Graeme,
Thank you for your excellent detailed writeup on dealing with heavy-
weather in a Seawind. Your depth of experience certainly surpasses
mine, and I was so delighted to have had a benign crossing of the
Tasman to NZ (and absolutely loved Lord Howe Island!).
HEAVING-TO.
We agree on the standard default setting being boom immobilized in
one corner and rudder locked hard over, with the boat's response
being to see-saw back and forth. I vividly remember using this
technique successfully with full sail up when caught in a nasty 60
+knot squall when racing a Tornado, where most of the fleet went
over. Completely agree about triangulating the boom, and adding a
preventer on each side of the boat was one of the first modifications
I made:
http://www.katiekat.net/Cruise/KatieKat2001G.html
I use the preventer to hold the boom steady most of the time when
sailing normally, almost irrespective of point-of-sail, and often
have both preventers attached at the same time. They sure came in
handy when the mainsheet shackle finally snapped:
http://www.katiekat.net/Cruise/KatieKat2007G.html#082807
Sometimes I may want to fore-reach slowly when hove-to, in which case
backwinding the jib and reducing the rudder angle slightly produces a
very slow forward motion while still allowing the boat to feather
itself in a strong gust. I found that experimenting with various sail
and rudder settings when heaving-to can tailor the boat's response to
the particular swell direction being encountered. Practice, practice
- heaving-to is a wonderful technique to have in one's bag of tricks.
DROGUE
I never used the drogue in anger and only practiced with it a few
times in less-than-gnarly conditions. We once tried to make some load
tests using the drogue, but unfortunately the conditions at that time
were very mild:
http://www.katiekat.net/Cruise/KatieKat2002F.html#081802
In talking with Robin Chamberlin (Ice Cat to the Antarctic) - he
swears by the drogue as being THE extreme-condition lifesaver for a
catamaran. IIRC from our conversation, drogue rode length relative to
swell period was most important. BTW, Robin's primary concern
regarding para-anchoring was indeed the same as yours: rudder
vulnerability.
PARA-ANCHOR
I found your negative comments regarding para-anchoring most
interesting, as the conditions you experienced were undoubtedly far
more extreme than the ones I encountered. My 18'dia para-anchor is a
little larger than what is normally suggested (my backup is a 28'dia
military parachute), with my preference being 600' (200m) of rode on
the 20m bridle. I had spec'd and Seawind had added special very-heavy-
duty eyes on the inboard side of each bow specially for this purpose
- the bridle is shackled-on with no adjustment. In the conditions I
was in the Seawind just sat head-to-wind as though she was locked in
to a conventional anchor, nicely rising to each wave/swell with
negligible sternway (rudders locked amidships). It took us a while to
figure out the best means of both deploying and retrieving the para-
anchor, and doing it early and in daylight is certainly far easier
than when subjected to storm conditions. Your experience and para-
anchor assessment for dealing with extreme conditions should well be
considered and taken seriously by everyone.
A further reference well worth some seriously-frightening reading is
the "DRAG DEVICE DATABASE" compiled by Victor Shane - bearing in mind
that he's also in the business of selling para-anchors.
SQUALL TACTIC
My own short-term serious (high-wind) squall tactic is furling the
jib, putting in the fourth reef, locking the boom into one aft corner
using the preventers and mainsheet, and then simply motoring into the
wind/waves on the diagonal with the mainsail acting as a weathervane.
Another alternative to simply heaving-to.
Cheers,
Joe Siudzinski
On Jun 10, 2010, at 20:49, Graeme Nolan wrote:
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.
>
Hi Steve,
The Baja HaHa is a fun event, although we found it a little crowded and really needed to stay awake with all those boats around.
To answer your question: presume you've latched onto a bunch of multihull sailing/cruising books, as they all offer some words of wisdom regarding heavy-weather. You will find a variety of opinions, and just need to formulate your own plan. I haven't read it for some time, but I recall liking Gavin LeSueur's "Multihull Seamanship".
Coastal cruising is a very different experience than crossing oceans:
doing coastal, YOU choose your weather and thus you'll never need to use any "storm tactics". :-) The secret is to never have a schedule and thus you'll never have to venture out into "iffy" weather.
Crossing oceans is a very different story: you WILL get whapped occasionally, but IMO the Seawind is a wonderful platform and I personally have great faith in the boat.
FWIW, my own approach is very simple:
Reef early, reef often. Practice so you can get a reef in VERY quickly if you screwed up and didn't see an approaching squall.
Monohulls reef to average windspeed. Multihulls reef to peak (gust) windspeed!
IMO the biggest danger we face is broad reaching or running in an increasing wind and being caught with too much mainsail up: at some point you simply cannot lower the main, and bringing the boat around in order to head to wind so you can lower the sail can be a very frightening experience (try that on a Hobie 16 on a windy day and you'll see what I mean).
Reef early, reef often.
I added not just a third but a also a fourth reef to KatieKat and modified the boom to enable easy use of the second, third, and fourth reef points (eliminated the outhaul adjustment). I rig the first reef only if I'm going a long distance in fairly steady 18-20kts true. I added a winch to my mast for the main halyard so I can singlehandedly very easily and quickly reef the main.
Reef early, reef often.
Sail to true wind, not apparent wind. It is very very deceptive when broad reaching, especially in our well-protected Seawinds. When cruising (not racing) I already have the second reef in at 20kts true, third at 24kts, and fourth as soon as I'm uncomfortable. We spent many days crossing oceans broad-reaching or running simply on the jib and yet with great boatspeed. Real peace-of-mind!
Reef early, reef often.
I don't like sailing with a reefed jib because the furled sail gets badly distorted due to the improper sheeting angle. I've experimented with using my aft anchor cleat as an attachment point for a snatch block to provide a better angle for the partially- furled jibsheet. I consider partially furling the jib only if I'm beating in winds greater than about 28kts. Reaching or running, the jib stays full in all winds until it's time to put it away. When running, I attach a snatch block on a loop to either the pulpit or first stanchion and wing out the jib. It makes a lovely mini- spinnaker and is so easy to control in heavy winds.
When the winds get over 35kts, why bother bashing the boat (and yourselves)? The Seawind heaves-to wonderfully and will happily sit there while your relax. Need to practice practice practice your sail settings to determine exactly how much of each sail to have exposed and where you'll have the (backwinded) jib and main/boom and rudder located for various angles to the wind/waves and whether you want to stop dead (simply rocking back-and-forth) or gradually fore-reaching.
I find locking the rudder with my two autopilot levers (autopilot
off) sufficient but you can always tie off the wheel as well.
I'm a firm believer in carrying both a para-anchor and a drogue for ocean crossing. Hey, when you know you're going to be whapped, it is so easy to deploy the para-anchor early and then simply relax. If the wind will be behind you (direction you want to go in), then running under bare poles still gets you great mileage and if you start going uncomfortably fast then simply deploy the drogue.
Be comfortable, relax, and be well-rested.
Again: reef early, reef often.
Have a great HaHa experience, and don't come back up the coast in April :-)
Joe Siudzinski
--
http://www.KatieKat.net
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