explanations?

I'm not sure why those who have been to see Polbream are saying that the keel bolts were bent...they were not bent when she first came out of the water. I will post some photos of them immediately after she came out.