Hi Joe, we have known each other since our "Little America's Cup" days
in 1977. I really respect your dedication and sharing of you experience
with us all. I whole heartedly support your recommendation to "reef
early, reef often". I have understood your position on "heavy weather
handling" from your "Katy Cats" log but I can no longer stand back from
sharing my two storm and three strong gale catamaran experience over 30
years and 80,000 offshore ocean miles around the world. My troubles have
all been in the Tasman Sea around the beautiful Lord Howe Island on a
Seawind 31 "SKY" and 44ft Crowther Design "Tempo II". I can not express
highly enough how well all Seawind catamarans designs handle heavy
weather conditions.
I think the key to the Seawind handling is in that they are very wide
for their length and full in the hulls with accelerated flair and round
minimum wetted surface. The fixed mini keel allows side slip and the
light weight allows them to lift above a following sea. They are a large
life raft, a life support system, I have never felt threatened with the
feeling they might lift a hull. In fact I have been accused of enjoying
the heavy weather, particularly while active hove to.
Active Hove to - incredibly easy, safe and relatively calm in a gale.
Completely furl the jib and turn up into the wind. Set the main sail
fully out on one tack or the other. Point the mainsail into the wind
which will be about at 40 degrees. Lash the helm on full lock such that
as the boat drifts backwards the wind comes around to 60 degrees. The
mainsail will then drive the boat forward and rudders kick in to turn
the boat into the wind and stall at around 20 degrees. The boat will
continue with this active zig zag hove to drifting about 1kn down wind.
This hove to method is far more robust to changing wind conditions and
rogue waves than keeping the balance of jib against main.
You can hove to with one, two or three reefs obviously in a gale you
need to be on the third reef. You need sufficient mainsail to be driving
the boat forward by the time the wind comes around to 60 degrees as you
never want to be broadside to the swell. I have never felt the need to
go beyond third reef (60% reduced sail area) and in fact found a storm
main sail too small to provide sufficient drive. I have been in 80kn
gusts (50kn winds, horizontal spume) for many hours. I believe the fully
battened main could handle much higher winds but I would rather to not
be there.
To further help to reduce the load on the fully battened main sail I
triangulate the boom. By that I mean to have a strop from a boom main
sheet block shackle to after mooring cleat. Let off the mainsheet and
set the boom to hold the ton of boom, reefed mainsail and rain water
with the 10mm toping lift, strop and pull the mainsheet on for this
triangulation to hold the boom in just the right position to take the
load of the mainsail. One tack will be preferred over the other as the
wind will change direction faster than the swell.
Running - less safe, the problem is old age and uncontrolled jibe of the
mainsail
To hove to you need shore room. Running with the heavy conditions may
get you to a preferred safe haven near by. The problem is avoiding an
uncontrolled jibe of the mainsail that can not be tied down and being
able to see the steering compass particularly at night. For me wet
glasses and tired old eyes are catching up. Best fully drop the main and
run off partly furled out Jib. The problem with partly furled jib is you
are now dependent on an 8mm drum furler line. One clever option here is
to have clew reef points on your jib or Genoa so your not dependent on
the furler. Better still have a storm jib that zips over the furled
headsail. Running is an option, probably even last resort if the main is
blown out, but is far less safe than hove to because of the loads on the
boat and people.
A drogue is most useful when running to help pull you off the top of a
swell and avoid the danger of running uncontrollably down the face of a
100m long 10m high ocean swell. The Seawind mini keels also help here in
very heavy conditions slipping the boat across these giant swells. The
drogue is always set off the stern (not to be confused with parachute
which are a false sense of security). I have found a plastic milk crate
an ideal drogue that takes up little storage and contains all the line
required to store with it but good commercial collapsible drogues are
available. The drogue needs to be weighted down with 5m of 10mm chain so
it does not jump out of the water at higher speeds. It needs a 15m
single line attached to two 15m lines going to each hull. 15m mooring
lines are ideal for this purpose. The drogue line each side goes through
under then over the aft mooring cleat up to a main winch. This enables
you to bias the drogue using the winches to either port or starboard to
help pull the boat over the top of the swell as it comes through.
One last word on parachutes - throw them away they do not work, they are
a serious false sense of security. I have attempted to use them twice in
gale conditions and on both occasions need to cut them away to save the
boat. There are three fatal problems. First, deploying 100m of line in a
gale that has not been checked for some time. With the catamaran trying
to sail over the line in these conditions it is near impossible to
deploy without a tangle. Second, once deployed with the parachute on the
second swell 100m away as the line takes up the load the boat goes
backwards for around 20m at 10+kn tearing you balanced rudders (more
area behind the rudder shaft than ahead) off or at best overstressing
your steering cables. I near ripped the transom off "SKY". Third, if you
survive the rush backwards, the line parachute takes hold irrespective
of how much green water is still coming at you and attempts to pull you
through the wave. 5m of green water is no joke. The loads are an order
of magnitude above anchoring, far exceeding mooring cleat or anchor
bridle termination loads. We cut the parachute away after bending the
massive fore beam.
There are many more stories from where these came from. See
www.tempo2aroundtheworld.com. Kind Regards, Graeme Nolan, Seawind
Customer Support Manager.
-----Original Message-----
From: scoaa-members-bounces@xxxxxxxxx
[mailto:scoaa-members-bounces@xxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Joe Siudzinski
Sent: Friday, 11 June 2010 12:36 AM
To: scoaa-members@xxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [Scoaa-members] Heavy weather tactics
On Jun 9, 2010, at 8:19, Steve Ellsworth wrote:
Pam and I will be sailing south to Mexico at the end of October in the
Baja HaHa. I am looking for input as to the best source of information
on storm tactics for catamarans. We have put a lot of miles on
Barramundi but most have been in fairly mild conditions 25kts of wind
or less. Any information would help in our preparations.
