Shock! Bavaria keel stays attached.

[Salty John]

Yes, I most certainly do expect a boat to come away from a grounding with no damage.

Cars aren't boats and such comparisons don't really work. A car having a serious crash does not in any way relate to a boat taking the ground, deliberately or otherwise. In fact cars are designed to survive a 5 mph impact with no damage and that is a much closer comparison to a boat taking the ground.

 

[ChrisE]

Well, Rival Spirit hit a rock at 6 knots and the rock was dented with minor damage to gel coat. However, the shock of the whack snapped one of the mast shroud fittings.

It is not just a strong keel that you need....

 

[Sailfree]

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My Jeanneau suffered a cracked hull alongside the keel after a heavy grounding. The design and construction of the boat was such that it could not withstand this type of grounding.

I find it unacceptable that boats should be designed and built this way but, as you say, there seems to be an acceptence that this is normal and that users should be more careful. I believe groundings are a predictable and likely occurance and should be designed for.

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I don't understand this kind of comment. Do you really think boats should be designed to come away from a heavy grounding unscathed? Cars certainly aren't designed to come away from serious crashes unscathed.

I would accept that production boats should be expected to come away from moderate groundings with enough structural integrity to get the crew home. But IMHO it is unrealistic to expect any boat to take a "heavy grounding" and not end up with a seriously expensive repair bill.

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This Forum can be a bit like the complaints about YM when they repeat similar articles but I agree with your comments completely.

I have a Jeanneau 43DS and the one commissioned before mine was taken into Hythe Marina at speed by the Finnish owner after acceptance trials. It drew 2.1m but with all the extras they later calculated it was probably 2.3m. It hit the cill of the lock gate at speed and one of the commissioning staff was thrown against a winch he was sitting next to with such force that he broke a number of ribs.

Now I want to know why God did not designed us better to withstand such groundings /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

By the way it really was a heavy thump and they immediately lifted the boat out but were amazed that while an obvious dent in ther CI keel there was no other damage!

WRT designing boats for impact as a structural engineer I would say that while they could be stronger I think on my Jeanneau 43DS they got it right but I would not like to state at what speed a boat should resist as the forces of hitting something at 8kts is many times greater than say 2kts!

WRT to buying ex- charter boats you should never buy any boat without a survey and there are more damaged hulls from groundings at my club in Poole than there has ever been among the charter fleet at Hamble.

 

[Guest]

Maybe it's a cultural thing?

Whereas a decade or two ago running aground (a la Riddle of the Sands) was regarded as a normal part of sailing and almost an everyday event - you just made sure you didn't do it on a lee shore in a rising gale - nowadays boats are expected to be entertainment complexes kept in marinas and aren't expected to go anywhere near the edges, or get their anchors dirty, or necesarily even go out sailing in anything more than a light breeze. So grounding is regarded as an extraordinary event, after which you chuck the boat away and buy a new one.

Slight exaggeration perhaps, but I think there's an element of truth in it.

Certainly the idea that boats shouldn't be designed to take a grounding seems an extraordinary one to me.

 

[bbg]

Maybe it's a question of what people mean by "heavy" groundings.

When someone earlier said a "heavy grounding", I assumed they meant the keel hitting a very solid object at a very high speed i.e. about hull speed or higher OR that the boat dried out on cobbles and took a fair degree of pounding from the waves.

In those circumstances I think it is unreasonable to EXPECT the boat not to be damaged. It is great for you if you do submit your boat to such abuse and you get away with it, but I do not think that those events should be designed for (at least in terms of no / minimal damage).

A boat should probably be designed to come away from a hull speed collision with a rock (at least against the keel) with enough structural integrity to get the crew home safely. But to EXPECT no damage is going too far. IMHO.

 

[30boat]

Westerly and keels

From what I could see on my Fulmar ,Westerly did'nt seem to have a clue on how to attach a keel .The floors were pitifuly made of 8mm plywood lightly glassed over and had broken before a few times.Sure enough when I put her on the hard for the(my) first time they broke again with a sickening cracking sound.The layup is very strong indeed but no provision was made to stiffen the bottom.Now I ask: if I ,not being a shipwright,can make a repair to the keel attachment area that's sound enough to take the loads of sailing and then some why couldn't they?I would say they could but chose not to.In my book that's negligence.Pity they're no longer around or they would have heard from me.

 

[PeterGibbs]

How right you are.

I have not read one post here that says "yup, but despite an obviously heavy bang or even several, behold, the keel stayed on and saw the crew home"

Where is the glass half full attitude that should go with sailing. All half glass empty mentalities should stay in their rockers, in my view, and save the wisdom of ages for their heirs...if they had the courage in this terrible, strife ridden world, to have any...

PWG

 

[Sailfree]

You are so clever. Please prove your point and drive into your wifes car or a crash barrier at 5mph and see the damage it causes! /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif