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Fatality - Northland


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A sad story indeed.

 

Once the breaking part of a wave is 30% of a vessels WLL, she is in danger of being broached and rolled over. That is ANY vessel.  Being thrown down a wave has popped the windows from more than one boat. I wonder if it was the hull windows or the topsides windows that failed. This vessel must have had cat 1, for which any opening over 2 ft square should have storm shutters, but it sounds like they did not.

 

Mounts for deck mounted life-rafts must be through bolted, and lashings inspected. They are also not the 1st ones to have a life raft washed off.

 

Most cruisers never see 6m breaking seas. Life jacket spray hoods and PLBs are not as common as they should be.

 

My condolences to all concerned.

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I only get windy with cell phone. Iridium go and pw otherwise. I don't think it was getthereitis. The extent of the low pressure system was enormous , out way past 300 miles iirc. So if they were aware of it say sat or sun,they may have been too close to turn around.

I'm glad to see that forecast map because although it talks about strong winds most of it is confidence low. So that confirms what I thought. Far from everybody there's a very deep low pressure coming, it's more like there might be some strong winds so watch out. And Sat or Sun is too late to turn around or close to it if they were even aware of it.

There's boats getting in today that turned around 4 to 500 miles out and waited for it to go through but they would have left several or many days after Essence.

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 This vessel must have had cat 1, for which any opening over 2 ft square should have storm shutters, but it sounds like they did not.

 

 

 

I think the view on this may have changed in some circumstances. Two inspectors told me that they considered properly installed windows to be as strong as the deck itself. Our windows are large but are reinforced safety glass.

 

We broke one last year by hitting the very edge with a metal buckle on a flapping canvas. The outer layer broke into safety glass size bits over a couple of minutes, but the inner pane stayed solid. Over the next 24 hours, the inner layer slowly shattered and the window lost strength. We cut our emergency plywood panel to shape and screwed/sika it to replaced the window.

DSC_3346.JPG

DSC_3352.JPG

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Yep, I still carry GRP storm shutters for all my hull windows, even though they are small. They attach with butterfly nuts to existing bolts. I also have ply pre cut for the other windows, backing (glued on) with an old blanket as a makeshift seal. Plan is to use the cordless driver (or if ness a screwdriver) and attach with self tappers. Fix the damage later. Never had to use them, but then again I have no large windows except the hatches.

 

I don't know much about armored glass, or even safety glass, but what you posted is interesting. There are different kinds of "strength", point impact like your window is but one of them.

 

Running downhill in really heavy conditions is dangerous, and its all good until an instant later, when it isn't!

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Mate, it was a Bravaria Oceans 47, not a cat. Had serious water ingress issues, but as yet we dont know why. The initial mayday reported about an hour left before she sank, which she did, so seems accurate at this point.

 

 

Just a Bavaria 47. Oceans is a beneteau range.

Interesting distinction between the two as I believe the beneteau oceans put in bigger windows sooner, meaning if what I read somewhere about them having owned this boat for ten plus years is true that it was probably the earlier style bav with lots of smallish porthole style windows. Which aren't of the size to require shuttering for cat1.

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Just a Bavaria 47. Oceans is a beneteau range.

Interesting distinction between the two as I believe the beneteau oceans put in bigger windows sooner, meaning if what I read somewhere about them having owned this boat for ten plus years is true that it was probably the earlier style bav with lots of smallish porthole style windows. Which aren't of the size to require shuttering for cat1.

Nope correct name is Bravaria 47 ocean. Pic below is the actual boat that was lost...

Bravaria 47 Ocean.jpg

 

No Hull windows on that model it appears.

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They sailed it as a family back from the Med and kept it in Auckland for a few years, it was a big heavy cruiser. The conditions were windy but manageable until it encountered a sea change that produced a confused and powerful wave action. Screwing in shutters would almost be impossible under those conditions was the opinion of a crew member.

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Just a Bavaria 47. Oceans is a beneteau range.

Interesting distinction between the two as I believe the beneteau oceans put in bigger windows sooner, meaning if what I read somewhere about them having owned this boat for ten plus years is true that it was probably the earlier style bav with lots of smallish porthole style windows. Which aren't of the size to require shuttering for cat1.

No, you’re confusing it with Beneteau Oceanis (note the extra ‘is’).

 

Whereas Bavaria Ocean is the offshore blue-water version of Bavaria’s range.

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Plenty of big windows very similar to a Oyster cabin top.

Lose those in that sort of weather you are not going to have much time to come up with a cunning plan.

Bloody tragic outcome very lucky the someone had a locator and once again well done those wonderful people in their fantastic flying machines.

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DC14925C-1727-4ED6-921E-E8C5FA751FC2.png

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Great idea. Doing the same.

 

I have worked along side the Westpac crew a few years back. They do a great job. Jumping out of even a twin engine helicopter into that sea takes big balls. You need faith in the winch, faith in the machine, faith in the pilot.

 

The Orion crew is also pretty stellar. There response time is under 2 hours - which when you think about the crew having to be paged etc (especially in Auckland traffic etc) is also pretty impressive. The way they get the life raft so close in those conditions takes some skill.

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