wow wow wow.

I just got a call from Forespar about the Sarabi unstayed mast. It always seemed improbable to me that the Aero mast would fall down.  After talking to Forespar,  it is full-on bizzare.

I imagined maybe they forgot to reef in a gale or something, like they went full-on Rainmaker.  No.  Turns out they were motoring with no sail up when it broke.  Way past not possible.

I’m starting to think my lightning theory might be it.  How else do you explain a half inch or three quarter inch carbon walled mast failing under almost no load?   The mast, and boom also I assume, sunk and are gone.  The stub however remains.  I have urged Forespar to get possession of it if possible for forensics.

And I understand that Melvin and Morelli were selected by the insurance company to supervise the repair and installation of the new mast.  Ugh.  They will probably charge more for that service than the whole mast costs.

I love this stuff.  More fast than a multihull catamaran.

Hello Sir ,

The full issue of Latitude 38 is here. http://www.latitude38.com/index.lasso

In it I see that Bill Anderson is noted.

There is nothing like a newly painted boat. Starting in 1995, Bill Anderson, formerly of Squaw Valley, started what would turn out to be six years of hard work building his canary-yellow Hughes 36/38 Feet, the hulls of which are three layers of 1/8″ doorskins. He then sailed to Mexico, where he’s been living happily on about $500 a month. Having come into some money, he decided to have Sea Tek of La Cruz remove all the gear from the hull and deck and give the cat a shiny new paint job. He also got a new sled-mounted outboard and a power windlass.

Bill, send pictures!

The other 55′ plywood/epoxy daycharter cat on Lake Tahoe recently went on the rocks and was ordered destroyed.
As a Searunner it had 1-1/4″ thick solid wood skin which always amazed me. The compression strength of the first layer is still the same. And with that much weight, the damage has to be more.

Finally starting to get ahead of the deadlines a bit. Here is the hull laminate drawing by a very famous designer. I consider it completely wrong and I will explain. Every kind of forensic foray like this has teachable moments for all.
First, we surely all agree now that long, slender hulls are most loaded in bending or deflection, depending on the span.  Global loads,  like a wave at each end, govern over out of plane loads like, water pressure. I first learned about and began to design for global loads after the MACM ’86.  This drawing below is a decade later.

We also surely agree that to resist those loads, we must have the most and best laminate fibers oriented along the lines of stress.  Zero degree, along the length of the hull for these boats.  That is the best way to get a stiff hull.

This drawing has the vast majority of the glass laminate at +-45.  That is completely wrong to achieve a stiff hull.  It does have carbon on the inside of the hull, which does protect the fragile carbon  from crashes.  Typically I would complain about rule of mixtures, but the carbon is also +-45 degree orientation here.  The best feature of carbon, its very high modulus, is of no use in this arrangement.

And see how this is just as important for the hull deck.  For water pressure, the +-45 is fine, but again, the global loads are much greater.

One of the tests I used to do before I knew what to expect was to have my guys jack up one bow of a cat, and see that the other one does.  I remember hearing about Larry doing that on Sierra Cloud.  The other bow not only came up the same, but took all the blocking with it.

This famous cat deflected 3-1/2″ in the same test.  There is no reason to do laminates wrong.  Its not a mystery anymore.

Long time Seattle boatbuilder and very early epoxy boatbuilding adopter Del Saul, was featured in the last issue of the Seattle Times Pacific magazine.  He was noted  for doing the fine woodworking in a local house build.  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Saul-desingn/159042597627513?pnref=about.overview&rf=329077987238129

Ronin refers to the ancient saumarai warriors who had no fixed master.  These are boatbuilders who have a skill set and perhaps a shop but are not official boatyards.  Often they can travel to your jobsite.

Eric Friberg, in Bellingham, WA                         360-389-8599 and boatfriberg@yahoo.com

Ken Lincoln, in Port Townsend, WA          on Face at https://www.facebook.com/ken.lincoln.79?fref=ts

Joe Kitchell, west coast of north and central America.  jakitchell@hotmail.com and www.joekitchell.com.  He was recently featured in Proboat so he may have become a rock star by now.

Greg Feldman-  GF Marine             2741 Cranberry Hwy
Wareham, MA  02571      (508) 314-2706    gfmarine@juno.com

Anyone else belongs here, let me know and I will add.

I got these snippets from vastly experienced powercat driver Kevin to one of his sipmates.  Met one deadline and almost the other so I can do a bit here.
“Hope you’re not going to have to learn the hard lesson I learned about over balance. Remember how Holo helm was real heavy pulling out of a big high speed turn? We resolved it by removing most the balance. Regular steering improved too. Ran with only one rudder for a while too. Not much difference except at slow. This over balancing is also, I realized in retrospect, was what was messing with the dual rams that we had originally, and the electric assist that Steve installed, and Leila’s original set up too. No money blown there
Now a days I’m all about a wide quadrant or tiller arm and vectran or equivalent. No oil, very little metal, and very easy to spot issues. Hard or impossible to do on some boats, however.” Kevin Millett