Cape Fear 38 -- Lost Keel Fatality Investigation

[tommays]

I would not have put then in but the boat was a current "state of the art" race boat build and the hull looks so much like the C/W failure

[SecondWindNC]

Wow tommays, a little too close to lunchtime for those pics! Yikes.

[souljour2000]

Ran across this earlier tonight...thought this was interesting...didn't get alot of coverage because there were fortunately no fatalities...this time...

BTW- there's some pretty scary pics here.....in terms of laminate thickness

O'Day 302 Loses Keel - Check Yours!! - SailboatOwners.com

[sailingdog]

It is because of this article that I'm actually helping re-bed a keel after dropping it for inspection last winter. We won't be re-bedding the keel until the weather warms a bit more though.

Originally Posted by souljour2000

Ran across this earlier tonight...thought this was interesting...didn't get alot of coverage because there were fortunately no fatalities...this time...

BTW- there's some pretty scary pics here.....in terms of laminate thickness

O'Day 302 Loses Keel - Check Yours!! - SailboatOwners.com

[GaryHLucas]

Hunter 27, 1976-1978 at least. Damn near guaranteed that the keel will fall off some day. How do I know? Because my 6 year old 1976 Hunter 27 tried to leave the keel on my trailer when they lifted it to set the boat in the water! That's when I discovered that the designer had TCDA (Terminal Case of Dumb Ass). The hull design was so poor it had to fail.

3 five gallon buckets of ground up fiberglass, cutting out the entire floor, removing all the stringers from the entire bottom of the boat, and 5 gallons of epoxy resin and I fixed it myself. The next year I sold it, so we could buy a house. The new owner called me 8 years later becuase he suddenly had water in the bilge for the first time. It turned out the heavy rubber padding I put under the stainless plates carrying the bolt loads had dry rotted! He replaced them and sailed the boat form NJ to Florida offshore again.

Gary H. Lucas

[txsailor2]

In case you're interested, the Animal Planet series "I Shouldn't Be Alive" will be airing an episode focused on the survival and rescue of the Cynthia Woods crew. The episode Ocean Disaster will air on Animal Planet Wednesday, 9 Feb at 10PM EST.

It will probably be one of their "over-dramatized docu-dramas", but it could be interesting. I'm wondering why they incorrectly show the boat's name as Cynthia Rose instead of Cynthia Woods. Maybe Texas A&M threw a fit over using the real name? Or it's an APL mistake?

Episode Guide : I Shouldn't Be Alive : Animal Planet

[sailordave]

Originally Posted by GaryHLucas

The next year I sold it, so we could buy a house. The new owner called me 8 years later becuase he suddenly had water in the bilge for the first time. It turned out the heavy rubber padding I put under the stainless plates carrying the bolt loads had dry rotted! He replaced them and sailed the boat form NJ to Florida offshore again.

Gary H. Lucas

Should have used some of MAINESAIL's Butyl bedding!