Keel cracks

DownWest said:
In this thread.. Looking at the first pic, the bits don't line up. If a repair was attempted, the welder would at least set it up so the bits matched. If not, some filler would make it look reasonable. Neither seems to have been tried. Begs a question (or 2..3) about the quality of the repair, and the owners acceptance of it.
Did the OP ask the previous owner (6yrs) or just walk. I may have missed something it.
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Cooled off but waiting to hear circumstances of accident, repair, & survey details before making a final call. Repair does look poor, but might have been a long time ago - filler since cracked & fell away? Yacht is supposed to have been recently surveyed for insurance purposes so the truth is out there.

Incidentally - how would I track down the previous owner?
 
BristolDiver said:
Cooled off but waiting to hear circumstances of accident, repair, & survey details before making a final call. Repair does look poor, but might have been a long time ago - filler since cracked & fell away? Yacht is supposed to have been recently surveyed for insurance purposes so the truth is out there.

Incidentally - how would I track down the previous owner?
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It doesn't look like that has ever been 'repaired' - the two parts of the keel don't even line up. What's worrying is that the damage inside has been (how can I put this without appearing rude?) 'disguised'. If that's been the approach, then what else is lurking?

Anyway, to answer your question, there should be a bill of sale from the previous owner to the current one which should have the P.O.'s name and address on it. (There may also be old reciepts, surveys, etc. which will corroborate this). The broker should be able to get the paperwork for you to see. (If he can't, then that's another problem!)

Edit to add: The vendor must know who they bought it off, and they want the sale, so let them do the donkey work in tracking down the PO for *you* to talk to. /edit

Are you *sure* you want a project?

Good luck, anyway :)

Andy
 
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Some ideas for tracing the previous owner:
Google the yacht name and it may appear under race results etc.

Does it have a dsc radio? There is a list of boat names and owners here: www.itu.int/cgi-bin/htsh/mars/ship_search.sh#start

Place the name of this site - someone may know it.

Check the boat for a yacht club affiliation.

Do you know about previous mooring?

Try the owner's club.

It may have been surveyed by a specialist Sigma surveyor.
 
csharpatsea said:
Which was my intention, the poster had just insulted the second most valuable asset I own and had told the world my boat was unsuitable for the regular offshore sailing I have done in it.
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That's just silly. You can't insult an object: they can't take offense. Does your response betray, perhaps, a slight lack of confidence?
 
csharpatsea said:
You doubt that material science and manufacturing techniques have advanced in the last 30 years? Go compare an Austin Princess with a VW Passat.
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Sigh.

Of course materials science and manufacturing techniques have changed. So what? A modern SZD-59 Diana is a far faster, lighter glider than a 1980's Astir 77, thanks to modern materials and manufacturing technques. The glider industry, though, has by and large taken advantages of modern materials and manufacturing techniques to make things lighter and cheaper, not stronger.

No-one doubts that Bavaria and other modern yacht mass producers have taken full advantage of advances in materials technology, manufacturing techniques and computer aided design and stress analysis. They have done it, though, in order to bring the relative cost of 37-footers down to where 32 footers were perhaps fifteen years ago and where Centaurs were thirty years ago. That's fine. If you want a big, new, boat they are cheaper now than they have ever been. But they are cheaper largely because they use less material - albeit better material - more cleverly positioned than designers could do thirty years ago. Sometime that's fine. Sometimes - wobble wobble wobble - it isn't.

In general, though, overspecced designs last longer than lightweights. Want a car example to match yours? OK, compare that Austin Princess with a Land Rover of the day. What you are sailing, basically, is a Ford Mondeo. Great design, excellent handling, built down to a price. Lasts longer than a 1976 Escort, but nowhere near as well built as a BMW or a Mercedes. Mondeos are popular with fleet buyers because you get a lot of car for your money and they last long enough - which may not mean long.

As I have said, I'm not assuming that modern lightweight designs (including but limited to your revered Bavaria) will fail unduly soon. In the very nature of the thing, though, the designers and the builders will have sailed a LOT closer to the wind than the more expensive makers - and only time will tell how cleverly they've done it.

Do you, as a matter of interest, how confident are you that your Bavaria 37 will last and age just as well as a Hallberg-Rassy 37?
 
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Looking at the picture of the internal frames they have been badly repaired . That is where the problem is and they are not bonded to the hull correctly. I have had exactly the same problem three years ago.
 
Clyde_Wanderer said:
....the crack I mentioned before is just above the gas sensor where the blue/grey sole joins with the cross brace, just above the top right sensor retaining screw and running vertically on the cross brace.
C_W
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Firstly to the people turning Scuttlebut into a Bavaria / Contessa bashing competition ..... stop abusing other threads! It's difficult enough to route out the info. to help the original post without wading through mass of uninformed rubbish.

Clyde_Wanderer ..... Photographs are not a good source of info. for a survey. This particular one is a good example. The 'crack' that you have identified is more likely be a paint run, with dirt at the edges. I wouldn't assume that either diagnosis from a photo is correct, but would certainly indicate further physical examination is necessary. The 'gas sensor' is a Raymarine? compass .... totally in the wrong place!!

Some replies have inferred that the front of the keel does nothing. This is not true. On many designs the front of the keel is used to support the mast. Just imagine what shear loads would be imparted by placing the mast foot just in front of the keel and you'll get some idea of the consequences.

Unless this boat was already at a substantial discount to the market ..... I would probably walk away. BUT ballanced against that is that the structure should be relatively easy to get to, and therefore any likely repair would not be onerous. At the end of the day it is a question of the known condition of the boat and the likely hidden damages that a surveyor will try and quantify, and you will have to make the decision as to weather the boat offers good value for money, and what repair cost if any might be involved.
 
My personal feeling is that when the going gets tough I would want to have absolute confidence in the structural integrity of my boat. I would not want to have lagging fears whether it would hold up or not.
 
Woodlouse said:
Osmosis cannot always be blamed on inadequate GRP layup.
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My memory might be wrong here but IIRC Hugo de Plessey in the excellent "Fibreglass boats" says exactly the opposite.

I think he says "Osmosis" [1] is *always* due to inadequate GRP layup. If you make a hull with no voids Osmosis cannot occur.

Maybe someone with a more recent memory of the book or a copy to hand can correct me if I'm recalling wrong.

Of course if my memory is correct, Hugo de Plessey may still be wrong!

[1] It's not really osmosis, is it. And if it is Osmosis, the Osmosis is a symptom rather than a cause.
 
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