Originally Posted by Henning

That is the normal result of people hitting the gear, unless they happen to be a Los Angeles class sub catching the catenary with the tower, then the tug sinks.

Did this happen at one time ?

UH what color is the sky ?

Teddy1 what is your background in yacht and composite construction ?

Originally Posted by Henning

You're correct as long as you count "enroute" anything since the boat left the mold. There were issues in construction as well, but those were not enough in and of themselves to cause the failure we see here (neither is that bouy, though it may have added link 5 into the 6 link accident chain).

I am quite certain that the boat saw a hard docking driving the bow with about a 75* approach (typical dock approach angle) into the dock. That would set up a line of micro fracturing that is conducive with the type and location of where the hull initially failed on the port bow side. People comment about how thin the glass is, and it is. Thing is, when you run the engineering numbers, in an undamaged state, it is plenty. Problem is, it can only absorb extremely limited damage before it is structurally compromised. Now you have a boat with all these tiny cracks in the matrix that are totally invisible to the eye. Thing is though, it is cracked, and those cracks concentrate the stresses of every bounce and every wave it ever takes, and those fractures spread, and since force takes the path of least resistance, they spread within the damage line continuously multiplying and growing until you have no structure actually left there, but you may not be ale to see this under the paint or gelcoat. Eventually you cross the threshold of strength and induced force and you get a catastrophic failure like this.

I've seen this same thing in small composite airplanes where a small bit of hangar rash on the wing lead to a section of the wing top to peel off. That's the main problem with composite structures, many of the failure modes don't lend themselves to inspection discovery much less casual discovery. The first indicator of failure is typically catastrophic. In the past we protected ourselves from this by adding more mass. Well, these days in the chase for speed and to save money on materials, we build closer and closer to the engineering limits. The closer we are to engineering limits, the more engineering perfect the execution of construction has to be. At this point, a hot mix of resin, or applying it outside of climatic tolerances for maximum performance now takes a bump on the dock that would have been within engineered tolerances and puts it outside. Now it's only time before the failure is catastrophic.

The accident in this case could have occurred at any time in the boats life, but I bet at least a year ago.

HOGWASH


Even if this hull had been built like the old solid glass hulls of yesteryear it would have had a hard time holding its shape going down into waves without any support from the deck cap.
There is no interior framing or significant structural bulkheads forward to absord the inward pressure. The deck was it period.

The deck may as well just have been sitting on top of the boat going along for the ride because if the secondary bonding was as shoddy as we see on the bulkhead than it had nothing structural to offer.
The delamantion is very far down from the road from the actaul origin of this hull failure.Hell the hull might test to be properly built - thin- but proper core adhesion, but the fact of the matter is the fault lies with the hull to deck connection Period.

There is nothing to suggest that there was a point of impact failure other than down by the lower port bow and we have ran that scenario already.
When a secondary bond does not have proper adhesion that bond is not 50% or even 20% of what it would have been with proper adhesion . Those failed bonds could have been peeled off by a 3rd grade girl.

[Henning]

Originally Posted by tommymonza

HOGWASH

You are welcome to refute.

[Adad]

How does an impact on the port side translate to the deck coming off? Where were these micro fractures taking place in the interior or exterior laminate? Someone has already stated that hull was in pristine looking condition. If the deck was properly bonded then there would be a hole or damage to only one side and the deck would still be attached. What am I missing?

Henning i am sorry but from what i have heard from your experience i thought you had a little better understanding of the picture , but i appear to bewrong on that thought.

Henning for chits and giggles lets entertain your assumption of a hard docking .Where was the impact recieved on the hull side or at the rubrail area ?

[geriksen]

You could both be right and a "hard docking" incident separated the cap behind the rub rail.

[capitano_65]

Originally Posted by tommymonza

HOGWASH


Even if this hull had been built like the old solid glass hulls of yesteryear it would have had a hard time holding its shape going down into waves without any support from the deck cap.
There is no interior framing or significant structural bulkheads forward to absord the inward pressure. The deck was it period.

The deck may as well just have been sitting on top of the boat going along for the ride because if the secondary bonding was as shoddy as we see on the bulkhead than it had nothing structural to offer.
The delamantion is very far down from the road from the actaul origin of this hull failure.Hell the hull might test to be properly built - thin- but proper core adhesion, but the fact of the matter is the fault lies with the hull to deck connection Period.

There is nothing to suggest that there was a point of impact failure other than down by the lower port bow and we have ran that scenario already.
When a secondary bond does not have proper adhesion that bond is not 50% or even 20% of what it would have been with proper adhesion . Those failed bonds could have been peeled off by a 3rd grade girl.

And what manufacturer you represent?

None ,nor have I done any boat or composite work in the last 8 years.

Listen I spelled it all out for you guys. If you want to continue a discussion about a collision causing this go for it. But it did not happen, and the few people on here that I thought had the background and understanding of how it could and why it failed without involving a collision I have my doubts about now.

[capitano_65]

Originally Posted by tommymonza

None ,nor have I done any boat or composite work in the last 8 years.

Listen I spelled it all out for you guys. If you want to continue a discussion about a collision causing this go for it. But it did not happen, and the few people on here that I thought had the background and understanding of how it could and why it failed without involving a collision I have my doubts about now.

Now I know your an expert. The owner should take you to court as his expert witness...

[Teddy1]

Originally Posted by tommymonza

UH what color is the sky ?

Teddy1 what is your background in yacht and composite construction ?

Tommymonza, I didn't realize you needed a masters degree in fiberglass hull construction to be on this thread. I do not have any education or experience in boat construction. I do, however, have a great deal of knowledge in many area's, including boating. I find it very strange, tommymonza, that all of a sudden you start to appear on this forum, in a hot and heavy fashion. I'm not saying you are a Bertram competitor, but I believe someone else did allude to this?

Please, if not being involved in the boat building industry, bothers others, I would be fine leaving this thread, but between you all and me, I am a very fair and impartial poster, with a solid boating backround.

Never claimed to be an expert and i am sorry to come on this website and sound like a know it all dick, But I just can't understand that people think that a collsion and previous damage would have had to occur for a simple thing like the whole **** deck was never properly secured to the hull and this was 50% of the integrity to that forward section of hull.

[Habana Joe]

Is this the tommy from over on Offshoreonly?

I found this thread from OffshoreOnly about 50 pages ago it seems like and it has fascinated me to no end! Yes, I lurked every hour for weeks!!!!

I had my thoughts that it must have hit something, I've owned Post's and Hatteras's and thought of them as big solid boats, which I believe years ago they all were. Today to reach the speeds they do, they have to build 63' race boats with tuna towers, I'm surprised there is not more failures of this type (hopefully caught before total destruction)

I've struggled like most with this how could a 63' battlewagon fail like this, it just can't be something had to hit it or it hit something?

If your the same tommy you know I've killed a few boats including one of the Buzzi boats. I think you're a little hard on these guys, like me they say something had to happen.

We've both been on the other end of this where things fail like this and our race boats have all kinds of ring frames and so on because you are right - with no support the hull sides do just cave in. It's hard to understand this until you've had it happen to you first hand, I will attach a pic later on of an almost real bad day with me, Jerry Gilbreath and Chris Bush in the Buzzi boat. Lucky all we got was wet feet!

I believe for what it is worth this boat had to have something starting already, like it is said a cap/joint failure of the deck hull, poor adhesion of the mat - many things that lead to the straw that broke the camels back. The seas were way to small for this to happen to a 100% perfect boat - something was pre-existing somewhere?

"Habana Joe" Gere (I don't mind showing my name)

[Teddy1]

Maybe it's just me, but all of a sudden, in the past couple of days, we are getting new posters with 1 post listed. maybe it's a coincidence??