Colligo Titanium Tangs Fractured in Two Separate Dismasting Incidents

[jfranta]

Originally Posted by svaletheia

Spreaders were intact in the water.

Dan, with all due respect, this is what I received from you by email on Dec 4.

"Hi John,

Looking underwater, which is where I got the best look at the situation after the reflex of "what just happened" - it appeared that the spreader I could see (the starboard one) was not bent or broken, and as best I could tell (which, sadly, is not for sure, with the ripple effect and the murkyness and the general motion of everything) it appeared that the masthead bent off to starboard pretty much sideways. That's what it looked like coming down and after the fact. But I can't say for sure if there was any fore-aft component to that as I was sitting well aft and in the water everything was all wonky.

I can tell you for sure the entire rig fell down nearly straight on the beam, it did not come down forwards nor aft but pretty much straight perpendicular to the centreline.

--
Daniel"

Again, based on the information you provided of the incident on your boat, including the brackets that we analyzed, there is no conclusive evidence that the brackets were the primary failure mode. In fact, considering the strain rate sensitivity of titanium, a rapid application of a high load, as would be present in a spreader buckling or breaking or possibly some other rig failure modes, would be more in line with the damage shown on the brackets presented. If you have any other information we would certainly like to see it.

We are sorry that our analysis does not concur with yours. Dismastings are difficult as usually most of the data goes overboard, not giving us many opportunities to learn from.

John Franta, Colligo Marine.