damaged SO 42i

[richmac]

I sail as crew on a SO 42i ,we have recently noticed that the main saloon bulkhead forward of the mast has cracked in two places,one radiating from the top Port corner of the door frame and the other from the lower starboard corner,
The boat is about 3 years old and used moderately.
Jeanneau say that the bulkhead is not structural and not to worry,although I feel if it isn't "load bearing"then why is it receiving enough forces to break it?
Has anyone else had similar problems ?
Does anyone have any advice ,on anything?

[Zanshin]

Running and rolling downwind with a lot of sail in heavy seas might cause enough hull flex to do this - at anchor is there any space between the cracks?

[richmac]

Thats probable,we first noticed the cracks after a long downwind leg of an inter island race,
there is no space between the cracks becouse the bulkhead is made of plywood(22mm at a guess)so its fractured like a green bough bent to much ,each crack/fracture is visible on both sides of the panel and is about 170 mm long(again thats a eyeball guess)
The Sikaflex bond between the panel and the hull in the imediate vesinity seems intact.

[Zanshin]

I was asking about separation when not under stress, if there were a noticeable gap then that might have been indicative of some hull shape deformation which would be a really bad thing. I noticed that my bulkhead has a bit of an expansion joint, probably to prevent what might have happened to your boat.

Can you guess which direction the pressure might have come that caused the cracks?

[richmac]

there doesn't seem any noticible dfference in the cracks ,wether we're sailing or at rest.the sheering or splintering is on the aft side of the bulkhead ,I would say the panel was bent into the saloon,

[Zanshin]

Compression from above would have made more horizontal cracks, so it is perhaps as you've stated, cracks resulting from torqueing the boat left and right along its fore-aft axis.