The equipment was designed for accommodating Chain Plates having size 45 mm length x 20 mm width to plates having size 26 mm length x 10 mm width.

Elscint Chain Plate Vision & Stacking Machine

But with pressure building in the rig from the gale force conditions, her starboard lower swages had completely blown apart, collapsing the mast and ripping up the chain plates and a chunk of the deck like an old scab.

Unfinished business: not even a dismasting in last year's race could deter this irrepressible boat from returning again in 2011 in her quest to equal the record for the most Rolex Sydney Hobart races finished and become the joint 'most capped' yacht in race history. Matthew Henry and Steve Humphries raise a glass to Bacardi

but then there was this almighty noise like an explosion when the deck disintegrated and the chain plates peeled the deck away." says Power, an eight - time Hobart racer from the Sandringham Yacht Club in Melbourne.

Unfinished business: not even a dismasting in last year's race could deter this irrepressible boat from returning again in 2011 in her quest to equal the record for the most Rolex Sydney Hobart races finished and become the joint 'most capped' yacht in race history. Matthew Henry and Steve Humphries raise a glass to Bacardi

For example, around the chain plates on a sailing yacht, a stronger laminate can be formed by using unidirectional carbon fibres to provide the extra strength required to take the high loads from the rig.

Composite hulls sail into the future: technological advances in composite materials have helped yacht owners maintain their investment value