Golden Globe Race

[Yellow Ballad]

I don't think you have much chance with any keel in stormy southern ocean confused seas, if you get the wrong bit of the wave(s).

 

[GHA]

I'm a big fan of long keels and plan to buy one in a couple of years. The GGR has got me thinking. Are the keels contributing to, what appears to be, a large number of knockdowns? Shorter keels are more likely to slip sideways if the boat is hit by wave.
Allan

Suspect there would be less knockdowns if the boats weren't racing but had a jordan series drogue streaming out the back as soon as the going got nasty, also suspect if latest grib weather models were coming in every day the boats would be further away from the worst of it.
Whole can of argumentative worms mentioning keels on a forum

 

[capnsensible]

I don't think you have much chance with any keel in stormy southern ocean confused seas, if you get the wrong bit of the wave(s).

That would be my opinion. Not been in southern ocean gales but have had more than enough of Atlantic ones. Once the sea gets over 4 or 5 m, its pants no matter where you are I reckon and those chaps (including Susie) are dealing with far worse.

My hat is off......

 

[capnsensible]

Like the series drogue idea though although Ive no experience of them.

 

[Kelpie]

Greater chance of knockdowns compared to what?
These are small boats by RTW racing standards. They are sailing in huge seas, unable to actively avoid the worst of the weather. I don't think the fact that they are long keel puts them at any disadvantage.

 

[dunedin]

Suspect there would be less knockdowns if the boats weren't racing but had a jordan series drogue streaming out the back as soon as the going got nasty, also suspect if latest grib weather models were coming in every day the boats would be further away from the worst of it.
Whole can of argumentative worms mentioning keels on a forum

I am starting to wonder if the issue might be the slow speeds of these boats? It is looking like faster, wide sterned narrow keel Vendee Globe boats have recently survived the Southern Ocean much better than the GGR fleet.
The Vendee Boats are flying through the southern ocean at 20+ knots, and surfing down the biggest waves. This means they get overtaken by much fewer waves between Capetown and Cape Horn, and the relative speed of the waves much less.
Some other reports of Sydney Hobart storms etc suggested keeping sailing had better outcomes than slowing.

 

[Hacker]

Like the series drogue idea though although Ive no experience of them.

Don, in one of his broadcasts, suggested that series drones aren’t a good idea in the Southern Ocean. His recommendation was to trail a long bight. The reason given was that it was almost impossible to recover a series drone, whereas recovering a bight of rope was easier (although still not easy)

 

[Applespider]

The messages back from those skippers who have withdrawn and been rescued or had knockdowns and kept going was that they'd had group discussions about dealing with heavy seas and come to the conclusion that trailing lines was the way to go.

However, when push came to shove, at least one has commented that they'd never do so again. This is from Mark Slats voice call on 24 Sept (after the big storm that knocked on Tomy and Gregor)

Before start we discussed many options, among the skippers, what to do to deal with storm situations. Throwing warps over board and trawl heavy stuff and so. To keep the stern in the wind and break waves before they reach you. Well, I thought a lot and pondered these problems. But I quickly saw the boat wasn’t behaving in a sound way with that stuff behind the boat. So I decided halfway the storm to pull the 200 meter lines and everything back on board. That was much better! I also put the storm jib up instead of sailing under bare poles, like Gregor did. I trimmed the storm jib and maintained good speed. I do really think that has saved me. Several times, eh… At a certain moment I broached once every 30 minutes or so. A bunch of knock downs in a short while.

The entire railing at the back came to the front 5 or 6 centimeter. Again you can imagine how bizar it was. Really really bizar. I can not believe how much force the sea holds. I will never ever again drag lines or anything for that matter, behind the boat whilst being in a storm. The best thing is to go fast forward, in the same direction as the waves, as than the force is less powerful you know. If you drive your bike very slowly you also fall, that's the same with a boat. I do not understand all those stories that people drag stuff behind their boats, that's really nonsense. As soon as I removed the lines, the boat immediately started stearing again, perfectly on the wind.

 

[zoidberg]

It IS really complicated. Far too many variaables for a 'one plan fits all' to be effective.

Moitessier, like Slats, found it safer to cut away ( haul in ) the drag-inducing warps, and run off with a tiny storm jib sheeted hard amidships.
Sir Robin K-J trailed all the warps, spare halyards, chain and moveable junk he could find off the back of 'ENZA New Zealand' trying to slow down in a storm coming back across Biscay. 'The worst 24 hours of my sailing career'.... in 'Heavy Weather Sailing.

According to all recorded experience, there comes a point where one simply cannot steer the boat any longer, the windvane self-steering can no longer cope or is damaged, and it is still necessary to avoid running down the face of a huge sea and driving into the trough-face of the one ahead, resulting in pitchpole or violent broach and being rolled.

Hence the introduction of 'drag devices' such as the Jordan Series Drogue, a copy of which was shipped by Susie Goodall ( and perhaps others ). This is shown in her Susie Goodall Racing prep video. The idea is that the chosen 'drag device' will slow the boat AND pull the stern through a big advancing , even breaking, sea. Time after time. That seems to work, from the multiple accounts of those who have rode out a storm using one, where the advancing seas are relatively regular in direction.

However, there's a sea state which defeats these drag devices, one encountered by Are Wiig, Peche, Thomy, McGuckin, Goodall, Slats and perhaps others. This is where an ultra-violent storm builds huge breaking, tumbling seas from one major direction ( e.g. north>south, and which a drag device might be capable of managing ), then the Severe Storm-force wind switches direction very markedly, sometimes 160-170°, quickly kicking up additional huge breaking seas which march across the original ones still running and breaking.

This creates breaking seas on top of breaking seas, rearing up then collapsing - utterly chaotic - with walls of tumbling water heading in every direction. No drag device can hold a boat's stern the right way every time. It becomes a matter of luck whether the boat and its rig survives the inevitable multiple knockdowns. Righting moments, CZ curves, ballast ratios become academic, irrelevant.

But some hull forms are reckoned to manage such violence better than others. That's why they were approved for the GGR.

Sure, Volvo/Vendee speed machines can be sailed so fast they can get out of the way of most of the above extreme sea conditions - provided there's the high-end comms gear to receive realtime weather data and the skills to interpret that are on board.

 

[Robert Wilson]

To Applespider and zoidberg, and others who have contributed to this "drogue issue":-

Reading your posts, particularly #228 & #229, I am even more in awe of those who venture into stormy seas, particularly the Southern Oceans; and even more so to actually race in them, often in small craft.

I hope I never am in the terrifying situation where I have to ponder the plusses and minuses of streaming or not streaming drogues, warps kitchen-sinks etc.

On behalf of all of us on these Forums, I would like to wish all those brave (mad?) sailors who do these things the very greatest of good fortune, safety and enjoyment, while we sit in the comfort of our homes, safely-bobbing craft and stable environments.

Well done every one of them, and my commiserations to those who are forced to give-up through forces beyond their control.
Get home safe, all of them.

 

[Motor_Sailor]

Interesting that one of the boats that responded to Loïc Lepage was Alizés II, a Beneteau Océanis 43 taking part in the Longue Route race.

Surely a Beneteau Océanis shouldn't still be even floating if the pride of British long keeled, 'everything was better back in the day', you wouldn't catch me down there with a spade rudder, type boats are having such a hard time?

When the analysis of all this is done, I hope people will consider all the experiences and evidence and not (as all ready has begun) to start cherry picking incidents to reinforce their already entrenched positions.

 

[capnsensible]

Beat me to it! Fascinating that a boat of that kind is doing so well...... :encouragement:

 

[doug748]

It IS really complicated. Far too many variaables for a 'one plan fits all' to be effective.

Moitessier, like Slats, found it safer to cut away ( haul in ) the drag-inducing warps, and run off with a tiny storm jib sheeted hard amidships.
Sir Robin K-J trailed all the warps, spare halyards, chain and moveable junk he could find off the back of 'ENZA New Zealand' trying to slow down in a storm coming back across Biscay. 'The worst 24 hours of my sailing career'.... in 'Heavy Weather Sailing.

According to all recorded experience, there comes a point where one simply cannot steer the boat any longer, the windvane self-steering can no longer cope or is damaged, and it is still necessary to avoid running down the face of a huge sea and driving into the trough-face of the one ahead, resulting in pitchpole or violent broach and being rolled.

Hence the introduction of 'drag devices' such as the Jordan Series Drogue, a copy of which was shipped by Susie Goodall ( and perhaps others ). This is shown in her Susie Goodall Racing prep video. The idea is that the chosen 'drag device' will slow the boat AND pull the stern through a big advancing , even breaking, sea. Time after time. That seems to work, from the multiple accounts of those who have rode out a storm using one, where the advancing seas are relatively regular in direction.

However, there's a sea state which defeats these drag devices, one encountered by Are Wiig, Peche, Thomy, McGuckin, Goodall, Slats and perhaps others. This is where an ultra-violent storm builds huge breaking, tumbling seas from one major direction ( e.g. north>south, and which a drag device might be capable of managing ), then the Severe Storm-force wind switches direction very markedly, sometimes 160-170°, quickly kicking up additional huge breaking seas which march across the original ones still running and breaking.

This creates breaking seas on top of breaking seas, rearing up then collapsing - utterly chaotic - with walls of tumbling water heading in every direction. No drag device can hold a boat's stern the right way every time. It becomes a matter of luck whether the boat and its rig survives the inevitable multiple knockdowns. Righting moments, CZ curves, ballast ratios become academic, irrelevant.

But some hull forms are reckoned to manage such violence better than others. That's why they were approved for the GGR.

Sure, Volvo/Vendee speed machines can be sailed so fast they can get out of the way of most of the above extreme sea conditions - provided there's the high-end comms gear to receive realtime weather data and the skills to interpret that are on board.

Good post, Interesting.

"Righting moments, CZ curves, ballast ratios become academic, irrelevant."

Indeed, as the thinking is that overall length is the key factor in resistance to breaking water on the beam. The longer the better.

 

[doug748]

Interesting that one of the boats that responded to Loïc Lepage was Alizés II, a Beneteau Océanis 43 taking part in the Longue Route race.

Surely a Beneteau Océanis shouldn't still be even floating if the pride of British long keeled, 'everything was better back in the day', you wouldn't catch me down there with a spade rudder, type boats are having such a hard time?

When the analysis of all this is done, I hope people will consider all the experiences and evidence and not (as all ready has begun) to start cherry picking incidents to reinforce their already entrenched positions.

M Tolan has a good site here:

http://francislongueroute2018.blogspot.com/p/le-bateau-alizes-ii.html

 

[Motor_Sailor]

Good post, Interesting.

"Righting moments, CZ curves, ballast ratios become academic, irrelevant."

Indeed, as the thinking is that overall length is the key factor in resistance to breaking water on the beam. The longer the better.

The correlation between breaking waves and capsize was found to be beam and displacement. Increasing length is only relevant as it has a relationship to both in vessels of normal form. The influential 'length' cut off in the ISO STIX calculation was an empirical 'coefficient' stemming from a feeling that the Contessa 32 was about the smallest boat that was 'proven' (in the committee's eyes) to be ocean-going seaworthy for a crewed vessel. Hence it's difficult to get boats smaller than 9.5m (Vancouver 27 and Fisher 25 excepted) through CAT A. There was a resistance to making the rule determinate on a 'beam' requirement as proven by the breaking wave research, as this would encourage really beamy small boats and we know that these have a propensity to remain inverted when rolled 180.

I've never seen any research that shows the influence of keel form (or no keel in the case of a retracted centreboard) on capsize in breaking waves.

Similarly the influence of increasing freeboard, deck edge 'sharpness' or cabin profiles haven't been tested in a dynamic environment. (We know their influence in large angle 'static' stability). Aesthetics and practicalities of walking around on a flat deck have taken preference.

 

[doug748]

The correlation between breaking waves and capsize was found to be beam and displacement. Increasing length is only relevant as it has a relationship to both in vessels of normal form..

A good clarification, I would be interested to see a reference for that.

 

[Motor_Sailor]

. . . I would be interested to see a reference for that.

I know the test tank work was done by Andy Claughton (and ?) at Southampton in the early 80s. So it will be included in Marchaj's books.

 

[skua164]

Interesting that one of the boats that responded to Loïc Lepage was Alizés II, a Beneteau Océanis 43 taking part in the Longue Route race.

Surely a Beneteau Océanis shouldn't still be even floating if the pride of British long keeled, 'everything was better back in the day', you wouldn't catch me down there with a spade rudder, type boats are having such a hard time?

When the analysis of all this is done, I hope people will consider all the experiences and evidence and not (as all ready has begun) to start cherry picking incidents to reinforce their already entrenched positions.

A very good point. It's taken this incident for the Golden Globe Race to make any mention of the people taking part in the Longue Route which I felt all along was pretty arrogant of them.

Although the Longue Route is not a race as such, with no set starting time and place it's a " do it because it's there" event the Longue Route also include the positions of the GGR fleet in their tracker as well.

 

[rgarside]

I am starting to wonder if the issue might be the slow speeds of these boats? It is looking like faster, wide sterned narrow keel Vendee Globe boats have recently survived the Southern Ocean much better than the GGR fleet.
The Vendee Boats are flying through the southern ocean at 20+ knots, and surfing down the biggest waves. This means they get overtaken by much fewer waves between Capetown and Cape Horn, and the relative speed of the waves much less.
Some other reports of Sydney Hobart storms etc suggested keeping sailing had better outcomes than slowing.

High speed has one major benefit - at those speeds with the right weather routing information the really bad weather can be avoided.

 

[Kukri]

Possibly relevant to this discussion - BIll Tilman was a friend of David Lewis. I remember Tilman saying, of Lewis's 32ft steel cutter "ICE BIRD", whilst Dr Lewis was engaged on his single handed circumnavigation of Antarctica, in which he was rolled and dismasted more than once, "That boat is too small for those seas."

This was at a time when the "corked bottle" theory of the survival of small yachts in bad weather - the idea that a strongly built watertight small yacht will always look after herself - was generally accepted (including by the youthful me, who was puzzled by the remark).

(edited to correct the quotation - I remembered it better afterwards)