What they don't tell you about production boats

[Laminar Flow]

You have to wonder how, pulling the keel off of the outside of the hull would delaminate the grid from the inside of the hull.

I'd also be wondering if the yard dropped the boat on its keel.

I agree. I find that rather astonishing, or concerning, as that may be.

 

[rotrax]

I sincerely hope Brent Swain is not following this thread........................

 

[JumbleDuck]

I sincerely hope Brent Swain is not following this thread........................

Say what you like about his debating style, but he's passionate and it was nice to see one of his designs make the news recently:

 

[Sailfree]

When I looked at buying a boating 1998 I did a spreadsheet of potential boats. It was interesting to see difference in price of boat v length. This was better understood when I introduced weight. More weight = more materials , hence increase in cost. At that time a HR was much heavier for any length than a production boat. One i investigated more thoroughly was X boats (consider a fast cruising boat) and was surprised to find the ballast was the keel and the inner structural frame weight together. Most inner beams etc are considered part of the Hull not ballast.

At about that era more boats went to the benneatau type of construction with an outer hull and to varying extent and inner grid/inner Hull often eggbox shaped to create strength being bonded together.

These were adequate in strength but more cost effective to build.

Earlier production boats are stronger but can't compete on cost.

We bought the last of the Jeanneau 43's in 2005 which is built in a more conventional way with ribs and beams bonded to the Hull. Jeanneau was ceasing this range as no longer cost effective.

People are quick to criticise Bavarias but those from the period 1990 to say 2002 were very solidly built.

I also looked at X boats and Arconas that have an inner galvanised steel frame taking the rigging loads and strengthening the Hull. The keel is bolted direct to this inner steel frame with the Hull being a sandwich between the two. I was surprised at the damage when a 46' had a minor grounding. The Hull tried to slip forwards and the inner frame was displaced. It stayed afloat.

The 43' jeanneau commission before mine was for a Finnish owner. In the words of the commissioning manager in considerable pain with cracked ribs. " He was like Germans only knew 2 throttle sttings full afternoon and full ahead." It was low water and the boat hit the cill of the gates in Hythe Marina and came to a full stop.

Afterwards the calculated the weight of the extra equipment air con, generator and diving compressor and understood why!

Boat was quickly lifted out and apart from impact deformity on keel to everyone's great surprise there was no further damage. Keel and his ribs where he hit the winch on impact!

Their misfortune did give me confidence in the strength of the build of my production boat.

Some production boats are stronger than others but when I look at current prices new production boats are tremendous value for money and adequate for their purpose. They will suffer disproportionately in any impact but not so much that insurance companies differentiate between makes and load premiums as they do for cars.

 

[wully1]

I wonder if this whole thread will be moot in about another ten years as there just won't be many non awbs to choose from? I want to go sailing. Not renovate a 40 year boat. My ideal boat at the moment would be a Starlight 35. But there aren't any on sale. Nor a Westerly Ocean 33. Etc. So then I start looking at Hanse 341, Elan Impression 434 etc which are actually available......... I don't think I want to go older than mid 90s.

That’s because people with good old boats that they have looked after Dont often part with them ..

 

[wully1]

Erm... Didn’t Fulmars require additional strengthening of the keel structure?

I have tried to not contribute as I am not a lover of the grid system. The idea of bonding the matrix solely to the hull with a rigid adhesive seems mad. My fear is that too much emphasis is placed by accountants to build as cheaply as possible. Although keel matrix bonded in have been used for several decades as part of the drive to build to a "just" adequate standard, I still feel there will be an increasing number of matrix failures. On the other hand you have to admire the automation that is use to create the original moulds, cutting the mat to shape, and cut openings for windows and fittings. We also have to look at the Recreational Craft Directive and realise it really does not set any particular high standrds for structural integrity of the hull. Too many people new to yachting seem to think this has raised standards, in my opinion there were too many manufacturers pressing for the lowest minimum to keep boats cheap and like an almost a disposable asset. Comments about longer term maintenance being difficult for subsequent owners being dismissed as not the builder's problem is so wrong.

Many of the modern designs do satisfy many customers with roomy accomodation that is definitely designed for being comfortable whilst in in harbour. However many are not what a traditionalist like me would call a good sea boat. This covers things like a relaxed ride in rougher water compared to a bouncy ride and slamming, how easy is it to use the loo (especially for ladies), handholds within the cabin and being free from water slap whilst anchored, moored or berthed. A lot of the mass produced designs are designed to sail flatter, but the ballasting is so light and more reliant on form stability, that the sail plan is a lot reduced compared to older designs. My Fulmar has a very tall mast, taller than normal as it is ¾ rigged, but at only 32ft LOA it is far taller than modern 32 footers and frquently taller than modern 36 to 38 ft yachts. At the same time I regularly outsail longer yachts, but that could be due to their poor ability to maximise their performance, so many of them comment I have a fast boat.

In the 40 years since my Fulmar was designed there have been a lot of improvements that make sailing easier. Having all halyards and controls led aft, usually in recessed channels rather than across the deck. Having sizeable toilet compartments with a shower is no longer a luxury. Fridges, freezers and microwaves make the galley almost like a floating home from home. There have also been improvements in some of the materials used like the resin, kevlar, carbon fibre and woven mat. The introduction of the sail drive makes fitting an engine a lot quicker than a shaft drive. The swim platform with walk through transom can make it easier to board for a dinghy or if you go swimming.

The trend of increasing beam being brought further aft certainly increases hull volume, but the downside has meant twin rudders have to be fitted to retain control as the stern lifts as the yacht heals due to the lack of buoyancy forward. This now adds the problem that you can no longer use prop wash to help berth a boat. One solution to increase control is the fitting of bow thrusters. The increase in freeboard has 2 problems, firstly the wind can catch the boat wholst berthing and secondly makes berthing stern to almost essential in a marina as you need a ladder to step down on a finger pontoon.

What people can get buying a new yacht is certainly looking like good value compared to say 40 years ago. From my view point I feel they are built to a price rather than a standard - purely because the RCD is not strong enough. There certainly needs to be improvements for structural integrity of the hull to protect the occupants if it runs aground at full speed.

Would I really want to buy a new yacht? Sorry, but I have to say no.

Returning to the video at the start of this discussion. Listening to the owner discussing the problem with his yacht, I have to query his level of knowledge of boats. He bought a boat he could not afford and needed to charter it to pay part of his bills. He talks of the kitchen, not the galley. Some of his other comments are either woolly or just shows he knows very little about how his boat was built and the materials used. He relies of what the repairers are telling him. I feel he is brave to show the repair to his boat. I just hope it does not come back to haunt him at sometime in the future. I remember an other owner who had a problem with poor quality of the hull construction of a Hazar 30 and the UK agent would not help, neither did the yard. He had a very fully detailed web site with his problem, but later this was cut down heavily and now has been completely removed. No doubt the video will be removed in the future when the owner realises how it will affect his chartering and eventually selling further in the future.

 

[geem]

Erm... Didn’t Fulmars require additional strengthening of the keel structure?

I think that was some bilge keel Centaurs

 

[Concerto]

Erm... Didn’t Fulmars require additional strengthening of the keel structure?

The early Fulmars did require additional strengthening at the aft end of the keel. Mine is an early boat and still has not yet been strengthened at 41 years old. It is on my list of jobs that will get done in the near future. It was commented on by the surveyor when I bought her in Dec 2013. The only way it shows is when chocked out of the water and the hull pushes in by 10mm at the aft end of the keel. I have run aground doing 7 knots with no damage, so the original strength of the design was certainly adequate.

 

[wully1]

I think that was some bilge keel Centaurs

Don’t think the issues were confined to the bilge keelers, later additions of Fulmars had a different lay up as did the Storms and Typhoons. I stand to be corrected on this.

Anyway, steel frames bonded into GRP is on my list of things to avoid if I every buy another boat. I know of one almost new brand ‘x’ boat that was written off as it could not be repaired after a ‘standard’ grounding.

 

[pvb]

Erm... Didn’t Fulmars require additional strengthening of the keel structure?

Lots of Westerly yachts had keel problems, including Pageants, Centaurs, Griffons, GK29s, Fulmars and Konsorts.

 

[Concerto]

Lots of Westerly yachts had keel problems, including Pageants, Centaurs, Griffons, GK29s, Fulmars and Konsorts.

So did quite a few Bavarias. Touche. The difference is the Bavarias have been designed with the knowledge gained from earlier yachts, yet they still have fully learnt the lesson.

 

[pvb]

So did quite a few Bavarias. Touche. The difference is the Bavarias have been designed with the knowledge gained from earlier yachts, yet they still have fully learnt the lesson.

The only Bavaria design which had an inherent keel problem was the lightweight Match series, designed by J&J. After one boat lost its keel, Bavaria recalled about 150 Match boats and re-worked them.

I don't understand your last sentence.

 

[Resolution]

When I looked at buying a boating 1998 I did a spreadsheet of potential boats. It was interesting to see difference in price of boat v length. This was better understood when I introduced weight. More weight = more materials , hence increase in cost. At that time a HR was much heavier for any length than a production boat. One i investigated more thoroughly was X boats (consider a fast cruising boat) and was surprised to find the ballast was the keel and the inner structural frame weight together. Most inner beams etc are considered part of the Hull not ballast.

At about that era more boats went to the benneatau type of construction with an outer hull and to varying extent and inner grid/inner Hull often eggbox shaped to create strength being bonded together.

These were adequate in strength but more cost effective to build.

Earlier production boats are stronger but can't compete on cost.

We bought the last of the Jeanneau 43's in 2005 which is built in a more conventional way with ribs and beams bonded to the Hull. Jeanneau was ceasing this range as no longer cost effective.

People are quick to criticise Bavarias but those from the period 1990 to say 2002 were very solidly built.

I also looked at X boats and Arconas that have an inner galvanised steel frame taking the rigging loads and strengthening the Hull. The keel is bolted direct to this inner steel frame with the Hull being a sandwich between the two. I was surprised at the damage when a 46' had a minor grounding. The Hull tried to slip forwards and the inner frame was displaced. It stayed afloat.

The 43' jeanneau commission before mine was for a Finnish owner. In the words of the commissioning manager in considerable pain with cracked ribs. " He was like Germans only knew 2 throttle sttings full afternoon and full ahead." It was low water and the boat hit the cill of the gates in Hythe Marina and came to a full stop.

Afterwards the calculated the weight of the extra equipment air con, generator and diving compressor and understood why!

Boat was quickly lifted out and apart from impact deformity on keel to everyone's great surprise there was no further damage. Keel and his ribs where he hit the winch on impact!

Their misfortune did give me confidence in the strength of the build of my production boat.

Some production boats are stronger than others but when I look at current prices new production boats are tremendous value for money and adequate for their purpose. They will suffer disproportionately in any impact but not so much that insurance companies differentiate between makes and load premiums as they do for cars.

As Sailfree probably remembers, I was a director of the company that sold the SO43 to the Finnish buyer. I well remember the shock of seeing the high speed crash into the Hythe marina chill. This was followed by the highly urgent need to lift the boat out (before it inevitably sank!) on a Friday evening when the travel hoist crew had already knocked off work. Luckily we knew which pub they had sloped off to, and they were brilliant in coming straight back and getting the lift done. Second priority was to get a surveyor to assess the damage. Again we were fortunate to find a leading surveyor who dropped everything to zoom over to Hythe in time to see the boat being lifted. And he won my eternal gratitude by quietly telling the Finnish buyer “ Lucky this is a Jeanneau. If it had been a Bavaria the keel would have probably come right off.”
Apart from a new flat front to the lower part of the cast iron keel, the only damage was to some of the furniture in the saloon which had fractured as the hull flexed.
We should never have allowed the buyer to specify so many extras, but were seduced by the profit margin on retro-fit items. No winners out of that deal in the end.

 

[Concerto]

The only Bavaria design which had an inherent keel problem was the lightweight Match series, designed by J&J. After one boat lost its keel, Bavaria recalled about 150 Match boats and re-worked them.

I don't understand your last sentence.

The Westerlys you mentioned were designed 40 to 50 years ago. Bavaria only started with their first boat in 1978, when Westerly were considered a mass manufacturer. This quote from The History of Sailing | BAVARIA YACHTS shows they did not evolve from the use of new materials as Wesertly had done, but worked on the experience of other builders and designers.

"The choice for sailors increased, with more and more boats being built and sold. The breakthrough of „sailing for everyone“ came at the end of the 1960s with the new material, glass fibre reinforced plastic (GRP). Boats no longer needed to be built out of wood plank by plank by hand. With moulds, GRP mats and resin, they could be mass‐produced on assembly lines. Winfried Hermann also recognised this and transformed his plastic window factory into the Bavaria shipyard for sailing ships in 1978. The Bavaria 707, which was 7.07m long, 2.48m wide and had 28 square metres of sail area, was the first boat from the shipyard in Giebelstadt. "

Yet despite the designers at Westerly learning that keel ribs needed strengthening, especially bilge keel yachts, Westerly recalled many boats for strengthening and updated the build specification. Many later designers and builders are still making keel ribs too weak., or why is it now standard procedure for lots of boats to be lifted after a hard grounding? It does seem that Bavaria can be grouped with other manufacturers that are engineering their designs using materials that were not avaiable to Westerly, but keel failures should by now be a thing of the past through better design but keel problems keep cropping up with many builders. In my opinion the keel on a yacht should be able to withstand a reasonable speed grounding without any damage.

You keep harping on about Westerly keel problems like a worn record. When you consider they were using a relatively new material, it is not surprising there were a few errors made and correctled. If it was such a big problem, why are there so many of the 12,500 Westerly yachts still sailing today?

 

[Concerto]

pvb I have just found this thread from 2013 which refers to Bavaria keel problems.
When did Bavaria Yachts change?

 

[Laminar Flow]

As Sailfree probably remembers, I was a director of the company that sold the SO43 to the Finnish buyer. I well remember the shock of seeing the high speed crash into the Hythe marina chill. This was followed by the highly urgent need to lift the boat out (before it inevitably sank!) on a Friday evening when the travel hoist crew had already knocked off work. Luckily we knew which pub they had sloped off to, and they were brilliant in coming straight back and getting the lift done. Second priority was to get a surveyor to assess the damage. Again we were fortunate to find a leading surveyor who dropped everything to zoom over to Hythe in time to see the boat being lifted. And he won my eternal gratitude by quietly telling the Finnish buyer “ Lucky this is a Jeanneau. If it had been a Bavaria the keel would have probably come right off.”
Apart from a new flat front to the lower part of the cast iron keel, the only damage was to some of the furniture in the saloon which had fractured as the hull flexed.
We should never have allowed the buyer to specify so many extras, but were seduced by the profit margin on retro-fit items. No winners out of that deal in the end.

I'm just surprised he didn't immediately take a second run at it, after not getting across the sill at the first try.
This was a technique demonstrated to us in Ploumanch' by a fair sized French yacht. After hitting the sill at a considerable velocity and a loud crash and much rattling of rigging, they, to our utter astonishment, circled and had another go at it; not with any reduction in speed either and the same predictable result. After that, they seemed to have lost interest (just when I had settled in with another glass of wine to watch) and waited for the tide to rise some, like everyone else.
It would seem the French may have good reason to make their keels stronger.

 

[wully1]

“ If it was such a big problem, why are there so many of the 12,500 Westerly yachts still sailing today?”

Because on the whole they were extremely well built , over built actually, that’s why so many are still sailing and sought after.
And why Westerly failed probably... Too much focus on quality and not enough on cost and efficiency?
Someone I know was an apprentice at Westerly and was told “Never use one screw when two will do”...

I won’t be around in another 34 years to compare how well a 2020 AWB has lasted against my Storm of today but I’m guessing the 2020 boat will be in landfill before it’s seen 34 years afloat.

 

[Laminar Flow]

Say what you like about his debating style, but he's passionate and it was nice to see one of his designs make the news recently:

I actually have met Mr. Swain. He lives on a small , non-de-script boat of his design about an hours drive away from us.
His biggest problem is that he was too late, too late to have been part of the times when every other self-respecting suburban driveway was home to it's own rusty ferro basket and people went to evening classes to learn welding with the hope of cobbling together a South Seas' dream for themselves.
This was the heyday of designs that emphasized ease of construction over any kind of hydrodynamic quality; such as Brent's. That ship has long sailed and I'm not sure he knows it. With so much old plastic available, nobody in their right mind would build his own boat from scratch today.
Sadly, he has turned himself into a modern day Don Quixote, tilting against the fiberglass windmills that he thinks stole his thunder and, unlike his brother in spirit, Senior de la Mancha, it seems he does not have the benefit of the lyricism of a Miguel de Servantes to lend grace to his words.

I have seen quite a few of his boats and while Isaac Albeniz claims "there is beauty in everything, some just can't see it", I have to confess: I can't; I must be truly inept in that department.
One I looked over had been built by a Prairie farmer after a weekend course, or so, with the designer and then trucked out West some 2000 km to the nearest salt water body. It had as much in common with the glorious realm of yachting as a piece of well-used agricultural equipment. Of course it arrived with all the required Swain accoutrements: the steel pipe mast with the steps welded to it, the galva rigging, the home built furler and wind vane, not to forget, the signature toes-out bilge keels and the requisite, but elegant, raw plywood interior. Once moored, it never left the bay and it's owner simply returned back home. To be fair, it did survive being driven ashore during a winter storm, though, any damage, other than of an obvious catastrophic nature, might have been difficult to discern from the original handywork.

 

[Stemar]

Lots of Westerly yachts had keel problems, including Pageants, Centaurs, Griffons, GK29s, Fulmars and Konsorts.

But they're still properly built boats, not like this modern rubbish...

 

[pvb]

You keep harping on about Westerly keel problems like a worn record.

I don't; I simply replied to wully1's post with a factual response. Or perhaps as an active member of the WOA you think that any mention of Westerly keel problems should be suppressed? Perhaps Admin might change the forum rules if you ask them nicely?