My first question to the operating company is whether that yacht has ever been run aground before.

A Beneteau 40.7 could only capsize and stay capsized if the keel fell off. That could only happen if there was some previous damage to the area where the keel is attached to the hull. The Beneteau First series of boats are regatta yachts and are very susceptible to damage in a grounding due to a deep high-aspect ratio keel which has only a small area to transmit loads to the hull. A keel starting to work loose would explain them taking in water, and being unable to verify the source of the leak since the bilge pumps are inside a pit in the keel area.

They had a sat-phone and if they had time to abandon ship, they could have sent a message, so I suspect they capsized and sank too quickly to get into their liferaft. This would also be consistent with keel failure.

If the photo of they yacht in the Gruaniad is recent, it does not look like they had a fixed EPIRB, which is not unusual for a coastal racing yacht. They probably rented the sat-phone expecting that to be sufficient for their off-shore trip back home.

As for personal EPIRBs, they have very low power and need a stable platform and clear view of the sky to have any chance of being picked up.

Trim Stab

I think that is a good assessment, covers the leak, the pumps, the capsize.

yep, keeping in mind the effort we went for to get Bullimore

Yes, I remember that well, that went on and on and on because of the distance involved - plus everyone was on holidays so more time to catch up on the news.

Fox3
 

The cost of a 406Mhz GPS PLB becomes irrelevant when you are up to your neck in ocean, I will not rent an aircraft to a customer for a cross channel flight without providing one and making sure that they know how to use it..........if they choose to not wear the life jacket that it is attached to and stow it in the baggage bay that is their business.

I would have thought that a similar attitude would have been SOP within the ocean going sailing world, after all the cost of a GPS PLB for each crew member is not high in comparison with the cost of owning and maintaining such a vessel.

Always a sad moment when a search is called off, but I never recall a search I was involved in being called off without us thinking that everything possilble had been done and that there was no other option.
In this case it a relatively small area (4800 sq. miles has been quoted), presumably based on an accurate LKP, was searched from early Friday to early Sunday. Not sure a longer search would be justified.
What is worrying is the failure to investigate the upturned hull more thoroughly.

Just googled "Beneteau 40.7 keel failure" - no history of keel failures showing on the search. However, would not have been the first time someone took a keel off on semi submerged object like a container. Feel for them and families, not least as my youngest is a commercially endorsed Yachtmaster Ocean, although working ashore at present.

I fail to see what connection gay marriage has to do with the cancellation of the Nimrod. It is quite possible to be, like me, both a supporter of gay marriage and a proponent of the RAF retaining a long range maritime aircraft. The two have no connection whatsoever.

SAR is not an area I have any expertise in but I am sure these guys wouldn't have given up the search lightly. It seems like the sea has claimed four more, but at least they were doing what they loved.

Trim Stab - a good question and a plausible scenario.

Edit DT reporting Maersk Kure reported keel was missing

I'm not sure about the inverted stability point you make though. My understanding was that a monohull could stay inverted once capsized, especially if the hull were already partially flooded. Also, partial flooding could increase the risk of capsize in the first place.

I note from a recent fatal during a race on the Great Lakes that 2 crew (of 6) were knocked unconscious during a capsize in similar conditions and subsequently drowned. I carried and used an old kayaking helmet for very rough conditions.

I did the North Sea Race about 20 years ago in F8-F10 conditions (similar to the recent accident). This was as navigator on a well-found RAFSA cruising yacht, with a skipper who had skippered in the Whitbread in the Southern Ocean - very educational. Relevant points are that we stopped racing at F10 and hove-to, then started racing again when the wind dropped. We won our class, beating all the cruiser racers, and came second overall to a larger cruising yacht (Hallberg Rassy). Two cruiser racers did start to break up and had to be rescued by rig support vessels. It was the bulkheads which gave out due to excessive flexing, not the keels. However these were both racer-cruisers really, less conservative designs than the First 40.7

I also spent most of one night doing Pan Pan relays for damaged yachts and those that had lost their electronics and thus their position (no back-ups/physical map plotting).:ugh:

A and C
It can be surprisingly cheap to run a boat - there are a large number of people doing it on a shoestring, it being their home as well as their means of transport. You meet a lot of people from poorer countries for whom sailing round the world is just affordable. Not everybody owns a First 40 and parks it in a marina.
Secondly, there's the argument Blondie Haslar made before the first Transatlantic race, that he wouldn't want to put anyone to the trouble of rescuing him.
Lastly, in the deep ocean, there are a large number of accident scenarios where the beacon would just tell people where to find your body.

None of these applies to people renting your aircraft, and I have a beacon myself; but there isn't a good argument for making them, or any other electronic gizmo, SOP.

A modern yacht would never pass certification if it was capable of staying upside down, even if partly flooded. Some extreme racing boats used to be so beamy that they had no righting moment when inverted, but these have now all been banned (well except for multi-hulls but that is a different argument).

The Beneteau 40.7 is CE certified as a Cat A boat (designed to cope with over F8 and waves over 4m). Unfortunately the certification process only examines measurable factors such as AVS, ballast ratio, down flooding etc and does not take into account factors such as build quality. The Beneteaus are built to be light and fast, not to stand up to days of bashing in a storm. They are counter moulded and have no stiffening stringers, so flex badly in heavy weather (I call them Bendytoys). They also suffer very badly at the keel/hull join when grounded hard - I've examined a smaller First that almost sunk after a grounding against a sandbar (something which I do regularly in my boat!).

Having said that, lots of people have sailed them around the world, including around Cape Horn, and I read an account recently of a German couple who sailed one through the North West passage.

One question I have is why were they headed to the Azores when they were so close to the coast of the US ?


Can anyone tell anything from the photo of the upturned hull in the DM ?

Families of one of British sailors lost in Atlantic call for fresh search | Mail Online

Trim Stab - thanks.
I've helped deliver a new Beneteau, USA-Virgin Islands. The electrics were...interesting!

Probably prevailing wind direction. The engine can be unusable in those conditions (prop out of the water often). Also, I doubt they had the fuel for 600nm under engine. General advice is to go downwind if the rig is still up.

Thanks.

Yes, it does make sense. I am not a sailor (wind type).

Seems sad that the biggest clue to their location wasn't inspected -i.e the hull .
At least the families would have some closure.

http://www.seapixonline.com/NSImages...6%20(1)%20.jpg

Impossible to get anywhere near the hull with the Maersk, especially in 20 foot seas, never mind attempting a rescue.

There are certain activities and parts of the world where there is still little hope of rescue, much less a right to rescue.

Difficult to be sure, but the vertical object does indeed look like the sort of unskegged deep rudder on the Beneteau First, and the smaller dark object above it and to the left in the photograph could indeed be the sail-drive unit - in which case the keel is definitely missing.

Here is a line drawing of the yacht which shows the underwater appendages:

http://www.murrayyachtsales.com/wp-c...8/Sailplan.jpg

I agree with Trim Stab - the proportions of skeg/hull length are correct. The liferaft aboard was likely a 10 man, as this was the authorised max crew for that boat according to the company's website. Presumably the Coastguard failed to find any sign of this.

Loss of the Cheeki Rafiki
 

Many yachts take this route after sailing out of Antigua en route to the UK or the Med after Antigua Race Week.Many pass close-ish to Bermuda ( & so leave Bermuda to Port) in a great circle tending East to follow the prevailing winds in April and May.It does indeed look as if they lost their keel having either been grounded at some stage or colliding with something at sea causing keel bolt damage.Such an impact must have been serious IMO to cause such extensive fast flooding.As a long time experieced Skipper I am also surprised that no inspection has yet been made of the capsized hull.Surely 600 nm from land is do-able for S & R ?
I guess it depends on weather conditions,but still...

There's a bugger of a search mission. :eek: