glassdave

iTrader: (1)

There really is no one strictly enforcing anything concerning construction or design. Once in a while someone may raise a question but rarely is anything ever done. Heck theres two boats that i know of that race with a giant foot and a half long crack in the front screen, one i havnt seen in a season or two but the other runs regularly in a few different orgs. I have both put a boat upside down as well as had a canopy come in on me pretty violently. Neither of which i ever want to do again. Most teams are left to fend for themselves when it comes to canopy integrity and as said in another post some actually have. Geico, Scism, Cosker to name a few. I have seen some great stuff from Doug Wright that went into Fury's new canopy.

Having been involved in the sport for eight or ten years now it bothers me sometimes to see whats just shrugged off and passed as "it'll do for now". I consider many of these guys good friends but i have also shrugged off my share of stuff and rolled the dice, you always think you have control of fate but you really dont, i have seen the results. Its caused me to take a back seat in a sport I really love, but its not for lack of having a great driver with me. My heart goes out to the family, friends and fans of the three we lost last week.

Gripenland

Post moved from Warpaint Crash pics thread :

25G peaks is a moderate deceleration in my book but we all have different references. It's certainly not peanuts anyway!
If you hit a flat wall with a modern car at 35 mph you will experience peaks of around 40G in the car. Depending on what car you drive, you would walk away without serious injury. This is with a normal 3 point seat belt and airbag.
In car racing peaks of over 60g is not uncommon.
That is why I regard boat crashes as "moderate" in terms of G-force.

However, not only peak G's are interesting when it comes to crashes. Since we are dealing with the human body, duration and the shape of the crash pulse are important factors. They are also factors where race boat crashes differ from most other crashes. But I will not bore you with details.



Let me rephrase my question:
Are basilar skull fractures a common problem in offshore racing when using safety cockpits and seatbelts?
I suspect that your examples are from open boats? There are may ways to get a basilar scull fracture but a HANS device will only protect from the high G, heavy helmet type.


That's good. From what I hear, swimming with a HANS is OK too.

aquafun

Having been to KW before many times in the past, it has obviously been quite distressing reading about these fatalities in a sport I have enjoyed watching over the years ... regarding the safety I think the article in this OSO forum by Rich Luhrs is right on the nail
http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/g...rice-what.html
Fabio Buzzi, did it seems try very hard after the death of his friend Stefano Casiraghi
http://www.nytimes.com/1990/10/04/ob...is-killed.html
to develop and encourage the use of his safety capsule style of design which could break free of the hull in the event of an accident, however as in the USA Europe did not pull together enough to implement or advance what Fabio Buzzi had started

And another article using this style of canopy on his endurance monohull
http://www.powerboatarchive.co.uk/Ma...0Argentina.pdf
As mentioned in the above Rich Luhrs article the Unlimited Hydro racers had got together and come up with something not to dissimilar to save lives in the event of an accident, so lets hope the racers can join together to overcome the safety capsule issues and save future lives in the sport

Gripenland

Have brake away cockpits been field proven under offshore conditions?
I know they work pretty good for calm water, single seater conditions because the skip on top of the surface of the water.

I'm worried that a larger two man cockpit might dig in to the water? Maybe because it's bigger or because you hit a wave? The G-forces will then get very high.

If the cockpit is attached to the boat you will have the mass of the boat pushing you through the wave which gives lower g-forces (newton's second law).

Or am I missing something?

Steve 1

The Canopies are so large (frontal area) there is not much that can done when talking speeds over 180 ,serious need to make this "target" smaller like a F-16 canopy and not cut hatches in the damn thing, the cockpit rear bulkhead, a simple matter to make that of transom strength.
We put the first canopy on a class one boat we built in 86 and tested it the hard way in 87.

NoGas

Anybody consider a cockpit foreword design? Reducing the frontal area of the canopy appears to be essential. A foreword cockpit would greatly improve visibility which allows the height of the canopy to be reduced significantly. Certainly the hydroplane classes have gone in this direction.

I’m not talking about sitting anyone on the bow. Just pushing the cockpit foreword enough to improve visibility to reduce the height.

chewiekw

Didn't class one over in Europe make spec changes to their canopies based off information learned from the victory crash last year? It looks like the canopies have a raised hatch.
I think talkin trash was the only boat to change their canopy based off these new standards. By the way how come talkin trash was not at the worlds this year?

PhantomChaos

30 seconds till a rescuer touched a racer? Really?

Kurt Hamilton

Pretty sure maritimo has Implemented spec changes based on victory crash. I know Bill Barry Cotter pushed hard for it in Australian class 1. Anyone get a look in it at key west?
No doubt in my mind something needs to be done. I personally think your better with no cockpit than a poorly built one (don't get me wrong either, you will get hurt if you come out at high speed). I couldn't bring myself to build anything capable of more than 100mph that races offshore without having a top fuel drag boat style capsule. If I couldn't afford it I wouldn't build it.
I see it all to often. People spend every last dime on making their boat run as fast as possible then spend their change on whatever helmet and life vest etc.
No disrespect to the three men that lost their lives and the crews that built the boats. It's just the kick in the a$$ we needed to take safety to the next level.

dammmagnum

Hello
I would think that some of the leading Engineering schools in this country would love to take on a project that would come up with a canopy and cockpit design and testing them.
maybe several schools working on a project and then present them and have the Offshore folks pick the best one and make that the design that is used

just thinking
Thank you
jim