Case study of masts damage of the sail training vessel POGORIA

The paper presents description and investigations related to an accident of the Polish barquentine “Pogoria” with 50 crewmembers onboard during Tall Ships Race in the first half of July 2009, when all three masts were broken and destroyed.Fundamental circumstances of the occurred accident – the process of the mast destruction, the analysis of the mast crack places, and the structural and technological causes of the mast weakening are presented. Strength analysis of the applied model of destruction is used for explanation of the failure reasons.Macroscopic analysis of destroyed parts of masts revealed significant local corrosion losses and – as a result – reduction of effective load carrying section. Such corrosion was a result of bad welding procedure applied. Strength calculations confirmed an increase in critical stress level of almost 10 times in corroded regions. Presence of founded local, deep corrosion places require of the new surveying approach of the steel masts during exploitation.