ABN AMRO One and Maximus mast failures

Thought you all might be interested in this as some have mentioned safety concerns about carbon masts. I think I'd be more concerned about deck-stepped masts' rapid failure mode than about carbon fiber... Alfred Poor might have some insight here as well. \Rog Cal 29+ #1 Swiss Navy Cal 2-30 #77 St. Lori's Comet From: Stan Honey [mailto:St… [at] attglobal.net] Sent: Wednesday, January 03, 2007 2:29 AM To: ro… [at] nvsailing.org Subject: RE: Yahoo! News Story - Six injured as Sydney to Hobart leaders dismasted - Yahoo! News Hi Rog, Our rig was a normal sort of failure as we were sailing along, and the rig went over the side without injuring anybody. We were beating in 35 knots with a GS and double reef. Maximus was having trouble reefing and so was tacking to go inshore into flatter water to better be able to work out the problem. Half way through the tack their forestay fitting failed and the mast and boom came down in the cockpit, injuring six. Their mast was deck-stepped, and so came down very quickly. One guy broke 6 ribs, but nobody was killed. Stan -------- Stan Honey Navigator, ABN AMRO One > -----Original Message----- > From: Rog [mailto:ro… [at] nvsailing.org] > Sent: Tuesday, December 26, 2006 16:34 > To: st… [at] attglobal.net > Subject: Yahoo! News Story - Six injured as Sydney to Hobart leaders > dismasted - Yahoo! News > > > Rog (ro… [at] nvsailing.org) has sent you a news article. > (Email address has not been verified.) > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Personal message: > > Hi, Stan -- > > If you learn what happened, here, I'd like to know details. > > Thanks. Happy New Year. > > \Rog

--- In Ca… [at] yahoogroups.com, "Rog Jones" <rog@...> wrote: > > Thought you all might be interested in this as some have mentioned safety > concerns about carbon masts. > > I think I'd be more concerned about deck-stepped masts' rapid failure mode > than about carbon fiber... Alfred Poor might have some insight here as well. When we lost our rig on the Choate 40, I was to blame somewhat. I wasn't there, of course, and the kids were still racing when everybody else had retired (They learned when they pulled into the Isthmus). I had, for reasons that I still can't explain except a congenital tendency to tinker, decided to go up on the rig after Transpac. I was thinking about local light air racing around southern California and talked to a couple of sailmakers. Anyway, I had the mast sleeved above the lower spreaders and left it a two spreader rig. It was about two feet taller after the sleeve. I think the mast buckled at the sleeve. If I had changed to triple spreader, maybe it would have stayed in column in those conditions. As far as I know we did not have a rigging failure. Everything got cut away (By MIke Jr with a hacksaw being held upside down by his legs, as I understand it) and we did not have all the shrouds to check. By the way, the bolt cutters we had aboard would not cut rod rigging. He had to slip a couple of rigging pins out of shackles to get the last gear to drop away. The reason I bring this up is I wonder at the number of failures in heavy conditions. I think if I had the money to race one of these gazillion dollar maxis, I'd have two mast configurations. One for light air day racing and one for offshore rough weather. The other point is that, because it was a keel stepped mast, the stump, which was about 10 feet above deck, acted as a tent pole and kept the wreckage away from the crew on deck. The mast went over the side and then, because the boat was being pushed to leeward, the mast wrapped around the hull below the water. The kids said they could see the masthead light still on under water on the weather side of the hull. Fortunately, nobody got hurt and the keel stepped configuration may have been part of that. MIke Kennedy Sr Conquest Cal 40 # 96 > > > \Rog > snipped > > Hi Rog, > > Our rig was a normal sort of failure as we were sailing along, and the rig > went over the side without injuring anybody. We were beating in 35 knots > with a GS and double reef. > > Maximus was having trouble reefing and so was tacking to go inshore into > flatter water to better be able to work out the problem. Half way through > the tack their forestay fitting failed and the mast and boom came down in > the cockpit, injuring six. Their mast was deck-stepped, and so came down > very quickly. One guy broke 6 ribs, but nobody was killed. > > Stan > > -------- > Stan Honey > Navigator, ABN AMRO One

The ABN AMRO mast was more conventional than the one on Maximus. It broke at the first spreader. As you pointed out, that kept everything off the decks. When I see Stan next time I'll get more detail, but it sounds like one of the PBO shrouds gave out. The Maximus mast was a most unconventional wing mast that actually turned in its step to follow the luff of the main. The airfoil spreaders were hinged to transfer the loads. With the failure of the headstay, the step kicked forward and the masthead went. It's a miracle no one was more seriously injured than broken ribs. The amount of force at the step as it moved forward had to be considerable. The ABN AMRO mast failure is probably just the result of 35,000 miles of hell-bent-for-leather racing in conditions none of us can really comprehend. Stuff gets fatigued and it breaks. The Maximum mast failure is another matter altogether, since it seems that the headstay fitting went and this boat has not seen nearly the wear and tear that ABN AMRO One has experienced. The trouble with all of these is that there often isn't any good way to test tangs and other fittings to determine how much they've fatigued. You can't visually see this. It's the same on aircraft. As they age, you begin to see failure points developing in all sorts of stuff that take shock loads and vibration loads and deal with bending or torsion moments. Aircraft get tested extensively as they age. Most boats, even those owned by the rich guys, do not. The answer on boats like ours is to think seriously about replacement of tangs and fittings after some reasonable amount of time. Most of us probably should give realo consideration to how hard out boats have been sailed, for how long and under what conditions - salt or fresh water - and then decide how long we want to go before replacing the attachment points and standing rigging. I know we are due on our Cal 2-30 and really hesitate to push her until I get this done this spring. Later. \Rog Cal 29+ #1 Swiss Navy Cal 2-30 #77 St. Lori's Comet

--- In Ca… [at] yahoogroups.com, "Rog Jones" <rog@...> wrote: > > The ABN AMRO mast was more conventional than the one on Maximus. It broke at > the first spreader. As you pointed out, that kept everything off the decks. > When I see Stan next time I'll get more detail, but it sounds like one of > the PBO shrouds gave out. snipped > The answer on boats like ours is to think seriously about replacement of > tangs and fittings after some reasonable amount of time. Most of us probably > should give realo consideration to how hard out boats have been sailed, for > how long and under what conditions - salt or fresh water - and then decide > how long we want to go before replacing the attachment points and standing > rigging. I know we are due on our Cal 2-30 and really hesitate to push her > until I get this done this spring. I think rod rigging should be replaced every 10 years. That is arbitrary but it is difficult to evaluate for impending failure. I sold the Choate 40 about 5 years after we replaced the rig. It was for sale two years ago and I went up to the Bay Area to look at it. The kids talked me out of buying it and replacing the interior, as I was contemplating. I noticed that the mast and rigging were new. I asked the broker and he told me they had lost the rig a couple of years before. Thus, I had put a new Sparcraft triple spreader rig and boom in it in 1982 and by 2004, that rig had been lost. It was less than 20 years. Maybe 15 years is safe as the boat was being raced in the Bay Area but replacing masts is more expensive, especially if a set of new sails is included. It may be easier to salvage things in the Bay rather than at night off Santa Barbara Island but the whole thing is unpleasant and expensive. MIke Kennedy Conquest Cal 40 # 96 > > > > Later. > > > > \Rog > > > > Cal 29+ #1 > > Swiss Navy > > > > Cal 2-30 #77 > > St. Lori's Comet >