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Chris 249 said..MorningBird said..
I have an interview with a crew of that S&S34. It is very interesting but is in pdf format and I don't know how to post it here.
Too many people assess the consequence of a risk first, in which case you should never get out of bed as you might die if you do.
Is it the one from the 1998 inquest with Esky (Craig Escott) and John Goodfellow off Solandra, MB?
For some weird reason I can't post the link but the Google term "1998 Hobart survive inquest" brings up the webpage with most of the testimony; from memory the published versions leave out a little bit of testimony doctors gave, to save the feelings of some families of the deceased. I was at the inquest a fair bit and from what I can recall, the medical evidence was that if one had been thrown into a safety harness hard enough to snap it (which happened in one instance) then the internal injuries that would result from the torso compression meant that you would need to be on a fully-equipped operating table within about 15 minutes, max, to have any chance of survival. The boat involved did not invert. As with the deaths on Festina Tertia and Flashlight in the 1979 Fastnet, it showed that even a knockdown is dangerous and therefore the difference between a serious knockdown and an inversion may not be as significant as some sources say.
I asked one of the Solandra crew I knew how far she went over and the answer was something like "well, I spent a fair bit of time walking around the cabin ceiling, so it was a long way".
Morning Tide was pretty even by S&S 34 standards; I used to race against her eons ago. Sad that she was lost because of poor detail design.
That is the interview. If people message me their email I'll send it on.
Solandra did not from my recollection do a 360 or even a 180. Maybe a 150. I haven't experienced a knock down anything like that. Morning Bird got pushed to maybe 70-80 degrees on one occasion and that was pretty slow, a push sideways down a breaking wave.
Alan Fenwick, Morning Tide's owner, and I talked extensively over what happened. He was with Peter Crozier's (Alex Whitworth's crewmate on the epic round the world trip in the Brolga 33 Berrimilla) daughter, both very experienced sailors.
Morning Tide was knocked flat very violently, the most violent knockdown Alan said he had experienced. It was about 0100 and they were bailing all night and couldn't find the leak. From memory Morning Tide had a sail drive so the rudder wasn't easily visible. Maybe they had a lot of stuff stowed under the cockpit.
When they were both exhausted they set the epirb off. Alan said at daybreak he located the leak which was a chunk of the rudder post riser had broken off.
The helicopter was overhead and they either took it or remained with the boat without a rescue option. They got winched up and watched as the yacht sank.
Jim Lawler, who I recall was lost in the 98 S2H on Winston Churchill, was an earlier owner of Morning Tide and I think he did the rudder mod. He sailed the boat successfully for many years with that rudder so it wasn't necessarily a poorly done mod. But it did contribute to the loads that caused the final damage.
I think it was the year before that Alan was on watch on return from Hobart when they got rolled and lost the mast. Can't remember which yacht but possibly Berrimilla. He was on Berrimilla in the 98 S2H when they survived the blow and continued racing to Hobart. He also has the most voyages to Lord Howe I am aware of. A very experienced guy who I learnt a lot from about sailing S&S34s.
A lesson I learnt from Morning Tide and my own experience with a Cole 43 is not to sail on boats with modified rudders.
In I think 2013 I wanted to do the Lord Howe rally and MB wasn't ready or I couldn't get crew. I was asked to skipper a Cole 43 and helped sail the boat to Newcastle as part of the preparation. It had several defects, so the owner had the boat hauled out in Newcastle. I saw that the rudder was a good 60cm extended below a standard Cole 43 (same skeg hung rudder as the S&S) and the rudder had dropped a few cm. The chippy said it was Ok and they couldn't put it back in position without major work.
We set off from Newcastle about mid-morning, 3 handed. At about 1600 I went to have a rest as I had the first night watch. Laying in my bunk I hear the owner say to the other fellow (a non-sailor) 'don't panic don't panic'. I rushed on deck to find the top mount for the rudder post, a fitting on the lazarette seating, flopping around with only one of four bolts there and loose the others having broken or come adrift.
I took the helm, dropped the main and sailed the boat slowly on the heady. It was pretty calm but in maybe a 1-2 metre swell. The owner then spent a few hours contorted below decks securing the fitting.
When he had finished he indicated we would continue to Lord Howe. I turned the boat around and we returned to Newcastle.
The top of the rudder post did not fit hard up in the top fitting meaning that it worked the fitting every time it moved. The extended rudder below the skeg increased the loads and the fitting failed. I don't know why it didn't do damage to the hull where the post went through. If it happened after dark we wouldn't have known and it would have broken the hull below the water line. It still gives me goose pumps..
Boat designers have a reason they made things the way they did. Make major changes at your peril.