Close Call

Anybody else read about Maverick (an E39) in Latitude 38
this month? She developed a rather large tear right through
the hull on an Atlantic crossing and barely made it back
to land. The photos show a large crack in front of the keel cavity
extending up both sides 12-18 inches. Very scary! I'm starting
to wonder if we are starting to see the hull lifespans used up
on vintage glass boats like this one. Many of these early models
have no structural grid like the later 34's and 38's do, and are
not as strong.

Comments?

As I understand it, the use of a separately-molded grid was/is a way to add stiffness and thereby reduce the laminate hull thickness.

I have followed the story about the E-39. Assuming that there was not some sort of break (mfgr defect) in the cloth/roving pieces at the point of the failure, they must have come down on something large, like maybe a whale.

Do you know if any chopper-gun construction was used in the layup of that model? This would be easier to break than a layup of woven cloth, but I have no idea what the magnitude of difference would be.

I have looked at the roving in my '88 hull, and it would take a heckofa point load to fracture it... Which is why I worry most about shipping containers and dead heads (vertical tree trunks) when offshore...

I hope we all find out more about this unusual hull damage, in due course.



Loren in Portland, OR
1988 Olson 34 (solid layup hull)

To the best of my knowlege, that laminate was hand laid
roving/mat-I'm basing this on the laminate schedule I saw
with the paperwork on my old boat-but I'll check this out.

The piece makes no reference to hitting anything-only heavy
weather encountered in the first week, and the rest was
a milk run. I feel pretty certain that if collision with whatever
was the cause, catastrophic failure in the laminate would
have been noticed immediately. They managed to sail for
21 days- only developing the problem on the home stretch.

Yes the grid allows you to reduce laminate thickness, but
in the real world not as much as on paper- in case you do
hit something. The later hulls are definitely more rigid.

Martin