Artimis flipped

[Guest]

There are snippets suggesting the Artemis design team and material supplies may need to lawyer up

[wheels 543]

That would be a very pathetic reaction, but certainly does not come as any shock these days. What does anyone expect when designing what is the Formula 1 of Sailboats. It would be like taking a Formula 1 car race car and then building it out of Mack Truck components to supposedly make it safer, but still racing it F1 speeds. You simply can not push vessels this size at these speeds and forces without the potential for something bad happening. Even in the simplest of bad situations, lets say you are on the stern when it nose dives and the stern is now 7ft feet in the air. That is a long way to fall to the water and add that there are obstructions below you as you fall.

Perhaps the ones that should saddle up their Lawyers are the ones behind the idea of using these Cats in the first place.

[Guest]

I would agree wheels if these people were not professional and paid amazing money to make exact decisions and perform exact production.

 

Its a bit like buying a new Toyota and a fault (design or construction) kills you.

 

The blame has to be pinned on people in order to learn and ensure the people or organisations or industries at fault can learn and ensure safety.

 

This was not a crew error but appears to be a design/construction error that compromised crew safety.

 

A bit like those dodgy buildings in ChCh why should that engineer-designer Rea extract millions from the industry and then walk away from many deaths Scott free?

 

Having said that if ETNZ does the same thing and breaks up then this is a Ellison-coutts decision issue as well. After all they choose a class that was not fit for purpose, based on the rules and weather.

[wheels 543]

I would agree wheels if these people were not professional and paid amazing money to make exact decisions and perform exact production.

 

Its a bit like buying a new Toyota and a fault (design or construction) kills you.

 

The blame has to be pinned on people in order to learn and ensure the people or organisations or industries at fault can learn and ensure safety.

No there is a difference. You buy a Toyota based on getting you from A to B safely and that safety has come about from years of gaining knowledge from previous builds, safety testing and the belief on the manufacturer side, that the owners is not going to take the Vehicle and drive it at 180Kmp just because it can go that fast. With these Boats, there are no known's. There is no ability to crash and test. Even in this instances, the outcome could still have happened no matter what safety designs had been employed. These are cutting edge and maybe the one that should have all blame placed on is the guy that cam up with the idea of racing them with no thought as to how this could be done so safely and practically and financially.

[Guest]

Incorrect wheels. The 45's are the Crash test dummies and there are thousands of carbon catamarans that have proven to be a good test bench.

 

They have been testing the 45's for 5 plus years.

 

Mind you the foiling thing is very new but as I understand it Artemis fell apart before even foiling.

[wheels 543]

The difference between the 45 and the 72 is chalk and cheese. There is no known figures for stresses and cycles and loads and all the given what have you's. There is computer modeling based on the 45's, but computer models are only as good as the info entered. No one has a clue when scaled to a 72 and then lifted clear on a foil. Which by the way, some of the greatest Hull stresses are seen at point of transition from Hull to Foil. Once on the foil, a lot of stress is goes away.

Discussing the design at work last week, I said that these boats have missed a major design plus. The fact that they actually have Hulls is a downer. The Hull is not needed and in fact probably adds to complexity, certainly to weight, to bad stress dissipation and takes away greater speed potential. All they really need are three or four "floats" instead of two very long Hulls to keep the boat afloat, when at rest/below foiling speeds. Once underway, the boat would lift on the foils faster due to less weight and not having wetted surface friction to overcome. The savings in Hull structure could now go into a "frame" far better adapted at taking the stresses and creating better control. My idea would be a "X" frame with braces fore aft in place of the Hulls and a foil at the front corner. Aft foil could either be the same as they have, or even two, one in each aft corner. With the foil forward, no nose diving. No Hull nose, no nose diving. Of course, I am no designer. It's easy for me to say these things with no real knowledge.

[smithy09 50]

I would agree wheels if these people were not professional and paid amazing money to make exact decisions and perform exact production.

 

Its a bit like buying a new Toyota and a fault (design or construction) kills you.

 

The blame has to be pinned on people in order to learn and ensure the people or organisations or industries at fault can learn and ensure safety.

No there is a difference. You buy a Toyota based on getting you from A to B safely and that safety has come about from years of gaining knowledge from previous builds, safety testing and the belief on the manufacturer side, that the owners is not going to take the Vehicle and drive it at 180Kmp just because it can go that fast. With these Boats, there are no known's. There is no ability to crash and test. Even in this instances, the outcome could still have happened no matter what safety designs had been employed. These are cutting edge and maybe the one that should have all blame placed on is the guy that cam up with the idea of racing them with no thought as to how this could be done so safely and practically and financially.

 

I've got to agree with Wheels here.

Playing the blame game will serve no purpose. I'm sure those designers are absolutely sick at what has happened and are living their own personal hell right now. Someone got it wrong for sure, but like Wheels has correctly identified (IMO) there are very few bench marks. I don't think you can just scale up the 45s. It doesn't work like that. This is truly cutting edge stuff where everything is being pushed to the limit in good strength breezes with waves..

I'm sure everyone knows what they are in for, and the risks involved. This whole incident was just really tragic, bad luck, in that Bart got trapped. If he had fallen free, it would just have been another Cat break up and we would be moving on. Sadly, it didn't pan out like that.

 

I have heard from one of the rellies of a Kiwi on board that the crew is taking it very hard and continuing may not be an option. I can't imagine the head space they are in right now...

[benny14 6]

So wheels and smithy, we should just sit in our nice snug little houses, with our tinfoil hats on and not try anything new because there's a potential it could hurt or kill someone? Come on... Human nature is to try and do things better, bigger, faster... And that's a good thing... Look how far we've come, and with the technology available there's so much potential to get even better. Imagine what we'll be sailing in another 15 - 20 years, actually, I don't think we could even imagine it, technology advances could potentially mean we're sailing something that we can't even fathom at the moment. Maybe we'll all be sailing something like the Vestas Sailrocket? Now that would be exciting...

 

Most, if not all, technological advances come at some sort of cost. I'm in NO WAY saying that this should be at the cost of human life, and no one involved in these yachts would have thought that was going to happen, otherwise they would not be on the water. There is plenty of learning to be had from this accident, and I'm sure the people involved are putting a lot of time and effort in to making sure that happens. These learnings will be great for the advancement of multi-hull sailing and the sport of sailing in general, and should be taken as such. Innovation and development should be encouraged, it's the only way we can advance both as a sport, and as humans in general.

 

Flame away...

[wheels 543]

So wheels and smithy, we should just sit in our nice snug little houses, with our tinfoil hats on and not try anything new because there's a potential it could hurt or kill someone?

No you have absolutely utterly got where I was coming from wrong. Quite to the contrary. What I am saying is that the blame should not be placed with or even aimed at the designers and manufacturers. Doing so will jeapordise any such future dramatic push with technology, because no one will ever want to put their hands up to try. The incident can't be blamed and should not be blamed on Designers and manufacturers because there are no "knowns" with the technology. The teams understand greater potential pitfalls more than the designers. The Teams know and understand very well just how hard these things are to sail. They are the ones that have hold of the control knob. They know they have to turn it up to 11 just to be in the race. But when it goes all the way to 13 and 13 being the crash and burn and their opponent is already at 12.9....well they are therefore the ultimate controller of Custard square or Custard pear shape or custard hitting the fan.

 

There is one thing I think needs to be done, learned from the hindsight of the accident, that I believe they need to carry a decent oxygen tank on board a Support/chase/patrol(whatever is out there) boat. They needed more than the little 10 breath cans being carried. Those are great for individuals, but a back up of something bigger is obviously needed and made available in less than a minute or two at the most.

[JK 28]

I am sure that is a question that is being asked Wheels. ETNZ put a lot of work into a high speed chase boat that has a suited up diver & a medic on board which shadows them whilst training, in much the same way as power boat racing has the choppers & horse racing the ambulance.

[RushMan 31]

Is that the chase boat sitting on the hard at the Viaduct or do they have two?

[smithy09 50]

So wheels and smithy, we should just sit in our nice snug little houses, with our tinfoil hats on and not try anything new because there's a potential it could hurt or kill someone?

No you have absolutely utterly got where I was coming from wrong. Quite to the contrary. What I am saying is that the blame should not be placed with or even aimed at the designers and manufacturers. Doing so will jeapordise any such future dramatic push with technology, because no one will ever want to put their hands up to try. The incident can't be blamed and should not be blamed on Designers and manufacturers because there are no "knowns" with the technology. The teams understand greater potential pitfalls more than the designers. The Teams know and understand very well just how hard these things are to sail. They are the ones that have hold of the control knob. They know they have to turn it up to 11 just to be in the race. But when it goes all the way to 13 and 13 being the crash and burn and their opponent is already at 12.9....well they are therefore the ultimate controller of Custard square or Custard pear shape or custard hitting the fan.

.

 

Yeah you got me wrong as well. I'm not sure how you read that into our posts. You might want to have a re-read!!

 

I'm not saying can them. I think they are amazing, although the cup is a bit of a washout with only 3 challengers. I'm just saying don't hang the designers out to dry. People love scapegoats, and in this situation, I don't think that there is one. In motorcycling we call it a "racing incident" and there have been more than a few deaths in that sport! It's a dangerous sport and so is racing these AC72s. Look carefully at what went wrong and do your best to fix it and improve safety, just don't point the finger.

[Guest]

All the Wa Wa Wa is from the PC brigade who can't abide the idea of personal responsibility. In their twisted eyes there is always someone at fault but never them of course. The whiners have been 'empowered' and are now 'entitled' to bitch. Twasn't that long ago they were locked up in mental institutions. A times I serious do wonder why some dipshit opened the doors.

 

Yes suss hard out to see what failed and why then minimise any chance of it happening again but to try and hang any of that on someone/s is just counter productive and will achieve nothing.

[Clive 13]

There is one thing I think needs to be done, learned from the hindsight of the accident, that I believe they need to carry a decent oxygen tank on board a Support/chase/patrol

 

I think that they should have a suited up diver on the chase boat ready to go.

[wheels 543]

So to condense MB's cutting post, "we had some drawings, made some smaller boats, tested, made bigger boats, tested, made improvements as they came to the surface as we went along, bout all you can do really".

 

Moving on,

The thing to keep in perspective with all this is that these boats have flipped twice already. Teams knew it is likely on the cards and they know that it will happen again.

It is only that there was a death that many have made the "oh gasp" approach and look who started it all? The Media. They have used words like "cloud over the AC" and so on. They are reporting questions that are from nobodies being asked to no one.

[wheels 543]

I meant that as a Big "IF". IF anyone should be blamed, it should be the guy the came up with the idea to race these monsters rather than the people trying to design them around those given rules. I don't think blame should go to anyone, but it is more a 1st vs 2nd choice as to where I was coming from.

[MarkMT 68]

Remarkable how much supposed wisdom is being churned out here when we don't even have a clear understanding yet of what actually happened.

[erice 732]

you're right

 

we shouldn't say anything

 

until we've told what to say

 

has Russell said anything yet?

[smithy09 50]

Remarkable how much supposed wisdom is being churned out here when we don't even have a clear understanding yet of what actually happened.

 

BOLLOCKS. The beam certainly BROKE. We know that. Just was it before or after the capsize? All reports (2nd hand for sure) say it happened before..

 

So I reckon we know a bit.

[otto 31]

Artemis helmsman Nathan Outteridge has officially refuted a description of the crash of the Artemis Racing AC72 which has been circulating on international news sites since last week.

 

The description was given by Outteridge’s father to reporters at the Australian Newcastle Herald newspaper and appeared to suggest that the Swedish catamaran had begun to break up before it capsized.

 

In the article Outteridge’s father is quoted as telling Herald reporters how his son had described the crash in a phone call:

 

“Nathan told me [the turn] didn’t seem any different to any other occasion. The bow dug in a little bit but he said that’s not unusual. The next thing he heard a cracking noise and the boat went on its side. Before it capsized it snapped in half, Nathan described it as folding like a taco shell.”

 

Today however, Artemis Racing’s communications department issued an email with the following statement from Nathan Outteridge appearing to contradict how his father had been reported:

 

“The description of the accident in the Newcastle Herald while quoting my father is not correct and does not reflect the facts. Unfortunately it has been relayed by other media. Right now, we are all still mourning and working to understand what happened. I hope everyone can respect this and I thank all those who have expressed support.”