As a former Travel lift operator we had a special tool in the cab called a tapping hammer. First job once the keel landed was to sound the blocks with the hammer to make sure enough weight was on the blocks under the keel before we wound the pads up....perhaps boat construction has changed since the early 90s! Interesting that they are now carrying on with boat jobs while waiting for insurance assessments! As utubers do!

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southace said..
As a former Travel lift operator we had a special tool in the cab called a tapping hammer. First job once the keel landed was to sound the blocks with the hammer to make sure enough weight was on the blocks under the keel before we wound the pads up....perhaps boat construction has changed since the early 90s! Interesting that they are now carrying on with boat jobs while waiting for insurance assessments! As utubers do!

The utubers were standing under the load while on the "hook," an OH&S no-no, and focused on making a video instead of watching the critical keel support. No doubt also annoying and distracting those trying to do the job.

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southace said..

perhaps boat construction has changed since the early 90s!

Not sure how true this is but I was warned not to by a french production boat built post GFC. Apparently that was a catalyst for cost cutting construction methods/materials.

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southace said..

Shifu said..
Who makes solid passage making yachts these days with robust appendages, cutter rigs and cockpits you can't be washed out of. Kraken Yachts? Are there others?

There's a few more than Kraken including the Aussie build Bluewater 420.

Nice boats! Though I could do without that... thing... over the cockpit.

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Shifu said..

southace said..

Shifu said..
Who makes solid passage making yachts these days with robust appendages, cutter rigs and cockpits you can't be washed out of. Kraken Yachts? Are there others?

There's a few more than Kraken including the Aussie build Bluewater 420.

Nice boats! Though I could do without that... thing... over the cockpit.

That's the optional extra you can purchase a full hard composite moulded dodger and Bimini, I built my own dodger and left the soft Bimini as is for now. I fitted 8mm toughen safety glass to the dodger and have drop down clears or shades for infill and sides. There's No wet weather gear or sunscreen onboard my Bluewater 420 !

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Chris 249 said..
It looks as though even Grand Soliel now just drops the frames into bog. That's odd since I thought they were supposedly a top-end brand.

It's a bit better than bog; it's a high tech glue but the flaw in the process is not knowing firstly if the glue bond is thorough and then secondly not being able to see any failure from grounding or subsequent increasing failures of the bond as it works.
When it's built with care and attention it's strong but there is no way of diagnosing failure as it is hidden.
They may well be able remove furniture then cut tops off frames and glass them onto hull from inside each 'box' frame and stringer.

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southace said..


That's the optional extra you can purchase a full hard composite moulded dodger and Bimini, I built my own dodger and left the soft Bimini as is for now. I fitted 8mm toughen safety glass to the dodger and have drop down clears or shades for infill and sides. There's No wet weather gear or sunscreen onboard my Bluewater 420 !

What a beauty!

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Ringle said..

Chris 249 said..
It looks as though even Grand Soliel now just drops the frames into bog. That's odd since I thought they were supposedly a top-end brand.

It's a bit better than bog; it's a high tech glue but the flaw in the process is not knowing firstly if the glue bond is thorough and then secondly not being able to see any failure from grounding or subsequent increasing failures of the bond as it works.
When it's built with care and attention it's strong but there is no way of diagnosing failure as it is hidden.
They may well be able remove furniture then cut tops off frames and glass them onto hull from inside each 'box' frame and stringer.

Seems that they will have to do what the Evans (of Expedition Evans YouTube fame see?si=My1qcxm_rV3p39I- at 30 seconds to 3 min mark for quick view ) did and that took forever and involved taking most of the inside of the boat apart.
If I understand your proposal correctly it would be pretty hard to grind the existing fiberglass to give a good bond to the tabbing and you would certainly want to restore the top of the box section once the sides were tabbed to the hull. I'm also not sure how you would test the integrity of the adjacent floors/stringers which would obviously have been put under a lot of stress when their neighboring reinforcement gave up the ghost. I'm not sure how this blue works but it may be compromised even though it is not actually visibly cracked yet.

If they get insurance money they should take it and run.

Either way you wouldn't catch me sailing on that boat.

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Ringle said..

Chris 249 said..
It looks as though even Grand Soliel now just drops the frames into bog. That's odd since I thought they were supposedly a top-end brand.

It's a bit better than bog; it's a high tech glue but the flaw in the process is not knowing firstly if the glue bond is thorough and then secondly not being able to see any failure from grounding or subsequent increasing failures of the bond as it works.
When it's built with care and attention it's strong but there is no way of diagnosing failure as it is hidden.
They may well be able remove furniture then cut tops off frames and glass them onto hull from inside each 'box' frame and stringer.

Yah, I know it's glue but I just got slack and used a slang term. I find it hard to see how it's not considered worth running some cloth in that area on a big, exxy boat like the GS. Mind you I also fail to see why people go for such short chords at the keel root and then skimp on structure. As far back as the 1890s they were using very short chords on bulb keels but even given the ultra-light construction of the time and the weak materials they worked with, they had a very low failure rate; perhaps the timber construction flexed without failing whereas modern composites don't.


John Spencer's old keels were often effectively low-aspect bulb keels with big flanges, bolted into decent floors and with epoxy between hull and keel with some lightweight tabbing at times. When they removed the original keel from the 62' Ragtime they took the nuts off and lifted the boat off the keel - but the keel came with the boat even when they tried to bounce it off. To the amazement of the NA who ran the project, they had to use power chisels into the keel/hull join and sledgehammers or something onto the keel bolts while the crane wiggled the whole unit before they could finally get it off.

Lot of Farr's designs had small but probably significant flanges at the keel root, which would surely be easy to do with these cast iron fins. If it didn't slow down top racers that still go faster than boats like the GS then surely they wouldn't handicap this sort of production cruiser/racer. If they could do it in the 1890s, the 1960s and the 1990s it's damn near criminal that they don't do in in the 2020s.

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Shifu said..
Who makes solid passage making yachts these days with robust appendages, cutter rigs and cockpits you can't be washed out of. Kraken Yachts? Are there others?

There are still good custom boats being made, the cat getting built in Redland bay by Delos atm looks like it is being done well.

A good design commissioned and over seen by an experienced owner getting built by skilled tradesman produces a good boat.

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cammd said..

Shifu said..
Who makes solid passage making yachts these days with robust appendages, cutter rigs and cockpits you can't be washed out of. Kraken Yachts? Are there others?

There are still good custom boats being made, the cat getting built in Redland bay by Delos atm looks like it is being done well.

A good design commissioned and over seen by an experienced owner getting built by skilled tradesman produces a good boat.

Trouble is you are looking at one and a half million bucks upwards for that sort of boat. If you wanted that sort of boat at a reasonable price a Mumby 48 otherwise known as a Cyber 48 would be a better bet second hand although you would have to be careful about corrosion second hand particularly from the inside bilges out.

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Chris 249 said..

Lot of Farr's designs had small but probably significant flanges at the keel root, which would surely be easy to do with these cast iron fins. If it didn't slow down top racers that still go faster than boats like the GS then surely they wouldn't handicap this sort of production cruiser/racer. If they could do it in the 1890s, the 1960s and the 1990s it's damn near criminal that they don't do in in the 2020s.

Farr designs have their problems too as the steel grid supporting the keel and glassed to the inside of the hull parted from the hulls on 1108s for example requiring urgent re -engineering. Not too mention the two girls on a brand NEW (built in OZ) Farr design that lost its keel off Woolongong year before last.

Fact is high aspect ratio keels (together with the lightweight boats they invariably appear on) are a massive risk and you may not know whether it's been done right until someone tries to pull it off years later or before that when it falls apart or it kills you.

Most are unlikely to remain uncompromised by a grounding - especially if they are European production boats churned out by the hundreds with an eye to shareholder profit and dingy style to boot to maximise internal accommodation and lounging volume(=flat bottom).

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julesmoto said..

cammd said..

Shifu said..
Who makes solid passage making yachts these days with robust appendages, cutter rigs and cockpits you can't be washed out of. Kraken Yachts? Are there others?

There are still good custom boats being made, the cat getting built in Redland bay by Delos atm looks like it is being done well.

A good design commissioned and over seen by an experienced owner getting built by skilled tradesman produces a good boat.

Trouble is you are looking at one and a half million bucks upwards for that sort of

To build from new yes .....but custom boats are more often than not cheaper than a name brand production boat to buy second hand.

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julesmoto said..

Ringle said..

Chris 249 said..
It looks as though even Grand Soliel now just drops the frames into bog. That's odd since I thought they were supposedly a top-end brand

It's a bit better than bog; it's a high tech glue but the flaw in the process is not knowing firstly if the glue bond is thorough and then secondly not being able to see any failure from grounding or subsequent increasing failures of the bond as it works.
When it's built with care and attention it's strong but there is no way of diagnosing failure as it is hidden.
They may well be able remove furniture then cut tops off frames and glass them onto hull from inside each 'box' frame and stringer.

Seems that they will have to do what the Evans (of Expedition Evans YouTube fame see

?si=My1qcxm_rV3p39I- at 30 seconds to 3 min mark for quick view ) did and that took forever and involved taking most of the inside of the boat apart.
If I understand your proposal correctly it would be pretty hard to grind the existing fiberglass to give a good bond to the tabbing and you would certainly want to restore the top of the box section once the sides were tabbed to the hull. I'm also not sure how you would test the integrity of the adjacent floors/stringers which would obviously have been put under a lot of stress when their neighboring reinforcement gave up the ghost. I'm not sure how this blue works but it may be compromised even though it is not actually visibly cracked yet.

If they get insurance money they should take it and run.

Either way you wouldn't catch me sailing on that boat.

Well that was interesting! I was less than impressed to see the glue bond was a thick bead of glue on the edge of the pan and not on the whole pan. Their boat will be stronger than when it was launched.
When the moulded frames and stringers were first introduced there were no pans and they were glassed into the hulls but the glued pans started appearing in the early 90s and the shiny bilges looked slick. I wish they weren't so driven by cost and aesthetics even if most boats don't get sailed hard.

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julesmoto said..

Chris 249 said..

Lot of Farr's designs had small but probably significant flanges at the keel root, which would surely be easy to do with these cast iron fins. If it didn't slow down top racers that still go faster than boats like the GS then surely they wouldn't handicap this sort of production cruiser/racer. If they could do it in the 1890s, the 1960s and the 1990s it's damn near criminal that they don't do in in the 2020s.

Farr designs have their problems too as the steel grid supporting the keel and glassed to the inside of the hull parted from the hulls on 1108s for example requiring urgent re -engineering. Not too mention the two girls on a brand NEW (built in OZ) Farr design that lost its keel off Woolongong year before last.

Fact is high aspect ratio keels (together with the lightweight boats they invariably appear on) are a massive risk and you may not know whether it's been done right until someone tries to pull it off years later or before that when it falls apart or it kills you.

Most are unlikely to remain uncompromised by a grounding - especially if they are European production boats churned out by the hundreds with an eye to shareholder profit and dingy style to boot to maximise internal accommodation and lounging volume(=flat bottom).

Yep, Farrs aren't perfect but the point was that they show that even top-line high-aspect bulb fin keels can be fitted with flanges and still win major races, so surely cruiser/racers can have bigger flanges to reduce loadings.

The 11.6 keel issue was, as I understand it from second-hand reports, more of a Binks build problem and the report on Rising Farrster makes it clear that with that particular 38 poor building practise that ignored the design was the real issue. You're right about the Nextba issue; I didn't consider that a Farr design since it was created long after Farr and Bowler had left the firm but I should have said that.

We'll have to disagree about whether you can know whether high aspect fins have been done right - surely you can check (on a new boat at least) how much 'glass has been fitted to the frames, for example. The thing is that is doesn't have to be an insoluble problem, as shown by the fact that there are many engineering structures that are much more difficult to build that are done right in other applications, and by what is (as far as I know) good records in a few popular designs that use them (ie Farr 30 and 40 and some X Yachts).

So yep the design creates potential for extra problems and personally I wouldn't have one, and yes I would stay well away from a modern pop-out that has one, but it seems that a reasonably durably high aspect bulb keel IS possible. To me, that makes it even more reprehensible when they fall off through penny-pinching.