Are catermerans safe enough to sail the Solent?

[jimi]

Polite Enquiry

Never having sailed a big cat although I've sailed Hobbies and Darts, I am rather surprised that a cat of that size would capsize in the sheltered waters of the Solent even with some wash. What also surprises me is the statements implying that with a bit too much sail up it would be quite easy to flip a cat .. is that true? Cause surely there must be occasions when unexpected gusts happen and if that were true the seas would be full of tipped up cats! Perhaps it is true ... perhaps we should do a count of surviving cats v. those manufactured?

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[Twister_Ken]

Well, no, actually

>If your boat capsizes for whatever reason it can pass the angle of vanishing stability and then it will stay capsized - with several tonnes of lead or cast iron trying to bash it's way through the floor (that keel of yours<

A capsized mono is unstable upside down, and quickly rolls back to put the antifouling underwater.

Not disputing that this causes a fair degree of alarm and despondency, but maybe less than sitting on a cat's antifouling for days?

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[Two_Hapence]

Re: Well, no, actually

Hi,

> A capsized mono is unstable upside down, and quickly rolls back to put the antifouling underwater. <

Errr.... Not always. Ask Mr Bullimore amongst others. While the Twister is a well designed boat that doesn't sacrifice safety to double aft cabins there are a surprising number of monohulls with a low angle of vanishing stability that will float upside down for days.

If your mast stays attached to the boat then the sails will provide a huge resistance to the boat coming upright again and if the mast comes off it is quite likely to start trying to bash a hole in your hull - with inevitable consequences. A 360 isn't pleasant and not all boats survive being rolled.

But why would you roll in the first place? The Twister is a venerable cruiser with an impressive record. You'd need to be hit by a freak set of circumstances or your attention would need to be down. As with Antares.

<but maybe less than sitting on a cat's antifouling for days? >

Maybe better than *not* sitting on the antifouling and at least you wouldn't get barnacles

Regards


Ian

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[Sybarite]

I perfectly agree that each has the right to sail the type of boat he wants to. However I am curious as to your motivations in choosing a trimaran. To me you seem to get the worst of all worlds : tiny accommodation yet high occupancy costs?? Sailing is perhaps a tad better than a similarly sized catamaran?

John

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[timevans2000]

Re: 360 or 180

I agree. 360 would be better than 180! Reality is that very few of us will ever get to do either.

I dont expect you would ever go out in conditions that would create a 360 roll, just as I wouldnt choose to be out in conditions that would cause a 180 flip.

I agree, each to his own

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[extravert]

There just aren't any major manufacturers currently making small (less than 10m) performance oriented cats in any significant numbers, whereas Corsair and Dragonfly are both medium volume producers. General multihull opinion is that tris are a better concept for small boats, cats for bigger ones. That's reflected in what is being built today.

I tried a few small cats and wasn't particularly impressed. However, a Corsair in a force 5 has to be experienced to be believed. Saying that sailing in a modern tri is a 'tad' better is I think an understatement if you are comparing performance.

> high occupancy costs...

Do you mean berthing costs? Most small tris produced today (Dragonfly, Corsair, Contour) fold for berthing.

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[snowleopard]

reasons for choosing a tri over a cat...

for a given size, a tri will generally be lighter, typically 40%. that means more performance. the fact that this also means a lot less accommodation is the reason there are so few tris around. they are generally to be found among the offshore racers and the niche market of ultra-fast cruisers and day sailers (e.g. dragonfly).

incidentally there has been a major design shift in multihulls since the iroquois was designed, with cats now being as wide as tris once were, giving considerably greater stability.

on the issue of capsize and stability, the major cause of capsize is not wind but wave action. the drawings in the YM article refer to a boat (apache sundancer) driven far beyond the sensible limits by a racing crew, this simply does not happen with cruisers. according to adlard coles' heavy weather sailing, a boat will capsize if hit by a breaking wave of height equal to her beam. that applies to boats with any number of hulls.

on that basis it would seem likely that any boat of 30ft or less would have been knocked down or rolled by whatever freak condition hit the iroquois. a monohull with all crew clipped on and the companionway securely closed would probably have survived though dismasting would be likely. given that the conditions were not very severe at the time, most boats would be sailing with the companionway open so a serious amount of flooding would be expected, though probably not enough to cause sinking if this were an isolated wave

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[ParaHandy]

Re: Polite Enquiry

... a touch too much sail, windward hull climbing up a wave/ferry wash and the windward hull lifts a little ... helm thinks "whee this is fun" and doesn't realise the danger he/she is in and doesn't correct. windward hull lifts some more and now the cabin bit between the hulls is exposed and oooerr over she goes ...



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[Sybarite]

Fair enough. My multihull experience is limited to sailing with a friend on his Kat 28 and passing the ferries at over 20 knots and to delivering a Casamance 44 from La Rochelle to Gibraltar in May several years ago. We had a gale with following winds and the owner didn't want to reduce sail bacause he wanted to see how fast his new cat would go (>18knts) - until we went under one wave rather than over it. He then decided it was time to reef down (despite my earlier warnings about true wind and apparent wind). Using both engines at full throttle it took us > 45 minutes just to get the boat head to wind. A sobering thought for a man overboard situation.

He managed to blow out both the main and the spinnaker and we arrived in Gibraltar under genoa alone. There there was a fleet review with all the crew lined up along the deck of a carrier. We duly lined up along our deck to take the salute as we sailed passed.

John

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[steve_cronin]

???...

I thought that we were talking about capsize and it's aftermath not holing.

Also I think that maybe you are misinterpreting the term "vanishing stability". For a monohull to remain inverted it would need to be of very wide beam like Kingfisher 1. Sea motion would soon return a single hull of moderate beam to a position where the keel would right it although the water resistance on the sails would dampen this considerably.

Since a huge mid ocean storm will have it's way with any creation of man I think that I would sooner be in a well sealed single tube with a big weight suspended on the bottom than on a platform which is almost equally stable inverted as RWU. The capsize of this cat in the article was in sheltered waters where just about ANY monohull would have just heeled and then carried on unscathed. I know that stretch particularly well as I kept a boat on the Hamble for a number of years. In that time I experienced many a large wash but the boat, a British Hunter 30 with twin keels never gave cause for alarm so why would I want to expose myself to that peril for just a few knots more speed? Capsizing in what was my "back yard" would have been unthinkable.

In MY several thousands of miles of sailing over the last 30 years I have had little experience of large cats ( just a day off Key West once) but I have been knocked down more than once and always been grateful for the righting moment of a trusty keel beneath me and the sure knowledge that I would come right way up eventually.

Steve Cronin

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[steve_cronin]

Tony\'s boat

actually lost it's means of applying a righting moment. i.e. IT'S KEEL BROKE OFF! All the famous pictures show the splintered stub of the keel pointing skywards (I have a personally signed one as he stayed with us once!) Had it not broken off he would have just carried on sailing.

Steve Cronin

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[sailbadthesinner]

saw a tri come scooshing out of portsmouth in f 6 ish down the channel when i was with jimi on glen rosa
it was absolutely flying
looked superb for blasting. about it was about 30 feet prob no more must have been doing 15 knots

as you say different kind of ssailing

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[sailbadthesinner]

saw a tri come scooshing out of portsmouth in f 6 ish down the channel when i was with jimi on glen rosa
it was absolutely flying
looked superb for blasting. about it was about 30 feet prob no more must have been doing 15 knots

as you say different kind of ssailing

<hr width=100% size=1><font color=red>if guinness is good for you. i must be very very good</font color=red>

 

[steve_cronin]

Yep! Have you seen...

the remake of "The Thomas Crown Affair"?

Lovely example of just that. Boat ends up a real mess.

Steve Cronin

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[steve_cronin]

But....

... these people also weren't out in conditions in which you might expect a 180 but they got one!

Steve Cronin

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[extravert]

Gives the mobos a suprise.

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[extravert]

Are monos safe from sword fish?

Do a search for fish on this page...

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[snowleopard]

Re: Tony\'s boat

tony bullimore's keel broke off but in the same race thierry dubois remained inverted with his keel intact. he certainly didn't carry on sailing.



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[Twister_Ken]

Which is why

race rules for things like the Around Alone now insist that enties are physically tested to show that they will self-right from full inversion. They all do, in harbour. Whether they would at sea is perhaps another question.

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[Two_Hapence]

Re: Tony\'s boat

Hi,

>actually lost it's means of applying a righting moment.<

Doesn't that rather mean that a mono is unsafe, cause if it breaks it sinks or it turns turtle?

What about F2 - had to be sunk cause it lost it's rudder? You couldn't sink an Iroquois with anything less than a large chainsaw or several pounds of high explosive. In any event I have two rudders (and a spare blade)

regards



Ian





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