8mm rigging wire
16mm tang bolt
4.8mm Monel rivets
8mm wire fails at around 4.6 tonnes . Since there are two shrouds the maximum load would be unlikely to have exceeded 9.2 tonnes and was probably a lot less than this. But the wire yields and would begin to show permanent elongation at approximately half the breaking strain, or in this case a total load of 4.6 tonnes, though it is unlikely the load is evenly shared between both shrouds.
The failure mode was the tang bolt pulling down through the mast 50mm on one side, presumably the rivets must have sheared off and all the load went onto the aluminium wall.
Here is the results from a quick spreadsheet I knocked up.
So if we assume a 16mm tang bolt we see that its Shear strength is about 5.7 tonnes. But since it is in Double shear due to the external strap it should be able to take about twice that load, more than enough to cope with the maximum shroud load to failure.
Look now at the bearing strength of a 4mm wall section mast, It yields at 2.5 tonnes and fails at 3.9 tonnes. The other side attached by 7 rivets fails at between 2.3 and 3.8 tonnes depending on the size of the rivet. (rivet breaking loads from Stanley). There is also likely to be some clamping force helping to secure the plate to the mast, but this is very hard to calculate.
My guess is that the mast wall yielded slightly, putting more of the load on the rivets. this may have happened earlier, as the mast yields at a reasonably low load. When she got knocked down the Pop rivets sheared placing the full load onto the mast wall which tore down, exceeding its bearing stress. the load may also have permanently stretched the wire, and in his latest phone call, he mentions the D2 (Diagonal 2's, discontinuous intermediate shrouds) needed tightening indicating they also may have yielded slightly. I am guessing they are 7mm wire so 3.5 tonne break, 1.8 tonne yield.
We can also see the required wall thickness to support the full load of the bolt alone, in the case of a 16mm bolt we would need a 9.1mm thick bearing surface, but if it's in single shear you would need to upsize to a 19mm tang bolt and make the wall 11mm thick to match the strength of the shrouds.
This mast was absolutely bulletproof for all normal sailing loads, but the incredible shock loads placed on the mast when it hit the water found the weakest parts.
Of course, the failure of the mast wall may have relived the loads enough to prevent the shrouds from failing. Perhaps if the tang had been stronger the whole rig might have been lost?
I am not an engineer, I do have some basic tech school training in these types of calculations (1.5 years at Polytechnic studying a diploma in mechanical engineering and drafting) but not enough to be happy if you use these figures to design anything without first having them checked by a Qualified and competent engineer. Also working with figures past yield or maximum design stress is not good practice. To really nut out what happened the mast needs to be analysed and the calculations made with much more advanced non-linear techniques like FEA.
I'd be interested to hear any real engineers comments and observations.
