Cynthia Woods-Bad Repair, Bad Design, or Bad Luck?

by Sail-World Cruising on 29 Jun 2008 The current investigation into the capsizing of the Texas A&M University's Cynthia Wood which resulted in the loss of the life of one sailor and the endangering of five others who waited, treading water, for 26 hours, is focussing on the examination of two previous groundings of the boat.

The Cape Fear 38 sailing boat ran aground in both 2006 and 2007. According to early reports, the initial grounding caused no damage, but in last year's grounding, the 5 ft 5000lb bolted on keel had to be repaired, to a total coast of under $2000.

However, the A&M System official in charge of investigating the capsizing warned against reading too much into the earlier incidents.

'Vessels run aground, and vessels get repaired,' Jay Kimbrough, the system's deputy chancellor and general counsel, told the Austin American Statesman. 'Just because it ran aground does not give me an 'a-ha' moment.

'That's why cars have bumpers. The question is to what extent was it damaged, how was it repaired and was it fully repaired.'

Three days after the incident, A&M University officials suspended use of a twin vessel, the George Phydias, pointing to concerns that the vessel may have had a design fault.

Kimbrough also asked 'Was it bad luck or bad design?'

The sailing world will be, at the very least, mystified, if a finding of 'Bad Luck' is the result of the investigation.

Selected letters relating to this subject:

Sender: David Cook

Message: We need more emphisis on the personal action when it all goes wrong. Person overboard, mast comes down, keel falls off. They all happen and we who go to sea, be it 50m or 5000km need an appropriate plan.
Two examples: Mast comes down, do we have a means of cutting it loose quickly before there is a hole in the hull.

Have you ever tried cutting high tensile rigging? Remember it will probably not happen in a light wind and slight sea.
We are in the water, have lost the life raft and all. We now need floatation (lifejackets) and warmth. Most deaths are due to hypothermia rather than simple drowning.

Do we have a means to call for help and a backup, if the first fails?
Remember electronics never fail at sea???

Design; I am not a yacht designer, but a Civil Engineer but some simple practical thoughts. It is my impresion that all the emphisis is on strength. Many of the solutions are very strong (have a large reserve of strength) but brittle. For example fatigue fractures on welded plate.

Simple bolts may not be so strong but will retain most of their strength even if bent. (What will the efect of a loose keel on the hull?) The brittle solution may be appropriate for an America's Cup boat but not an ocean going yacht.

We have seen amazing increases in speed with the use of lighter materials. But there must be some balance between the risk and the skill of the sailors. For example I have read of multihull sailors who look to get inside the hull in a capsize. May not be the best place to be in a capsized keel yacth but have you and your crew thought it through.

Finally I am not in favour of more regulations but just an improvement in common seamanship.

Sender: Paul Brabec

Message: Reader Jeff Reinhold makes an excellent point about staying with the boat. Fortunately I have never been in the situation of the crew of the Cynthia Woods, however when I first started sailing I was informed by the skipper of the boat I started crewing on that one of the cardinal rules was: Stay with the boat and always step up into the lifeboat. Here, it sounds as though the crew could have climbed atop the hull and been at least as safe as they were in the water...probably safer. But then, I wasn't there. Maybe they got separated from the boat in the dark. A shame that anyone died, but the good news is that the others survived.

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From: pwinwilliams@comcast.net
Date: 24 Jul 2008 01:36
Subject: Comments On : Cynthia Woods:Bad Repair, Bad Design, or Bad Luck?
To: USeditor@sail-world.com


Sender: Patricia Winniford-Williams

Message: If a mere woman may be permitted an opinion, it strikes me that the comments posted are not germane to the issues at hand. When the Cynthia Woods lost it's keel the boat immediately capsized and sank. There was ZERO time for any of the so-called 'safety' steps listed in these commentaries. Only the sheer courage of one man,
Roger Stone, prevented a greater loss of life. What this IS about is WHY DID THE KEEL FALL OFF THE BOAT? And such an expensive boat at that. We're told $360,000. If not for the tragic loss of life this might well be described as a comedy of inexcusable errors.

Here's a major university with a marine program sending young sailors out in a vessel equipped with state of the art technology.

AND THEY RAN IT AGROUND AT LEAST SIX TIMES in spite of the fact that their very expensive and highly sophisticated depth finder told them the depth of the water....VERY SHALLOW. The yacht repair service only charged $1832 to fix it the last time. Considering it costs $350 just to take one out of the water and the cheapest of
labor is billed at $75.00 per hour it doesn't sound like much of a repair. And the guy in charge of the boat went out and bought fiber glass repair material to 'fix something' himself. Where was the school in all of this? Did they ever notify the insurance company or did they even have one? Keels don't just fall off of boats. This boat was severely damaged at some earlier point in time, and from everything I have been able to discern, carelessly so at that.

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