# Report Max Fun 35 Keel Failure



## max-on (Mar 30, 2004)

After reading the Tartan / C&C discussion I kept thinking about the responsibilities of a builder to the owners to build a quality product. After all, it is a boat, not a washing machine or a piece of patio furniture, and whether we are ten miles from the coast or 500 miles offshore, we put our trust and lives, and the lives of our family and friends, in the construction of the boat.

This is copy of material on the front page of SA today, and I think the linked report illustrates just how serious things can go wrong and the associated consequences - the loss of life.


*A Look at What Happened*

When the Max Fun 35's first came along, we thought they really looked great - a nice fast sport boat with some interior. Proving that looks can be deceiving, here is a very sobering report on the keel failure, capsize, and loss of life from a Max Fun 35 named Hooligan 5 from the UK. It is a very comprehensive report that uncovers some startling short cuts, lack of proper engineering and poor build standards that resulted in this tragedy. 


(I hope this site and members are not offended that I am posting material from another sailing site)


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## sailingdog (Mar 19, 2006)

Same thing happened with Bavaria sailboats not too long ago...


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## Classic30 (Aug 29, 2007)

I guess the moral of the story is: If you're going to buy a boat and do some serious sailing (not just cruising the marinas within a few NMs), buy an old, solid boat - the older the better - built in the days when everything was oversized and not just built to a price.

...Like a Hartley!  

--Cameron


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## Giulietta (Nov 14, 2006)

Holly s*****...have you noticed how similar that keel is to mine??

And how similar my boat is to that one?

I have a similar keel attachment arrangment, with the tapered box and all, but my keel is a one piece core beam, not welded as that one, so I'm ok, I hope...

However..next year its coming off for inspection anyway, so good time to check it.

sad...sorry for the human loss


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## camaraderie (May 22, 2002)

Max-on...no problem here with using other sources as long as one attributes and links and only engages in "fair use" rather than any copyright violation. We're always up for an interesting story as this tragically was.

Giu...that is the first thing I thought when i looked at the blue boat in the report!


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## Giulietta (Nov 14, 2006)

Hartley18 said:


> I guess the moral of the story is: If you're going to buy a boat and do some serious sailing (not just cruising the marinas within a few NMs), buy an old, solid boat - the older the better - built in the days when everything was oversized and not just built to a price.
> 
> ...Like a Hartley!
> 
> --Cameron


That's not true, please don't say that. That's a racing boat, its designed to whitstand more forces than any other boat.

My boat, that has pretty much the same purpose can sail in higher winds, at higher speeds, higher stresses and in conditions the "good old strong boat" would be sinking, and/or reefing and motor home is not like that at all, and so aren't many of the other thousands of race boats out there.

What happen here is pure indirect negligence by the builder, that should have monitored keel-subcontractor manufacturing techniques, and didn't.

The contractor cheated, and the builder did not know..

Both are liable for this. Don't blame the boat or anything else.


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## tdw (Oct 2, 2006)

max-on said:


> After reading the Tartan / C&C discussion I kept thinking about the responsibilities of a builder to the owners to build a quality product. After all, it is a boat, not a washing machine or a piece of patio furniture, and whether we are ten miles from the coast or 500 miles offshore, we put our trust and lives, and the lives of our family and friends, in the construction of the boat.
> 
> This is copy of material on the front page of SA today, and I think the linked report illustrates just how serious things can go wrong and the associated consequences - the loss of life.
> 
> ...


Tch Tch Tch. I'm telling. Nyah Nyah Nyah. You just want to catch up on the Double Reef / Daniel Taylor train wreck.

Memo to self - if ever you feel like calling Sway a blowhard have a quick read of a DR thread.


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## Giulietta (Nov 14, 2006)

camaraderie said:


> Giu...that is the first thing I thought when i looked at the blue boat in the report!


Cam...I guess I am safe.

You can see here the design of mine is quite different.

Mine has solid steel piece from the torpedo to the top. Its then coverd with the 2 halves in CF that shape the keel.

Then on top, there are 2 studs that cross the steel to fix the keel to the shapped structure bonded by CF to the hull.

Then on top 3 bolts make sure it goe no where...


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## Classic30 (Aug 29, 2007)

Giulietta said:


> That's not true, please don't say that. That's a racing boat, its designed to whitstand more forces than any other boat.
> 
> My boat, that has pretty much the same purpose can sail in higher winds, at higher speeds, higher stresses and in conditions the "good old strong boat" would be sinking, and/or reefing and motor home is not like that at all, and so aren't many of the other thousands of race boats out there.
> 
> ...


Apologies, Guiletta - I did not mean to upset you. 

I've read the report quite a while back now and from what I remember, the designer cut a few corners too - he just didn't envisage anyone cutting any more.

Having sailed on many "old boats", I, personally, would rather go to sea in one of them than one of these new "plastic-fantastics" - the designers back then (Holland, Uffa Fox, S&S, etc.) didn't have the advantages of modern glues and materials, so they made sure things were really solid.

I remember standing on the dock after the 1984 Sydney-Hobart and being amazed at the damage done to the newer yachts whilst some of older yachts were relatively unscathed.

--Cameron


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## Giulietta (Nov 14, 2006)

sailingdog said:


> Same thing happened with Bavaria sailboats not too long ago...


SD, Not the same at all. nada nothing, zilch...

Bavaria 38 Match keels were simply bolted to the hull, with minimal stiffening other than increased hull thicness where the bolts went thru. They were relying ion the kevlar mat they were installing in the other slower bavarias.

This boat has a keel box, just like mine, its an opening likle a upsidown box, that has no connection to boat inside, other than the vertical bolts.

The keel enters that box, the bavarias was flush with hull.

This keel seems to me as being well designed, but the manufacturing unfortunately was defective.

But the bavaria incident and this are completely differnt. Bavari simply had no engineering whatsoever.

Still this does not excuse the builder from its rsponsabilities. It was his job, when sub-contracting to make sure contractor works as should.

If the build was made as per design then failed, then it woulçd be the designers fault.



Hartley18 said:


> Apologies, Guiletta - I did not mean to upset you.


Cameron, no need to appogize, really, I was not mad, just did not agree with you, my way...sorry, But its ok..we're still friends


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## Tartan34C (Nov 21, 2006)

Giulietta said:


> SD, Not the same at all. nada nothing, zilch...


The design was deficient in the case of the Max Fun 35 and the subcontractor who made the weldment changed it which made it even weaker. The boat was designed to the ABS rule and that specified a minimum safety factor of 2 using the yield point of the steel as the design number, It was designed in error to have less then that safety factor and the designer used the ultimate tensile strength of the steel which is a larger number but the wrong number to use in the calculation. To compound the problem more ballast was added to the bottom of the after the boat was placed in service and that only increased the strain on the hull keel interface.

The Bavaria 38 Match keel problem was different in detail as far as the mode of failure but it happened because of the same chain of errors. The designer designed something weak and the builder made changes to make it even weaker. But the underlying problem is that a light boat is a fast boat and there is no incentive for a builder to add structure (weight) when that adds expense and impairs performance. The rules need to include limits for ballast/displacement ratios and minimum hull weights for boats. If it was required to carry around the weight in the hull instead of in the keel it would go into improving the strength of the hull girder.

Unfortunately in each case a person is dead and the exact mode of falure doesn't change that. Will anyone be held responsible for the error in either case?
All the best,
Robert Gainer


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## Rockter (Sep 11, 2006)

The problem with a racing boat is the need to keep the weight to a stark minimum.
When weight has to be very low, materials are less in evidence, and, by direct result stresses are likely to be higher.
That keel design is for those that like them, and trust them.
We have had the discussion many times, and it got heated.
It looks very thin to me, and it would be intersting to see... first hand... what the stress calculations are for the thin keel, particularly the stresses at the fin root, and, crucially, how the fatigue calculations were done.

Fatigue in a corrosive environment (seawater is one) is a tough call. Fatigue is largely stress driven, and the stresses are inherently higher in deep fin, thin designs.

Save sailing.


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## Sasha_V (Feb 28, 2004)

Hartley18 said:


> I remember standing on the dock after the 1984 Sydney-Hobart and being amazed at the damage done to the newer yachts whilst some of older yachts were relatively unscathed.
> 
> --Cameron


I fear you have drawn a totally erronous conclusion form the evidence you saw that day. 
I was also standing at constitution dock to see the war weary things limp in (watching some of them utterly stalled on the tide for nearly an hour before they could pull in that last KM seemed a kind of torture).

The issue with which boats in the Sydney Hobart get clobbered and which get barely effected is reflective of nothing more then when the storm crossed the race-line and whether it was at the time the fast new boats were going by, or the mid-field reliable but not cutting edge stalwarts or the slow, old, and small craft that make up the tail of the fleet. It is not like the whole fleet was sailing abreast, or even within 24 hours of each other when the storm really hit its peak and plowed the across the race-course...So in the case of the 84 disaster it clobbered the fastest and newest and lightest boats, in the later disaster, it hit the mid-field of the fleet and some of the oldest and most sturdy boats (veterans of 15 or more S-H's).

To me this is more a lesson in the vein of the excaliber disaster. Brand new super-duper race boat, vastly overbuilt to withstand far worse then the delivery up the east coast they were doing. But the keel foil was of a tempered spring stainless steel....And someone at the boatyard that had been hired to apply anti-foul had nicked the foil with an angle grinder disk. Nothing worth reporting, he thought...and if ti had not been a tempered bit of steel, that would have been correct.

But three days of pounding upwind were all it took to create a stress fracture along the line of the angle grinder nick....and three (?) crew lost their lives when the keel fell off in the dead of night.

Who's fault? Too much tech? Not enough info provided to the boatyard doing the PAINTING (why would they need a metelurgy course?)

You get the idea.

Sasha


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## sailingdog (Mar 19, 2006)

MY point was that in both cases the keel fell off in conditions that should have been easily handled by a boat of that size, were it properly constructed. Whether the attachment is by keelbolts to a laminate strut or via keel box is irrelevant. Neither the Bavarias or this Match 35 were of an age or in a situation where keel failure should have even been an issue.

Of course, I'd like to point out that this sort of thing doesn't happen on multihulls... having no dependence on a keel to remain upright.  


Giulietta said:


> SD, Not the same at all. nada nothing, zilch...
> 
> Bavaria 38 Match keels were simply bolted to the hull, with minimal stiffening other than increased hull thicness where the bolts went thru. They were relying ion the kevlar mat they were installing in the other slower bavarias.
> 
> ...


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## Rockter (Sep 11, 2006)

I'll bet you this will dissolve into a another spat about long vs deep fin keels.....

"You can nick the keel on a long keel and it will not fracture and fall off"

"Oh yes, but you can't claw off a lee shore because you can't point as high"

"Yea right, but that rudder you have is a spade and looks like it'd bend in a gale"

"Huh, long keels are too slow and heavy, you can't out run a storm and you are always late to the pub".



That ship was built for speed, and to point high. the keel was long and deep and the stresses at the root are amplified because of it. It looks very much like the designer and builder were not talking much to each other about that deep fin. Seawater was waiting to corrode every crack. It looks like the worst enemy of all... corrosion fatigue.

They are not for me these deep fins. Best wishes to those that have them.


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## Giulietta (Nov 14, 2006)

OHHHH My!!!! Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph, the Saints and Our Lady Of Fatima!!!!!!!! (All together at least 4 times)........


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## Giulietta (Nov 14, 2006)

Well....due to to the wealth of knowledge about deep keels that sprung suddenly on this thread...i had decided not to post on this thread anymore, so this one is the last one.



Rick, my boom breaking, was a completely different thing, because even if it was alu it would have been broken way before.

Fact is when it broke, and the winds we had when it broke would have made any other boat stay in the marina. I broke it, simply put, and stated just that.


Robert I will pm during the day.

I also think this thread is one of those that will quickly degenerates into down spiraling bashing, and other un-necessary events, that will end up ugly..

There is nothing wrong with fin keels as there is nothing wrong with long keels each serves its purpose, there are race boats and cruisiers all designed to meet their final objectives. That does not make one better than the other, different purposes.

The deal here is bad engineering and manufcaturing, not purpose flaw or objective failure.

I know that all of the suddenly all the "arm chair" designers, and basement sailors/buliders will soon jump at this, so I believe this subject is better discussed by pm.

I will do that to preserve the good contents of this thread, so other can be informed in a serious objective environment, about somethis as serious as this is.

Thanks


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## speciald (Mar 27, 2007)

I know of three Hylas 54 that lost their rudder in one season. They broke off below the skeg, There was no reinforcement web in the lower third of the rudder. The builder claimed that is was designed to be sacrifical in a grounding. The replacement rudders were of the same design.


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## CBinRI (May 17, 2004)

Hartley18 said:


> Apologies, Guiletta - I did not mean to upset you.
> 
> I've read the report quite a while back now and from what I remember, the designer cut a few corners too - he just didn't envisage anyone cutting any more.
> 
> ...


I have to admit that I do derive comfort from knowing I've got 5 tons of lead keel underneath me on my S&S designed boat. On the other hand, I won't be going 15 knots on a reach anytime soon.


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## Rockter (Sep 11, 2006)

Guil....

They are opinions on keel configuration and design. Why this sensitivity? A fin keel broke... a combination of high bending moments, high stresses, a manufacturing welding defect?, and corrosion fatigue.

I think your boom broke because some designer drilled a big hole through it to mount the kicking strap. From what I can see, the boom folded right at that stress concentration. A fibre strap might have been better, as it spreads the loads over a larger area. Maybe not.

There are engineers among our number here. My desk is absolutely strewn with the stuff as I write, and algebra soup is scattered on the walls. It's not keel design, but it is engineering.... at least it looks like it to me.


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## JohnRPollard (Mar 26, 2007)

I just glanced at the photos in the report, will read the rest when/if I have time. I hadn't seen nor heard of this -- thanks to the OP for bringing it to our attention. I'm sorry about the loss of life. 

Some very knowledgeable people have commented on this thread. I would like to ask their opinion of the rust/corrosion that is evident on many cast iron keels that I see in the boatyard during winter months. Some of it appears to be superficial on the outside edges of the foil, but I have also noticed on some popular production boats quite a bit of rust in, around, and seemingly oozing from the keel stubs. 

If this is a hijack, just say so and I'll start a new thread.


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## Giulietta (Nov 14, 2006)

Rockter said:


> Guil....
> 
> They are opinions on keel configuration and design. Why this sensitivity? A fin keel broke... a combination of high bending moments, high stresses, a manufacturing welding defect?, and corrosion fatigue.
> 
> ...


Rock,

that *is not *where or why my boom broke, it broke at the aft section and no engineer drilled a hole on my boom. At the kicking strap hole, there is no hole for it, its a metal piece embeded in the material. It broke in the last 8 feet, on the other extremity...have a close look, will you?

If you read the thread "broke my boom" you will see why and how it broke. It was not a design flaw. It was a gybe in 35kt winds, when we were doing around 11 kts, the clew was over tensioned because I had reefed the main, to allow my son whom was sailing with me to handle the boat on his own, and I forgot ot release the clew tension. Nothing else nothing more.

I am an Engineer, in fact I have a Masters degree in Aeronautical Power Plants/mech Engineering, and am a specialist in theromdynamics, and worked closely with my mast and boom supplier during its engineering and construction, just for fun, and to get envolved in the process, as well as in the design and construction of my boat, since day one. In fact they gave me a 2 week rigging course during the time. That is my accademic background, other than that, I have been around boats and sailing racing boats for a few years now...35 more or less....

I calculate stuff on my laptop...


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## max-on (Mar 30, 2004)

speciald said:


> I know of three Hylas 54 that lost their rudder in one season. They broke off below the skeg, There was no reinforcement web in the lower third of the rudder. The builder claimed that is was designed to be sacrifical in a grounding. The replacement rudders were of the same design.


What is a builders responsibility to its owners? A family member purchased a Hylas 54 and encountered the same problem in calm weather about 100 milles north of St. Marten, and he got the boat to the dock. He received the same response from Hylas. I said, that is unbelievable, they know about the problem, and it was designed to break easily???

I immediately thought about my trip on the boat a year before, we were on the boat from Florida to the Bahamas, storm system went a little south instead of north and we were caught in a storm, 22 + ft seas, and 45-50 kts of wind; what if the rudder broke off then?


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## GySgt (Jun 11, 2007)

Hummm after reading the report, I suppose we could get in a good discussion of Auto vs. Manual inflation of PFDs. Might boil down to personal preference I guess. Just goes to show you we still trust our lives to a chunk of metal, some glue and a piece of cloth.


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## Classic30 (Aug 29, 2007)

sailingdog said:


> Of course, I'd like to point out that this sort of thing doesn't happen on multihulls... having no dependence on a keel to remain upright.


SD, tragically, it *does* happen in multihulls - but in outrigger connections rather than "keels" per se.

Cruising Helmsman magazine had an article few months back about a cruising catamaran found washed up on a beach. One outrigger had broken off and the word "help" was scratched into the antifouling. The two people reported to be on board were never found 

--Cameron


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## Rockter (Sep 11, 2006)

Guil...

What is your ship?

That was an opinion on the boom... I have never seen it. It looked like it had folded at a discontinuity. They often do. The attachment method of the kicking strap was a suggestion, not an order.

I understand you'd be upset about the keel, and the similarities with your design.

I would take a long look at it when you take it out of the water.

Needle gun all the paint off the keel root, inspect, and let us know what you find. 

Beware corrosion fatigue.


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## camaraderie (May 22, 2002)

Rock...your desire to be helpful to Giu is worthy... but his boat has NO issues...check the blogs and picture sections. It is built to the highest standards and inspected carefully at every stage of construction. He has nothing to worry about and takes care of it like a fine watch.


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