An ama bow broke off during the race. 70′ trimaran? Clearly the only time we get to see inside. Most of us. Picture below.
Its time again for speculative forensics. One would assume that if they going to spend a couple of million on it, everything would be perfectly engineered. I learned long ago that just because they are famous or expensive, it doesn’t mean it was done right.
And again, I can only go off of what I can see here. If anyone knows any of it first hand, let me know.
First it sure looks like a carbon fiber keel and a carbon fiber band running down each side just above the stringer. Rule of mixtures error if so. If you use carbon for global loads, there better be enough of it to do the whole job. Regulars here already know that the stretch to failure of carbon is around 1%. The other fabrics have much more stretch. So the carbon would have to fail before the other kinds would begin to help much.
I would not have used a stringer. They increase the panel aspect ratio, which is weaker. The closer to 1:1 a panel can be, the better.
That core looks really thin to me. It looks like 12mm but am sure it couldn’t be that thin. I would have had no less than 25 mm and maybe even 40mm thick. I forget what colors of core denote what density. Maybe someone has it handy.
Finally, that hull skin fabric sure looks like e-glass, or more likely Kevlar. Dude. That has already been covered.
They could have called me.
