7 Sailboats That Lost Their Keels At Sea. Only 3 Of Them Were The Bolts.

Since 1984 the sport's governing body has recorded 72 keel failures on sailing yachts. Twenty-four people died in them. Three of those 72 were caused by the keel bolts. This video walks through seven documented keel losses at sea and finds the component that actually failed on each one, using the official accident reports rather than the forum consensus. The cases are Excalibur off Port Stephens in 2002, Rambler 100 at the Fastnet Rock in 2011, Cheeki Rafiki in the mid-Atlantic in 2014, Polina Star III off Spain in 2015, Moquini in the Mauritius to Durban race in 2005, Tyger in the Canaries in 2017 and Showtime in 2020. The peg is the Oyster 825 Viva La Vida, which lost her ballast bulb after striking a reef during Hamilton Island Race Week in August 2026 and capsized with ten aboard. The Marine Accident Investigation Branch found that Cheeki Rafiki had nine 24mm stainless keel bolts and a hull skin measuring 7.7mm where the keel attached, against an American Bureau of Shipping guideline calling for laminate at least as thick as the bolt itself. She had grounded at least five times. Some of her keel bolts pulled through the laminate with the nuts and washer plates still in place. The video covers the bonded fibreglass grid that most production keel bolts land on, why a secondary bond is the weakest link in the assembly, why ultrasound and magnetic particle inspection cannot reliably clear a keel bolt in place, and the difference between the 2:1 safety factor in ISO 12215-9 and the 5:1 margin recommended in Principles of Yacht Design. It closes on the fact that 58 of the 87 entries in the official keel failure list have no recorded cause at all. Encapsulated keels, keel bolt corrosion, grounding damage, marine surveys, offshore sailing safety and bluewater yacht construction. Yachts and Boats covers the marine industry with the numbers attached. Chapters: 00:00 Nine Bolts And Seven Hundred Miles Of Water 04:57 Thirty Seconds Off Port Stephens 10:12 The Builder Who Sailed On His Own Boat 13:36 The Column Nobody Fills In References: Report on the investigation of the keel detachment and capsize of the yacht Cheeki Rafiki. Marine Accident Investigation Branch, Report 8/2015. assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/55408664e5274a157200005b/MAIBInvReport_8_2015.pdf Keel failure: the shocking facts. Yachting World. yachtingworld.com/news/keel-failure-shocking-facts-60006 List of known and reported keel failures. World Sailing. sailing.org/tools/documents/SRSC7diKeelFailuresdatav2-[17112].pdf The Oyster 825 Viva La Vida capsizes: a second keel loss raises questions once again. BoatNews. boatnews.com/story/52472 Oyster tells all: statement on Polina Star keel failure. Wave Train, 10 December 2015. wavetrain.net/2015/12/10/oyster-tells-all-statement-on-polina-star-keel-failure Rambler 100 Capsize Safety Review, 25 October 2011. US Sailing. ussailing.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/safety_us_sailing_inquiry_rambler.pdf How Secure is Your Keel? SAIL Magazine. sailmagazine.com/diy/how-secure-is-your-keel A Quest for Keel Integrity. Practical Sailor. practical-sailor.com/sails-rigging-deckgear/a-quest-for-keel-integrity Planning and Budgeting a Refit, Keels Part 2: Non-Destructive Testing of Bolts. Morgan's Cloud, 5 June 2020. morganscloud.com/2020/06/05/planning-and-budgeting-a-refit-keels-part-2-non-destructive-testing-of-bolts Regulatory Developments in Structural Keel Design: A Revised ISO 12215-9. Lyons, Bird, Hinterhoeller, Souppez and Hoffmeister. 8th High Performance Yacht Design Conference, 21 March 2024. publications.aston.ac.uk/id/eprint/46199 Zero Keel. Kraken Yachts. krakenyachts.com/zerokeel Are we facing a keel and rudder failure time-bomb? Dick Durham, Kraken Yachts, 7 February 2020. krakenyachts.com/are-we-facing-a-keel-and-rudder-failure-time-bomb Excalibur (yacht). Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excalibur_(yacht) What went wrong on the Moquini. IOL, 24 September 2006. iol.co.za/news/south-africa/what-went-wrong-on-the-moquini-294924 Douglas Innes: 15 month suspended sentence for Cheeki Rafiki debacle. Marine Industry News. marineindustrynews.co.uk/douglas-innes-15-month-suspended-sentence-for-cheeki-raffiki-debacle