Marlow 76 sinks off Puerto Rico

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Larry M said:
No EPIRB or it wasn’t activated?
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Doesn't specify, but it doesn't sound like they needed one, as they were able to make voice contact with a CG station. So if they had a manually activated unit, they may have just not activated it.
 
What a surprise that the owner was not on board.
 
Ouch. That's an expensive loss. But, if the owner can afford a boat like that...
 
Hopefully it is insured with an Agreed Value Policy.
 
Would love to hear the story from the crew on this. Was the leak inaccessible? You would think nearly any leak could be slowed enough to get back in unless it was a hull failure. If the depth is significant we likely will never know.
 
If the dinghy garage was the source of the water ingress and sinking I wonder
if that would be viewed as a latent defect by the underwriters?
 
Probably wasn't closed right or something stuck in the door.
 
Looks like there is a door from the toy garage into the boat below the water line. Maybe the door was not secured. I'm not fond of large openings close to the water line.
 

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I scanned pics of other Marlow on YW. Crew quarters just forward separated by a watertight door. The toy garage should be designed to be wet. Probably never know what really happened. Always hate to see the demise of boat-flesh.
 
Hard to imagine the boat sinking just from water in the toy garage unless the
WT door was leaking or there was a major systems or structural failure.
 
gsholz said:
Looks like there is a door from the toy garage into the boat below the water line. Maybe the door was not secured.
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Wonder was kind of sea conditions they were contending with that would have contributed to that?
 
Large yacht insurers are faced with some horrible and never ending tragedies it would seem. Unfortunately way too many losses stem back to owner malfeasance, and the insurers know this thus with many caveats and protections spelled out. Boat design involving near or below water level recreational openings is high on the list of caveats. Or so I've heard.

Given the recent and huge increase in mega yachts, insurance and how it is arranged/back stopped is an important issue. It would be interesting to hear Pau's comments.
 
sunchaser said:
Large yacht insurers are faced with some horrible and never ending tragedies it would seem. Unfortunately way too many losses stem back to owner malfeasance, and the insurers know this thus with many caveats and protections spelled out. Boat design involving near or below water level recreational openings is high on the list of caveats. Or so I've heard.

Given the recent and huge increase in mega yachts, insurance and how it is arranged/back stopped is an important issue. It would be interesting to hear Pau's comments.
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Yesterday I spoke with my insurance guy. He lamented the shortage of underwriters for boats older than 30 yrs, but also mentioned huge increases this year for the expensive yacht crowd, up to 300% year over year. He claimed the huge number of underwriters have abandoned the yacht market, leaving little competition among the half dozen remaining.
 
I have no knowledge of what happened but Marlow uses a cored hull which I have never liked, this kept me from buying a Marlow a few years ago.
 
Marlow hull construction

Bigsfish said:
I have no knowledge of what happened but Marlow uses a cored hull which I have never liked, this kept me from buying a Marlow a few years ago.
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From Passagemaker magazine:

Construction is dear to David Marlow’s heart, because he’s spent a great deal of time, energy, and money to perfect his Full Stack Infusion process, which permeates each fiber with precisely the right amount of resin under considerable vacuum. Each Marlow yacht has unidirectional stitched fibers, such as a hybrid Kevlar roving with Core-Cell foam, as the sandwich material bound with epoxy and vinyl-ester resins. The entire hull is cored; bulkheads, floors, and stringers are all sandwich construction, also vacuum-bagged, with unidirectional fibers for strength. The result is that Marlows are certified by ABS and Lloyd’s Register and have achieved the Bureau Veritas “unrestricted navigation” category. This means they also carry a CE Category A “ocean” rating and meet NMMA/ABYC standards.
 
Hi Mike

Exactly. I don’t have much faith in cored hulls, side ok, bulkheads ok, decks ok. Having been involved in boat making I have more faith in a full fiberglass bottom.

I know you have a dog in this fight and I respect your decision.

BTW the paragraph you quoted sound like advertising copy. :)

Just my SSO.
 
I had the opportunity recently to watch the detailed complete interior gutting and redo of a Westport 130. The cored hull was exposed in many areas as the new and redesigned interior layout slowly came together.

I can't speak to Marlow but this 20+ year Wesport did not suffer in any way from its cored hull layup and design. I'd venture, just a guess mind you, Westport's build facility, engineering and QA/QC is near the top of the ladder when it comes to cored hulls.
 
I might be all wet but it might be that she sank from the Garage and the WT door being left open. Then they took on water from a following sea, rogue wave, or a sudden decrease in speed. Any of those conditions could become catastrophic very quickly.
No EPIRB is unacceptable. I have one on my 3607, and 4 PLB's on our selfinflating vests. (There's 4 of us at most before the horsecollars have to come out.)
 
How we got from doors left open to the sea to cored hulls being the cause, only TFers know.
 
Wxx3, through a maelstrom to an alternate universe I guess.
 
Luke Brown's website posted a picture of the vessel as she was going down. The port side stabilizer position looks odd. Seas appear calm with no white caps. Distress call was received just before dawn at 5:22 AM.

As earlier noted a crew member stated it was the toy garage. Speculation and thread drift are normal TF morsels.
 
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