Sunken Delta 54

Well its obvious the IPS legs didn't break off as designed, they all ripped out backwards as evidenced by the legs complete with upper gearbox intact. Looks like the outer drives punched upwards with what looks like prop strikes just in front of the mounting hole. The centre drive swung right back through 90 degrees and the rear of the leg cut upwards through the transom, and the mounting ring has completely delaminated from the hull, also the engines have damage around the propshaft housing which should have all remained in situ if the lower leg broke off as advertised. Either the hull construction was too weak or Volvo needs to go back to the drawing board!
 
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Ummm, not good. This is not the first report of an IPS not shearing as designed. The Delta core looked plenty thick enough, but of course you cannot really tell the integrity of the lay up from the video.
 
aquatom said:
Hears how it's meant to shear off. It works if you hit a vertical submerged object.
http://youtu.be/nLmlWgLHZAc
Click to expand...

Its not very plausible to hit vertical object in water, or is it? :D
In Delta 54 video I think center leg hit has been as vertical as it can be in real life situ and it looks like there has been enough speed too.
Anyway no shear off and huge damage in hull + whole mounting ring almost totally disconnected from hull.

If I remember right there was almost same damage in Jeanneu 42 ips that hit to bottom and sunk in Finland some years ago.
Accident report was posted somewhere here too.

Had feeling that Delta hull is strongly build, but is it (carbon and everything)?
Or is it, as Spannerman said, Volvos design fault?
Interesting to see if there will be any accident report from this one... :rolleyes:
 
spannerman said:
Well its obvious the IPS legs didn't break off as designed, they all ripped out backwards as evidenced by the legs complete with upper gearbox intact. Looks like the outer drives punched upwards with what looks like prop strikes just in front of the mounting hole.
Click to expand...

I don't think that is what happened. Just watched the video again and as far as I can see the two outer drives are intact..... except for having been under water. They were simply taken out after the boat was back on the dry. The outer mounting rings also look undamaged. Nothing violent happened here. The two first engines we see are the starboard (SB) and port ones (BB)..... intact except for some corrosion as expected. The third engine - labeled MM for Mid Motor is the one with physical damage

Whatever happened, it looks like only the center drive took the hit and was twisted backwards 90deg ..... but of course there is also extensive damage to the starboard side of the hull..... probably also enough to sink the boat. This double whammy was what caused the boat to eventually sink. How the damage could occur only on starboard hull side AND the center pod is the question. Seems atypical but then again are there any typical incidents like this?

The boat would be under water in a matter of seconds or maximum a few minutes if all 3 drives had been ripped out The link on youtube is to an article in Swedish describing how the rescue service tried to prevent the sinking by pumping out water while it was still floating. It was a losing battle so in the end the boat was moved to shallow waters where it settled on the bottom. So there was time to arrive at the scene, try to pump out the water and move the boat to shallow waters. Sound like it was a wafer-thin defeat to circumstances..... certainly not all 3 pods ripped out at once.

Either way, it's a complete write off. The Swedish article also mentions something about the repairs probably being more than a new boat. Best to just sell the pieces that have a little value and then forget about it!

Note to future Delta 54 buyers. Ask Delta to deliver it with 3X D6-400 and stern drives. Then in all likelihood this wouldn't have happened. The boat would probably be cheaper to buy and own as well as 350 kilo lighter. OK, 100 hp short too but does it really matter? 1200 hp or 1300 hp total is probably trivial here.
 
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You are right on second look its only the centre leg which ripped out, I was hopping through the video clip as it was a bit slow and thought there was damage on all 3.
 
Whitelighter said:
Would a boat with shafts suffered a different fate? The Manhattan 50 in the Balearics suffered a similar accident and sank. Big hole or small it seems it's going down.

That was p backers by the way
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Depends on what classification its built to ---- Italien RINA like pre 2004 ( Ferretti ) ITAMA,s have 3 separate water tight compartments .
P brackets being under the rear cabin .
There's a method in no mid cabin lost on buyers @ today's boat show .
A P bracket rip out will not sink my boat
 
Portofino said:
Depends on what classification its built to ---- Italien RINA like pre 2004 ( Ferretti ) ITAMA,s have 3 separate water tight compartments .
P brackets being under the rear cabin .
There's a method in no mid cabin lost on buyers @ today's boat show .
A P bracket rip out will not sink my boat
Click to expand...

But is that not also true with IPS?

If you built an IPS boat with 3 separate water tight compartments the same would be true - it wouldn't sink.
It seems a lot of people are desperate to blame IPS where I doubt *most* shaft drive boats would have had the same fate
 
How do you do that -build an IPS -50-60 ftr with 3 separate water tight compartment s with a "wow I,ll buy it please "
Owners mid cabin -? - which connects to the saloon via a door ( not withstanding interconnecting bilge under the cabin sole (s) )
Engines in the rear -presume under the tender garage at 1/4 of space - .
I think as a designer it's all in to RINA spec or nothing as the Hatten 50 and the Pearl sixty something that dinged its P bracket last year .
Market forces have compromised safety ?
 
Looks like the "unidentified object" that it hit was the seabed or a reef and it hit while under way.

Look at the strike marks on the forward hull and the starb side.

An IPS is designed to break off if it hits for example a tree trunk or similar.

It looks like the IPS drives have grounded at some speed and have been sheared off pushing the central drive back and rolled it under the boat pushing the rear part up through the hull look how the front part of the IPS drive shaft is smashed off and the rear prop has lost the lower blades.

I assume the engine and drive marked MM is middle motor the engine carden shaft has pulled apart at the joint and it has flailed and smashed the bell housing.

Like Burgundy Ben I believe if it was a shaft drive boat you would have pulled the prop shafts back and pushed up the palms and rudders inevitably sinking the boat.

If you drive an IPS
 
Whitelighter said:
But is that not also true with IPS?
Click to expand...
Yes and no.
In the layout Portofino mentioned, a P-bracket ripped out of the hull would flood the stern w/t compartment, not the e/r.
Pods go straight inside the e/r (the same would be true for the P bracket of most shaft boats on V-drives, btw), and that is a relevant difference, aside of any space considerations.

That said, I wouldn't hold my breath on the capacity of ANY pleasure boat to survive a bad grounding, with the only exception of a few battleship-alike steel trawlers that I've seen (FIVE w/t compartments, double hull, etc.).
Trouble is, VP saw the objections coming from the beginning, and thought to include (and promote with fanfare!) this feature of emergency break-off in the IPS design.
It would have been refreshingly honest if they would have declared that an IPS boat doesn't stand a chance to survive a grounding, exactly in the same way as 99.9% of the other pleasure boats afloat.
But "refreshingly honest" isn't a popular concept in marketing departments, I reckon... :nonchalance:

Bottom line, there's a lot to be said for choosing shafts over IPS, but better resistance to grounding is not even worth including in the list, imho.
 
Portofino said:
Depends on what classification its built to ---- Italien RINA like pre 2004 ( Ferretti ) ITAMA,s have 3 separate water tight compartments .
P brackets being under the rear cabin .
There's a method in no mid cabin lost on buyers @ today's boat show .
A P bracket rip out will not sink my boat
Click to expand...

Know of a story of an Itama 46 which hit a reef in Ponza and did not sink cause of what you say.
Fair to say it did at slow speeds though.
 
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