Yacht Dropped

An ex-Sunseeker Predator... dropped from 100 feet there can not be many things in one piece left...!

Is it just me or it is the number of 'yacht drop incidents' have been increasing?

I feel sorry for the owner even though it would have been insured.Hundred feet is high ,nothing will be the same again.

yachtluver ,last month a Ferretti was droped about three feet when offloading from the ship.One prop was shot.They ordered one new shaft and new prop but when they launched it their was some vibration.They flew two guys from Italy and the problem has been sorted now.It was a Ferretti nos 38.The skipper is my old buddy so I went and had a look.Very nice boat.

Francois

LOL, i get what you are saying Kevin. I was questionning the same thing in my head. Why was it so high in the first instance? I'm no crane operator neither but i know that the higher you lift a load the more unstable and the more it would shift around and if it was lower and closer to the boom. I wonder what the error was?

You are spot on Kevin.Most are moved just over the cradle.Why swing that baby so high.
I have launched twelve boats as a woodworking craftsman and so far in my years in the bussiness and did not have one come back .Touch wood.

Francois

Hi,

The height may well be related to where it was stowed on the vessel that carried it to the States. If it was ontop of a stack of Containers on a Panamaz or bigger box boat then I would say it could be that high above the dock.

Hey K1W1, i have never seen a boat being placed so high on top of a stack of containers. The highest i have seen was 3 stacks.. which is ok. If it was on a Panamax container ship the highest stack height is around 5 around the acomodation block.. stepping down to about 2 high just behind the fo'ctle. I would hope it was not placed on a 5 high stack of cans..

Hi,

If the boat was stacked ontop of 3 containers on the port side or middle of the vessel and the vessel was berthed Stbd Side too with full stacks inboard and Stbd the boat would have to be lifted over all these boxes to get out.

There is no other way I could possible imagine why the boat would be some 30m in the air when it fell.

well one of my friends does deliveries for sunseeker. it is not uncommon for the yachts to be shipped as deck cargo even from poole to puerto portals. even if the yacht is lifted a foot off the deck and then dropped on the quay i am sure the grp would be heavily damaged anyway. better to use dockwise if you want to pay for it. still you have to consider that the amount of yachts shipped worldwide is increasing greatly month on month. even the sizes are becoming larger and larger. the yacht industry is in a boom at the moment. when men and cranes are involved there will always be a screw up sometime. i dont see something exceptional here. just the owner will have to wait a bit for a new one. the insurance will hopefully pay 100%

Bummer for the owners

So, the local Jag/Rover dealership had their grand opening gala last night here in South Orange County. Sunseeker had their new XS Sport out on display (funny side note: one of the Rover guys excitedly said "Yeah, that's James Bond's new boat-- actually sounding like Bond is real and gosh darnit that was his boat!).

I spoke to one of the gents working the Sunseeker booth. He wasn't a mfgr's rep, but rather a broker rep from around here. He mentioned that five days ago they were offloading a new Predator 72 for delivery to a couple in Newport Beach and that the crane had collapsed. I immediately new he was referring to the boat that this thread is about.

In his eyes (also the view of the brokerage), the boat had yet to technically be delivered, therefore the onus is not that of the owners for recovery of funds etc., but apparently to be determined between the folks involved in the delivery. I anticipate a nasty legal maelstrom to result from this. I'm sure Sunseeker is going to want to "talk" with the mfgr of the crane (if they have to build a new boat and somehow preserve their bottom line), who is probably going to want to have a "chat" with the port authority using said crane, who in turn is going to look to the dockworkers union protecting their union brethren who was operating said crane-- WHAT A MESS

But at the end of the day I just can't imagine what it must of felt like to be the poor guy when he received the call that his baby, that he had been dreaming about for 18 months after plunking down a few mil, had died before delivery. Oh wait, I can imagine-- it probably felt like 70,000+ pounds of fine British craftsmanship had just fallen 100 feet and landed directly on his heart. I would definitely buy him a conciliatory drink if I ever ran into him while trying to drown his sorrows

More pics of dropped Sunseeker...

Now you know why they had it lifted so high. See how high the tide is, and that is no small ship.

Oh, I see the problem. They used a 50-ton crane for a 100 ton yacht.

I'm guessing the second sunseeker is still on the freighter.

Thanks for the great photos, any chance of a video of the drop?

goplay : I hope you don't mind but I thought the rest of the pictures in the photobucket gallery should be seen.

Great pictures!!!! I feel sorry for the person who dropped it!

I hope no one was hurt.

And this is a RoRo-ship, a PTCC from Wallenius I think and not a container-ship. So it is very high up to the deck where the yachts were transported...

Looks like one of the outriggers on the crane failed? I expect the crane builder will be getting some calls ....

Kelly Cook

wow.. all i can say.