Why are aircraft safer than yachts?
Is it true that flying at 100’s of mile an hour is less demanding on an aircraft than sailing across the ocean at 10 knots. Probably not, but it does seem that we have come to expect planes to fly and yet are never surprised when yachts breakdown, even spectacularly, losing keels, rigs or filling up with water and sinking.
Here are some observations of a sailor who works as an engineer with aircraft.
“Product liability and law requires aircraft and public transport vehicles to be designed to very high minimum standards whereas yachts are not providers of major public transport and don’t attract the same degree of attention.”
“Speaking of the role of proper structural analysis for sailing vessels, the industry is rather antiquated. An awful lot depends on the good experience of the builders and there is not much attention given to industrial standard engineering.”
He went on to say that “the ’static loads’ (max gust, wave, deck loads, hull torsion, etc) are probably the limit of any design investigation, even for high performance racers.”
“On the other hand, aircraft are investigated extensively for fatigue (landing loads, gusts, maneuver loads), fast fracture, corrosion damage tolerance and they have fleet maintenance monitoring programs which build up characteristic incipient failure knowledge enabling preventative action.”
Having been around a lot longer, sailboat design has a different design strategy. The design strategy of ‘practical experience’; try it and see what happens. This historically was the only design strategy available and of course it leads to failures and that is how we learn.
Times are changing and with it there is the chance to learn from the aircraft industry, who as carriers of the public don’t have the same luxury to “try it and see…”
Looking into the future, as aircraft and automotive thinking infiltrates the world of yacht construction we can look forward to reliable vessels that we can count on to not give us unexpected problems.
I can’t wait for the day when yachts become as reliable as cars.
Thats a fair point you’ve made there but planes carry hundreds of people, dont have liferafts or backup measures if they go down they generally kill everyone on board. at least if a yacht sinks you have some time to get away or fix it and you dont hit the water at 600mph!
great article though.
Boat engines need looking at, for example, in our launch we have a certain brand, it is basically a 200hp, but beefed up with a turbo and a super charger, so we have 260hp.Trouble is, the add-ons are still only suitable for a 200hp, so constantly fall over. We also found that hydraulic rams fitted, were originally for air craft use, so the salt water environment wrecked them. asically, because as you say, there is no minimum standard and no come back for most boaties, as their boats are used infrequently, the designers get away with telling the owner, their maintenance regime has been shonky or they have just been rough on it.
We are told our stern leg needs replacing every 1000 hours and thats BS, we do a 1000hrs a year and who would buy one every year? We don’t, we don’t use the manufacturers recommended oil, or we would be replacing it, we use another sternleg oil and get plus 3000 hrs, then a reco.
Boat engines can cost $80,000.00 or so. so why do they often only last a few 1000 hrs or a short number of years? We could buy a nice vehicle each for that money, each with an engine in it that will last for years and many 1000’s of hours.
Yes, boaties are ripped off by the manufacturers who rely totally, on the intermittent use and often frequent change of owners to hide the shortcomings of their product.
Good article, enjoyed reading it and look forward to the day we can expect reliability in marine parts and equipment.
While aircraft do have to maintain higher standards, you are speaking as an engineer. As McCoy said on Star Trek The Movie…”engineers love to change things”. Well, I’ve flown a few times, but I would rather be on a sinking ship, than crash in an aircraft at 36,000 feet. Unrealistic you say,….maybe. But at least I’m on the surface, even if it’s water. I don’t like flying, never have, never will. It’s a means to an end. If men were meant to fly, we’d be born with wings. Oops, I guess that applies to pigs as well.
boats float in a corrosive soup of salt water, put an airplane or a car anywhere near it and it will rapidly become very unreliable.
cheers
Ben
The author is comparing Airliners with private yachts. Airliners are more comparable to ocean-liners carrying thousands of souls. Private yachts are comparable to General Aviation aircraft. And the comparison is much closer. Most General Aviation aircraft are using 75 year old technology in their engines, (ie. Carburetors and Magnetos). And if you compared the failure and accident statistics of General Aviation (Privately owned aircraft) with privately owned Yachts, I would say that the Yachts are much safer.
Planes are quality tested over and over again, because if there is catastrophic failure it could lead to the deaths of hundreds of people. Where as yachts if something goes wrong, they sink and the passengers could be rescued via a lifeboat. Good read though.