Mini-Milestone

David Ryan in reply to James Hanley says:

Mon Tiki is being built as an inspected passenger vessel under the “t-boat” section of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFRs).

All vessels which carry 7 or more paying passengers are required to submitted a structure and stability analysis to the USCG Marine Safety Center, and these calculations must be confirmed by an afloat survey of the vessel. Mon Tiki is no exception. Our S&S was performed by John Marples, on of the leaders in catamaran engineering and design for t-boat catamarans.

I’m guessing your alluding to the recent change in the per passenger weight used in these calculations from 160lbs to 185lbs; which I’ve written about here and here. Our S&S calculations were done recently and in anticipation of this change, so other than the backlog of new stability letters MSC is having to issue for older boats, we’re not effected. Our passenger count is based on the new regs. Once Mon Tiki is swimming and we know her actual weight it may go up or down a little, but not by much.

Inspected passenger vessel are vasty more regulated than OUPV (six-pack) vesselsl; the latter being less regulated than private passenger cars, while the former is something more akin to running a bus for-hire. The design has to meet CFR specs (that’s the S&S), the entire build is supervised by the Coast Guard, we have to perform various emergency drills every month, the fire-suppression and other passenger safety standards are higher, the boat is inspected by the Coast Guard every year, and has to be hauled out for an extra rigorous inspection every 5 years.Report