Yellow Ballad
Well-known member
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).
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
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).
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
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)Like the series drogue idea though although Ive no experience of them.
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.
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.
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.
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..
. . . I would be interested to see a reference for that.
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.
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.