When I see lists of boats that drop out of a race, I try to place that information into some kind of perspective. It is pretty rare that there is adequate information to understand what really happened. Sometimes there is just enough that some conjecture may be useful. Often this conjecture is simply a SWAG without the science part.
Before I take a WAG at this. I will start by saying that I am not trying to justify these failures but, by the same token, I do understand why these types of failures happen and see them as being par for the course. I suggest that it is important to understand that these boats are pushed very hard. In all conditions, they carry way more sail than any sensible cruiser would dare carry in those same conditions. Crew weight on the rail greatly increases the rig loads. These boats are kept at speed no matter what the conditions, which means they are launched off waves and come down hard on their topsides, hitting the keel and rudder solidly against the water when they land...The force of the landing whipping the rig, rudder and keel one way then the other as the boat regains buoyancy and righting moment. Those impacts violently try to whip the sails, masts and booms off the boat and pull the standing rigging out of the deck. With low stretch control lines, every impact load (whether from collisions with waves or waves filling the sails) is transferred solidly into the boat. The boats and crews get beaten mercilessly.
For the mid-sized and smaller boats, at least one account described the course becoming a high wind beat into steep breaking seas. That is brutal stuff.
But also, by and large, the boats in question predominantly are purpose built race boats. Even the so-called racer-cruisers are race focused designs. In comparison to cruising boats, modern race boats are engineered much more intensively with greatly reduced safety factors relative to those that would normally be applied to a coastal cruiser, let alone those applied to boat that is a purpose built long distance, offshore cruising design. This reduction in the safety factors comes with an understanding that these boats will be pushed very hard, but will require much more frequent and detailed inspections, and a whole lot more intensive maintenance than would be expected of a cruising boat.
In that same way that the owner of a race boat expects to replace sails and rigging on a routine basis; rudder replacements, rudder bearing replacements, and any repairs to internal structure are just another line item to a competitive campaign.
Adding to that, while race boats start out as being engineered to a minimum safety factor, Australian racers are notorious for 'optimizing' their boats. That often means adding more sail area, more weight in the bulb, a longer sprit, or a deeper keel. And each of those optimizations add greatly to the stresses felt by the boat; added stresses that the boat was never originally engineered to withstand.
When I look at the list of retirements, its a mixed bag. Broken booms and goosenecks may be the result of poor engineering, poor maintenance, or operator error (such as over tightening the vang, or a uncontrolled crash jibe, or perhaps dipping a boom end in the water at speed with a preventer rigged, etc.). Losing a rudder, may also be the result of poor engineering, poor maintenance, poor build quality, being pushed too hard, or hitting something. The broken bowsprit and stem fitting apparently was the result of a collision between two boats.
(On the lost rudder thing and solely as a point of reference- I almost lost my rudder a dozen years ago when my steering went out and I rigged the emergency tiller. During the previous haul-out we had removed and rebuilt the rudder, and replaced the bushings. When the rudder was reinstalled and the various parts were reassembled, the key between the emergency tiller base fitting and the rudder post was left out of the keyway. Every time I turned the emergency tiller, the fitting rotated and with each cycle, turned the thrust nut that kept the rudder from dropping out of the boat. With each back and forth swings of the tiller that nut was being loosened. It was only luck that I happened to notice that happening and was able to keep from having the nut come off and the rudder drop out the bottom of the boat potentially taking a piece of hull with it.)
Looking at the age of the boats, one thing jumps out. The retirees seem to be either almost new boats (Beneteau 40 and the Sydney 39) or older race boats that are listed as having done a slew of racing. Newer boats may not be fully sorted out, but also may have other issues. I can't speak to the Beneteau 40, but for example the Sydney 39 is listed as being modified. I won't speculate on how it was modified and whether the mods have any impact on the rudder failure, but the pictures show a longer than standard sprit and a square top mainsail, neither of which appear on drawings for a stock Sydney 39. Regarding the older boats, the unknowns are how hard they were used and abused, how carefully they were maintained, and how far they were modified from the original design assumptions.
But before this becomes a modern race boat criticism thread, I would point out that high attrition rates are not the sole province of modern race boats. Out of 32 skippers/boats that started the Golden Globe, only 7 of these traditional cruising boats are still racing (and one of those may drop out due to a broken bowsprit that endangers his rig.)
Jeff
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www.rolexsydneyhobart.com
