julesmoto said..

THREADPOLICE said..

julesmoto said..
Well common sense tells me not to go on yachts with keels that look like that. If the harbour bridge was made out of steel girders two inches by two inches I wouldn't go on that either no matter how many engineers signed off on it. Typically that type of keel is held in its pocket by two bolts and compared to the length of the keel the pocket is usually ridiculously shallow.

Interesting however that the boat floated as I doubt mine would.

The report is probably wrong but it said that they had to clamber back onto the hull of the boat to raise the alarm. If so no one was wearing a personal e-pirb. Maybe life jackets offshore should be mandated to include personal e-pirbs. Keel loss usually gives no time to grab the boats e- pirb on the way out if you are below.

I certainly have one in my life jacket but then I don't usually wear the life jacket. Mind you I don't sail a yacht with a ridiculous keel like that.

What about multihulls they don't even have keels!

I didn't think we were talking about multi-hulls although if buying one, which I have considered, I would definitely be looking at the cross beam and bulkheads together with the general history of that model if a production boat. That rules out lagoons or recent leopards (if there's luggage performance hadn't already ruled them out) plus a few lesser known designs.

I was replying the comment from Jules saying he would not sail on that boat due to its keel. I assume that means he wont sail a multihull or a dinghy because they don't even have keels. Best to outlaw those boats.

THREADPOLICE said..

Trek said..
Well said Threadpolice.

The only ones who know whats going on are those who have been ocean racing in the last two decades.

Most haven't. That's exactly why some kind of design safety standards are needed.

If you'd been racing in the last two decades you'd know there are design standards. Stricter than the Governments in fact.

And yet, we have keels coming off and people dying a little Too regularly in our small sailing community.

D3 said..

THREADPOLICE said..

D3 said..

THREADPOLICE said..

D3 said..

THREADPOLICE said..
AS implemented keel & rudder inspections. Accidents happen, 1266 Persons died last year in car accidents last year in Aus & more than 160,000 died in car accidents in India. Don't want risk, stay at home.

And what have we done to reduce our road toll?

Alongside mandating safer vehicles, improving roads, training requirements etc?

1970 was the last time the national road toll was 80/100,000 vehicles.
Since then it has been steadily reducing. (1970 was when Victoria introduced seatbelt mandates, and there's been more since then)

I wouldn't think that people's attitudes to driving have changed much, but in 2014 the toll was 4.5/100,000 vehicles.

In 2020 it was 4.4/Billion vehicle kilometres.

If you want to compare vehicle safety to yachting safety, it helps to put the data in to context.

What have we done to make sailing safer?
-What are the lessons we learned and implemented from disasters like Fastnet, 98 Hobart, Cheek Rafiki?

-Do we have any data on number of yachts racing to relate keel loss and/or deaths to?
How does this number compare to vehicle related deaths?
How does it compare to Motorsport related deaths?

Road toll is UP 4.8% despite billions being spent.

& if you don't know what was implemented from the lessons we learned from 98 Hobart & Fastnet then you haven't been ocean racing in the last two decades.

We've managed to reduce the road toll by 66% since it peaked in 1970, despite the massive increase in vehicles on the road since then.

The rate of deaths per 100,000 vehicles has been reduced by 95%.

Have we done anything near that well with looking after our sailors in the same period of time?

My point stands, more deaths this year despite billions in "government intervention"

Are you suggesting that the government imposed vehicle safety standards, roads, licencing rules and regs etc are ineffective due to a 5.7 percent increase from 2022 to 2023?

Was the increase due to sudden reduction in design and build quality of vehicles?
Unlikely that 72 people died from catastrophic vehicle failure due to design or construction issues.

Yet, in the sailing world we can have a fantastic, safe season until a keel falls off and 2 people die.

Miraculous more keels don't fall off.
Having the government tell us what to do about keels is a stupid idea.

julesmoto said..



What's racing got to do with it?

Were they racing?

They were on their way to a race start.

It was a race boat.

The only reason people would buy such a lightweight boat (2.8 tonnes at 36 foot) with that keel type is to race.

This whole thread is a discussion about a race boat heading to a race losing it's keel, the reason for which we won't know for a while.

Now, second comment in the thread, you said "Hopefully we find out what brand of yacht eventually. I know what my money is on."

I assume, that you were counting on it being a beneteau or Jenneau? So that would be a European boat, the construction of which is strictly controlled by a LAW called the Recreational Craft Directive. This actually has nothing to do with racing.

Next quote:

"In this case it was an ex racing yacht that was the problem. As is common racing yachts are sold at a greatly depreciated price after a few years when they are no longer flavour of the year or competitive and then adapted by cruisers to be a bit more suitable for cruising with perhaps some low key racing occasionally."

Yes that does happen but in order for those boats to get drawn and built with the intention of racing they have to be designed and built to the standards imposed, in this case by the race rules - otherwise they wouldn't exist in the first place. QED.

THREADPOLICE said..

D3 said..

THREADPOLICE said..

D3 said..

THREADPOLICE said..

D3 said..

THREADPOLICE said..
AS implemented keel & rudder inspections. Accidents happen, 1266 Persons died last year in car accidents last year in Aus & more than 160,000 died in car accidents in India. Don't want risk, stay at home.

And what have we done to reduce our road toll?

Alongside mandating safer vehicles, improving roads, training requirements etc?

1970 was the last time the national road toll was 80/100,000 vehicles.
Since then it has been steadily reducing. (1970 was when Victoria introduced seatbelt mandates, and there's been more since then)

I wouldn't think that people's attitudes to driving have changed much, but in 2014 the toll was 4.5/100,000 vehicles.

In 2020 it was 4.4/Billion vehicle kilometres.

If you want to compare vehicle safety to yachting safety, it helps to put the data in to context.

What have we done to make sailing safer?
-What are the lessons we learned and implemented from disasters like Fastnet, 98 Hobart, Cheek Rafiki?

-Do we have any data on number of yachts racing to relate keel loss and/or deaths to?
How does this number compare to vehicle related deaths?
How does it compare to Motorsport related deaths?

Road toll is UP 4.8% despite billions being spent.

& if you don't know what was implemented from the lessons we learned from 98 Hobart & Fastnet then you haven't been ocean racing in the last two decades.

We've managed to reduce the road toll by 66% since it peaked in 1970, despite the massive increase in vehicles on the road since then.

The rate of deaths per 100,000 vehicles has been reduced by 95%.

Have we done anything near that well with looking after our sailors in the same period of time?

My point stands, more deaths this year despite billions in "government intervention"

Are you suggesting that the government imposed vehicle safety standards, roads, licencing rules and regs etc are ineffective due to a 5.7 percent increase from 2022 to 2023?

Was the increase due to sudden reduction in design and build quality of vehicles?
Unlikely that 72 people died from catastrophic vehicle failure due to design or construction issues.

Yet, in the sailing world we can have a fantastic, safe season until a keel falls off and 2 people die.

Miraculous more keels don't fall off.
Having the government tell us what to do about keels is a stupid idea.

One might argue that they shouldn't fall off at all.

They've been falling off for decades, we shouldn't accept that.

We should leave the boat building to boat builders.
Look at the foiling IMOCA's, blank cheque engineering, load cells & alarms everywhere and they still break them.

julesmoto said..

Obviously the European rules and certifications under which production boats like Benateaus are produced are also pretty useless. Especially without any third party inspections during the building process.

Just speculation but I wouldn't mind betting the big production boat manufacturers have a large influence on the EU standards, most likely actually writing them to suit themselves.

THREADPOLICE said..

If you'd been racing in the last two decades you'd know there are design standards. Stricter than the Governments in fact.

I am interested to read about these. Can you point me to any strict design standard that has resulted in improving our keel integrity issues?
The only thing I could find is the ISAF/WS Special Regulations Section 3.02 (which is also AS' Special Regulations Part 1) that talks about keel inspection requirements.

Not exactly a 'strict' design standard....

AVS, STIX et al are stabiility and boyancy measurements, so they dont talk about it .
And come to think of it, I'm not aware of any Government standards either.
So what standards are you referencing?
Thanks!

shaggybaxter said..
BTW, here is Appendix L, the inspection form that is referenced in Section 3.02.
Nope, no strict design standard here...

However if the keel has whooping great big cracks, the cracks will be noted and the boat will not pass, which is a significant improvement on what they had previously. I've seen quite a few boats out there with shocking keels that shouldn't be racing.

Ok I hate government regulation but the keel issue is absolutely deadly.

Long ago car manufacturers were forced to consider the inevitability that a certain percentage of cars will have crashes. This lead to energy absorbing subframes side intrusion bars and the like which are actually tested by various bodies worldwide including ancap. This has caught on to the extent that it is newsworthy and a reason to shy away from a car if it doesn't get a five-star rating from these testing bodies. You can of course still buy a low volume AC Cobra; Lotus 7... or similar if you want in the full knowledge that it has no secondary safety.

Similarly it is inevitable that a certain percentage of yachts will run a ground and some of them quite hard and at speed.

How about legislation to the effect that the bottom half of a keel or perhaps even two-thirds needs to be sacrificial in the sense that the bolts holding it on will sheer before the attachment to the hull does? This needs to be in conjunction with a requirement that sufficient ballast remains in the top half or third of the keel so that the boat will slowly right or at least not turn turtle. This requirement could easily be tested by ancap style tests which would become compulsory for let's say manufacturers producing 20 or more of a particular design. If the sacrificial portion worked they wouldn't even have to sacrifice a whole boat just the bottom of the keel. This would force people who run hard aground (charterers and charter companies this means you) to do something about it as they couldn't just forget about it and eventually on -sell the boat to some hapless unsuspecting soul.

It would also probably put paid to ridiculously high aspect ratio keels with bulbs on the bottom as well as dingy style hull profiles (good riddance). Those who wish to risk their lives with one off designs just to win races could still do so with their one designs but everyone would be aware that it had no ancap style safety rating.

The risk with a catamaran is that you rip the bottom out of the boat if you run aground as the bottom of even very large cats has nowhere near the strength of a keel yacht as it is not designed to support a keel. Cat sailors are also used to taking their boats into quite shallow water. Manufacturers have recognised this issue and many production cats have sacrificial keels comprising foam with a light layer of fiberglass thereover sitting into pockets in the bottom of the hulls. The basic concept of a sacrificial keel is therefore not new although it has to my knowledge never been proposed in relation to a keel yacht which is a totally different proposition.

Andrew68 said..

However if the keel has whooping great big cracks, the cracks will be noted and the boat will not pass, which is a significant improvement on what they had previously. I've seen quite a few boats out there with shocking keels that shouldn't be racing.

I agree in principle Andrew. But....
-- In the case of whopping great big cracks, that's no longer an issues about strict design standards, but an issue about skipper competency, If the boat came out of the water, it wouldn't be just me, everyone would check out the keel and mating. Call it survival instincts or common sense, but you have a legal responsibility to your crew. If that doesn't self motivate a skipper, then I'd suggest they shouldn't be in charge of a boat in the first place.
-- She was in delivery mode for a race start and hence, I assume she would've already had the keel inspection compliance submitted to be eligible for the race. Yet the keel fell off. so the inspection didn't discover an issue.

julesmoto said..
How about legislation to the effect that the bottom half of a keel or perhaps even two-thirds needs to be sacrificial in the sense that the bolts holding it on will sheer before the attachment to the hull does?

Great idea!
We have forepeak crash bulkheads, so some form of keel crash bulkhead makes a lot of sense.
Any ballast being at the deepest draft might add some engineering challenges, but it would be so cool.

julesmoto said..
And then there's this guy on a yachting Facebook page who has just bought a boat and asks if he should be concerned. One bolt is actually snapped off inside the nut!

.... there are racers out there that will continue even with this sort of stuff in their boats ^^^^^^

Or some other methods of being able to identify that a keel has been over stressed.

I just think about all the ways we have off being able to identify when a vehicle has been in a crash, or if it has serious safety issues.

Just think of the value difference between a 2nd hand car and a racing yacht.

And yet it is so hard to be confident in the material state of a vessel that may be 10 times the value of the vehicle I transport my entire family in, every day.

Thats why it would be good to have a more updated global standards body like ABS or Lloyds register of shipping yacht scantling standards that covers all the modern methods of construction. It levels the playing field if everyone has to build to the same scantling standards.

Its incredible how hard it is to get scantling or structural standard design details from modern mass production yacht makers. I also wonder why even today its such a struggle to find the Limit of positive stability data from manufacturers. In the absence of a certification body its a bit much just expecting people to accept "trust us" It also clear that the so called CE standards are not working when Beneteau keels are failing on a regular basis!