Has anyone experienced hull failure with the Inter boats– specifically sudden delamination & cracking near the bow?
what happened?
A loud cracking sound while double-trapped on a reach – speed maybe 20 - crew weight 350lbs – “top plate” pealed back suddenly near bow. Boat’s (3) months old.
I heard there was one that blew up in northern california (maybe huntington?) recently. Was that you?
I can find more info if you're interested.
We haven't had any problems here in San Diego, with around a dozen I20's regularly sailing. I had mine out in 25 kts of wind in March with 3 crew (600 lbs), screaming along at 25 kts with the chute on a broad reach.
When you say the
top plate
peeled back, do you mean the deck of the hull?
Alan Thompson
I20 - San Diego
That was me at Huntington last week - and it was the hull deck that peeled back near the bow.
sounds like it was just a bad bond. when you take the top off a box, the box comes apart. thats what happened. sorry for your luck.
That also happened to one of the Alter Cup boats this past spring.
My guess is contaminated material or poor prep work – the dealer and factory have been responsive so far … Hopefully I’ll be back on the water before October.
There are been more than one failure like this one. There was at least one if not two boats before the Alter Cup that the decks come off and the hulls collapsed. Bay Wind suffered from the same problem knocking them out of the Worrell. From what I have heard 'Tommy Bahamas' first hulls had bad delamination in the sterns.
My understanding is that baywinds hit the beach nose first coming off a wave. It is unrealistic to expect the boats to take that kind of abuse and survive.
As for the rest it is kind of hard to get a straight answer from Jack Young. I would note that the quality of performance products is very variable. The sails by Skip Elliot have been inconsistant also. Very little quality control evident in thier manufacture.
Eric
It seems like every time I start seriously thinking about moving into one of these new
high-tech
lightweight boats, there's a stream of posts on this forum similar to this one, and I renew my appreciation for my heavy-as-hell but bulletproof old-school boat.
That's what I appreciate most about this site and its forums... it benefits the sport by putting the sailors/consumers first, not the vendors.
I think you have it mixed up ...
I-20 is NOT a modern lightweight boat it is of the same weight as the old Nacra 6.0 and partly constructed with I-18 parts and most important of all NOT designed by Pete Melvin and Gino Morelli like the EU I-18 was.
Looking of the history of this forum I see all A-cats doing well and one even got into a collision with a Stilletto cat. Stilletto broke off it's bow and the A-cat was only damaged with respect to the OUTER glasslayer. The inner layer was still intact and the boat sailed home without a punctured hull.
I hear I-20 is breaking its I-18 boards and splitting open on the bows. Now of the A-cats or lightweights like BIM and Taipan were EVER reported on this forum to have suffered ANY significant damage. Only instant was at Texel 2 years ago 1999 were a T4.9 sailed over a jetty or hit ground and damaged the daggerboard but they finished the race anyway.
If anything; the trackrecords favours the truelly lightweights with their reduced loads.
It may sound strange but smaller and lighter can actually be stronger.
Wouter
Well Said Wouter. It is a shame you will suffer abuse for telling the truth.
If the Stiletto, A-Cat collision you are referring to is the one that I'm aware of, the Stiletto did not sustain damage in the collision (but did later in an unrelated incident). You are correct in that the A-Cat was only slightly damaged (which is pretty amazing considering the size difference)
Those A-Cats are niiiiiiice!
Clayton
For the record:
My Inter is back – new starboard hull. From the first notification it took 14 days to get the boat repaired, not bad. Kirk at Inland Sailing was great. The factory… could have been more responsive. Bottom line, the Inter is a great boat but if I lose the port hull Chris (at Performance) and I will have a heart to heart talk.