Noble Boat <2yo Cracked and Sinking

[Lucky_Phill]

Yee Stui, that's all the coffee stains

Grab rails for the " sooky-la-la's " that get the jitters when I get " big air " crossing bars. OH and they make a great rifle mount


LP

[fin101]

I have said this a million times, the sooner we get a regulatory body that controls the manufacture and sets standards in the boating industry the better off and (safer) we all will be. They won't pass a car that doesn't meet a specified standard so why should boats be any different. Some stuff builders palm off as quality is absolute rubbish, ditto for electrical work standards in boats. They should be held accountable like many other industries, the bloody things are highly expensive to boot compared to a car.

[TREVELLY]

Peter have you had a look in any other Noble Boat transoms to see if they have no stiffeners at the bottom of the channel as with yours?

PGS.JPG

Where in other Noble Boats there are stiffeners - two different boats shown here:-

bobDAZ.JPGbobBroome.JPG

I don't suppose you have but I would take a look in other boats at local dealer if I were you.

If my local dealer Cunninghams were still about I would look at them - but next closest is too far away.

Structurally I see the bottom of the boat has to restrain that vertical channel (which supports the motor and it's thrust) and as a flat plate it is useless but as a "T" section with the stiffener linked to the bottom plate it is effective.

Just think of a flat sheet of paper in compression - it buckles. You have some stiffness from the keel but it is remote from where the vertical channels reach and meet the bottom plate. I could do a finite element model and prove it - but I am not about too - I know what I am doing to my boat to make it safe.

Two more things the stiffeners do that are important, firstly they stop the vertical channel from rotating at the base and secondly they restrain the vertical channel along it's length - sounds boring I suppose but these do increase the effectiveness of this vertical channel a lot.

When I took my boat in for temporary repairs one of the guys there looked in the transom and he used to make Noble Boats - he instantly said "you have stiffeners missing."

Pete, I used to think these boats were "bomb-proof" too and said it quite a bit over the past two years on this forum and yes my boat did 240 hours mostly offshore before it failed.

I am not saying your boat is about to fail but without design proof I would not accept it based on my boats failure due to lack of restraint of those vertical members - I don't think the bottom of your vertical channels are adequately restrained unless there is adequate plate shear action to the keel and be blown if I would be counting on that to justify what is there - just my opinion and I am only a structural engineer with a cracked boat.

Most people don't care much for engineering until it falls apart.

[Stuart]

The world we currently live in is ruled by “mediocrity” “that’s close enough” or “that should do” and even close enough is good enough rain supreme. My way of thinking and building is over do it, build it right and build it once.

[undasize]

Hey Trevally ,
Havnt forgotten you, my boat, was being serviced and i couldnt get a good look at it , now its home in the shed my boat has the 2 stiffeners and roughly 50mm of weld every 100mm on the 2 vertical sections that the motor is bolted to .Hope this helps !! Have you had any reply or support from Jason Lee at Noble ??

[John_R]

I have said this a million times, the sooner we get a regulatory body that controls the manufacture and sets standards in the boating industry the better off and (safer) we all will be.

Be careful what you wish for. Govt regulations impose additional costs on all builders, even the good ones, and are generally sloppily enforced, with the end result being a more expensive, but not necessarily safer product.

I am from the Gov't and I am here to help....run like hell.

[TREVELLY]

Hey Trevally ,
Havnt forgotten you, my boat, was being serviced and i couldnt get a good look at it , now its home in the shed my boat has the 2 stiffeners and roughly 50mm of weld every 100mm on the 2 vertical sections that the motor is bolted to .Hope this helps !! Have you had any reply or support from Jason Lee at Noble ??

Pete, that's three boats with these stiffeners included and yours without - like i said have a look inside a few boats at your local dealer and see if they have the stiffeners or not. If they do then why doesn't yours?

Undasize thanks for looking and letting us know. They are a small piece of kit and commonsense says you would not take them out of the design to save a little piece of material and weaken the transom.

As others have said the transom is a place you over design as it is such a mongrel place to access to repair and the cost of over designing it is very small compared to the cost of it failing.

Have I heard anything from Jason or NBI with any offers of assistance - no mate - I will put on here if I do.

Regardless of NBI I have shown what I will do to make my boat safe - that will happen soon enough using local guys I know will do a good job.

John, I agree no one wants an over regulated industry but we do want a safe and accountable one - hopefully commonsense can prevail.

Simple QA checks and balances would be good.

I don't see it any good at the moment when a manufacturer says they check and check and check again to be sure you have a safe and best boat possible and yet they make a stuff up like in my boat with welds missing and stiffeners missing and does Peter's boat have stiffeners missing as well? Three out of three other boats says they are missing - but lets look at more to be sure.

[PeterGar]

Thanks Trevor

Good points - I will be taking a look at some other boats.

I know that they reinfoced the hulls on some boats to take a >225 HP motor but not sure how they did that.

I will reach out to some other owners and let you know what I find.

Cheers
Peter

[gofishin]

Hi Peter,

It is good to hear that you are happy with your Noble, and that your transom welding is at the other end of the scale to Trev’s. The Noble’s are indeed a great boat, with an innovative and proven design, however we should keep everything in perspective... meaning we should not confuse the quality of ‘say’ existing welds with a ‘possible’ sub-standard design and/or lack of structure.

A boat’s transom could have the most technically perfect and aesthetically pleasing (sexy??) welds, but a deficiency in design and hence a lack of transom structure (for the rated transom hp) could see it fail in time – whether in relatively short time, or maybe a long time!

Although it is hard to get a full ‘3-D’ appreciation from your (and others) photos, I am concerned at the lack of structure within some of the newer Noble transoms we have viewed in this thread. I am not saying these transoms will fail, but in my belief the ‘chances’ are far greater than I would ordinarily be happy with.

Between yourself, Trevor and me we have the grand slam of mainstream Engineering covered (so we should be able to sort anything out…or… maybe get ourselves in a sh!t load of trouble…). Yes, I am a Mechanical Engineer. I have also worked for a large builder of aluminium boats for over 5yrs, who built boats up to 6.5m with 5mm bottoms & transoms.

However, I have been out of the tinny building industry for some time now – but I have seen enough failed/failing transoms – for various reasons – to get a gut-feel on what should be fine vs what is possibly not - for any sized tinny! Maybe I am being overcautious, and possibly making assumptions based on photos that don’t show the whole story, but I would definitely investigate further – which it sounds like you are (sorry, started this reply last night!).

There is not one ‘single’ way of building a ‘correct’ ally transom, i.e. that will last the life of the hull, but you will find that the ‘good ones’ will all have very similar traits, that is ‘structure’ to adequately transfer the load(s) from the motor into the hull and/or keel. This generally comprises a single or (frequently) combinations of longitudinal vertical stiffeners (traditional term ‘transom knee’, but with ally they are not shaped the traditional way and sometimes link additional structure/bulkheads) and horizontal stiffeners/gussets/strongbacks (whatever you want to call them) which serve to stiffen and strengthen the whole transom sufficiently that it does not fail.

In Australia we are blessed with many dozens of plate boat manufacturers which are all pretty good – or at least the ones still around after the GFC are pretty good. In SE QLD we are blessed with some very exceptional builders, and you would only have to scroll back a few pages to see who they all are, as posts about their boats (and build threads from very happy owners) are very common. Obviously other states have good builders too, but obviously we see more of the local breed. Have a peek in their transoms and I bet you will find a lot more aluminium ‘structure’.

My 2c.
Cheers
Brendon

[Moonlighter]

I agree with being cautious about asking for more Government regulation. Expect costs to rise and small builders to disappear even faster than before!

There are already some alternatives, of course.

One that I did some checking out of before I bought my current Surtees is the european CE certification.

I am not an expert but my general understanding, and in a precis form, is that to get CE certification for each particular model/series, the manufacturer has to provide heaps of documentation and not only about the design, which has to be naval architect or equiv certified, but also about the construction process, the QA system that they have built into that process has to meet requirements, and the facility and boats under actual construction is then inspected by independant qualified people to chech that they actually follow their own documented procedures, even things like the training of staff to equip them for the various tasks has to be addressed and properly documented, and only if all that passes muster, do they then get the CE certification and become entitled to apply it on their boats.

Phew!

Its a fairly costly process, but if they want to sell their boats in EU coutries, they have to have it, there is simply no alternative.

Now, no system is perfect and standards can slip and dodgy things can happen. When I was doing consulting work some years ago, we had a saying "Take a simple problem, add people, = complex problem!"

To me the CE mark on my boat gives me a fair degree of confidence. Far more than the pathetic Australian Builders Plate - what a waste of time that is! CE is so far superior that ABP is not even in the same suburb, let alone the same ballpark.

I think the US based NMAA certification process/requirements is similar to CE.

I dont know if the Noble boats under question in this thread are CE certified or not. Perhaps someone could advise. It will be shown on the manufacturer's plate and/or the Builders Plate if they are.

If they are CE certified then something serious has gone wrong with the process, somewhere, perhaps both in the design and the execution of that design on the factory floor, and in the QA approach.

It seems to me that there is a really good possibility that some investigation might lead you to the right people to lodge a complaint with that could result in a friendly visit to the manufacturer by the CE people to review their operations. And to give them the necessary tune up, or else, message.

Cheers

ML

[WalrusLike]

If Noble earlier on had requested CE they would have probably got it...

And would have had it when they built Trevs dodgy transom.

[Stuart]

Those "stiffiners" are very small gusstes. In fact I would go as far as saying they would do next to bugger all in the reinforcing the transom. My transom designed by a naval architect has a full depth transom girder. I cant understand what those pissy litle gusstes are going to do.

[SunnyCoastMark]

Those "stiffiners" are very small gusstes. In fact I would go as far as saying they would do next to bugger all in the reinforcing the transom. My transom designed by a naval architect has a full depth transom girder. I cant understand what those pissy litle gusstes are going to do.

Yeah, but your transom is going to have to handle you hanging around the back of the boat Stu.

[Stuart]

Well I have to have a dump somewhere. Dropping a load on the deck and trying to wash it off with the dech hose takes to long. I need more PSI I think or maybe a pressure cleaner.

[Moonlighter]

I just had a look at their website.

There's a full page testifying to their quality and stating they do everything to ISO standards.....

BUT I could not see:

Any CE certification mentioned or evidence of use of the CE mark or of a CE registration number.......

No actual ISO certification stated as being achieved, no use of the ISO mark anywhere that I could see.

So what we see is lots of PR style claims, but no independent testing of those claims...... From an organisation claiming to be a Major international company........But apparently they may not have the certifications required to sell boats to the USA, Canada or EU. But, I could be wrong?

Hmmmmm

ML