business MGI Consultancy, says the Imola double disaster brought about a change in how the motor racing world learns from every accident and incorporates those findings back into developing the next generation of cars, with safety always at the top of the agenda.
and isn’t going to break mid-ocean.’ One of the specialists Hiscox use for NDT testing is the MTD Group, a Cardiff-based company with a strong background in aerospace. Working in an industry where even the smallest level of failure can’t be tolerated [otherwise aeroplanes would fall out of the sky more regularly], MTD’s business development manager Michelle Clapham tries to find a word that describes the marine industry’s attitude to NDT testing and settles on ‘agricultural’ as a not-too-harsh description. One senses her frustration that the marine industry doesn’t aspire to higher standards. Despite the proliferation of composite construction, composite craft are more or less unregulated compared with metal hulls, which have to pass certification with one of the classification bodies. MTD’s technical director Colin Thomas says, ‘We’ve been working in aerospace for a long time, especially at the forefront of testing composites. We have tried – and are trying – to apply it to the marine industry, but it has been met with a lot of resistance.
It was catastrophic accidents in the aviation industry that led to the creation of such a tight regulatory framework today, and it’s likely that it will require a few high-profile fatalities before things change in sailing. The death of four sailors after the keel fell off the 40-footer Cheeki Rafikicaused a few ripples, but whether it will create lasting change remains to be seen, according to MTD’s division director Chris Minton: ‘There was a
Above: NDT testing on a superyacht mast reveals a potential flaw in the laminate which will need careful monitoring and/or some form of
remedial work to ensure it does not develop
further. With rigs costing in excess of $1-2million apiece and the risks to the crews onboard, insurers are working hard to ensure that proper testing is no longer regarded as a luxury reserved mainly for grand prix campaigns. Nowhere was constant NDT monitoring more central to operations than at the America’s Cup in
Bermuda in 2017 (top)
recommendation from the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) after the incident, but it's still not been fully adopted. They put out flyers suggesting regular inspection of critical areas using appropriate NDT and that those carrying out the inspection be suitably competent/qualified.’ Some NDT testing comes down to little more than banging a carbon structure with a hammer and, unsurprisingly, the experts at MTD don’t think that’s good enough. Then again proper NDT testing doesn’t come cheap. Assessing the tube section of a mast costs £800-£2,000, says Clapham. ‘Size, construction, history, access, all have a bearing. A clean structure, ie one with few indications (which are found, mapped and then interrogated for type of “defect”), is much faster than one with many indications. Many indications don’t necessarily mean a bad structure; it comes down to additional factors.’
More deaths needed first? It took the death of Andrew ‘Bart’ Simpson for the America’s Cup community to start taking NDT seriously, and it was the same in F1 24 years ago. Mike Gascoyne, a keen Class40 sailor who has raced doublehanded in events like the Transat Jacques Vabre and Rolex Fastnet Race alongside the likes of Brian Thompson and Josh Hall, has spent his career in F1 engineering. He has worked at the top of many of the big teams in F1 including McLaren, Sauber, Tyrrell, Jordan and Renault, as well as founding the Caterham F1 Team. Gascoyne says it wasn’t until that fateful weekend at Imola in 1994, with the death of Roland Ratzenberger in qualifying followed by the death of Ayrton Senna during the race, that the F1 community started to ask hard questions. Gascoyne, who now offers his engineering expertise to the marine and motor racing worlds through his
Don’t let the sailors decide Could we see a similar change in the marine world? Gascoyne is sceptical. ‘We had a very strong governing body in the FIA and that rule change [after Imola] on the grounds of safety was absolutely key to making F1 team do what they should. In Imoca a skipper is always going to go for the thing that will make the boat go faster and hope disaster doesn't happen.
‘In F1 you have very professional teams where the drivers are effectively employees of the teams. In sailing it’s a very different model, where the sailors are the heads of their teams. With all due respect to them, great sailors and athletes as they are, they’re probably not the only people who should be making those decisions [about safety], as they are also driven by performance as a priority. It requires a governing body to create the framework for these changes to happen. ‘World Sailing or some other body should be providing the oversight and this regulatory framework. There should be a technical delegate, someone like Charlie Whiting who's the guy we had in Formula One. He would come into the technical working group and say, “Look, we've got this problem, we've had this accident. And on the grounds of safety I'm going to impose this regulation on you [the teams], unless you all agree to something else.” That forced the teams to do agree on something.
‘In sailing you see masts falling down on a regular basis. So let’s say 40 per cent come down in the
Vendée Globe. You could go in and say, “That's unsafe so I'm going to impose a mast load test on every boat before every race – we'll pull it this way with x tonnes of load, sideways with y tonnes.” Should the teams object on the grounds that their rigs would fail, you’d get them to come up with a better regulation that means the rigs would pass. ‘Of course it is not always as simple as that in practice,’ says Gascoyne. But the example of Formula One certainly offers a way forwards for the marine world. Will it happen? Or will it continue to be left to the insurers to be the arbiters of what is and isn’t safe in high- performance sailing?
www.hiscoxmga.com/marine q
SEAHORSE 73
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96
