Heaving to in a Storm

peter gibbs said:
..... Running off has stood the test of time when facing winds too strong to permit forward passage making. Losing ground is not welcome of course but not stressing the vessel unduly nor the crew takes precedence in my book. A snatch of foresail to maintain steerage is all it takes: running with any main is asking for trouble. .....
Click to expand...

This is quite flawed I believe from reading various articles and some experience. Modern hull forms will accelerate to very fast speeds with a probability of broaching; similar risk but lower probability with older hull shapes. The Hiscock, I think, pitch-poled believing this to be a sound practise. In 'Heavy Weather Sailing' and 'Total Loss', books that focus on practise based on experience, not theory, running off examples have caused lots of problems for yachts and crews. There are better methods, that are proven, than only running off, such as 'Sea Brake' and 'Jordan Series Drogues' which both slow the vessel and stabilise the stern when running down wind on bare poles.
 
I was in a force 9/10 Gulf Stream gale while singlehanding my 31 foot full keel yacht from Bermuda back to New England. For several hours as the winds intensity increased I kept reducing sail. The wind and current were both coming from the southwest and the seas built throughout the day to dramatic proportions, 18 to 20 feet. I had my Monitor windvane steering throughout the ordeal. I was on a port tack close reach the entire time. During the worst of the storm I had perhaps two square yards of my yankee unfurled and I kept moving comfortably at a knot to a knot and a half.
I was swept by a couple wind driven wave tops but nothing which made me feel I needed to change tactics. The roar of the waves and the high pitched whine of the wind in the rigging was quite amazing.
I remained safe and comfortable in my berth protected by lee cloths. Every half hour I poked my head out to examine the rig and check for shipping but luckily had no problems with either.
I have used this same technique of slowly reaching in lesser storms with similar results. I would definitely not have wanted to broad reach or run downwind unless avoiding a lee shore.
Each boat is unique and one must find a heavy weather technique which best suits them. I must stress that my windvane self steering handled the boat throughout the storm and it was never necessary for me to take the helm. Thank God, because some of those seas were awe inspiring.
 
Last edited:
Tippex said:
Lin and Larry Pardey are great advocates of heaving to. Read their "Storm Tactics". So is Skip Novak. A case of listening to the experts...
Click to expand...

Although you could invest in a decent sat phone and monitor three days grib files and just not bother sailing into a storm.

Unless you are going truly off piste I wouldn't worry yourself with storm tactics.

___________________________
 
alant said:
Probably more about "heaving up in a storm".
Click to expand...

Haha! ... probably right! Funnily enough I've always been ok in the few storms I've been out in ... only ever felt a bit queasy down below in those long swells you get offshore, especially when you're trying to cook something! Now I come to think of it, the old Scillonian II used to make me feel a bit funny when I was a kid but she would have rolled on wet grass!
 
paella said:
So if I move from a 28 ft boat to a 32 ft boat how much safer will I be?
Click to expand...

I am not so sure that you necessarily will. My 31 ft hanse ( fin keel blade rudder)is of course better than my 26 ft Stellas( long keel with keel hug rudder) I have had 2 of them. However, I have been in F9 once each in both boats in the N sea. My Stella did not have a self draining cockpit so i had to pump every 20 or so mins. But i have to say that size for size it was every bit as sweet as my Hanse. I recall having to heave too off the Tail of the Falls for 4.5 hours & actually went to sleep due to exhaustion for 3.5 hours. I did not have any form of self steering in those days but could heave too very comfortably & could set the sails to steer the boat whilst i did sail changes etc
My Hanse will never heave too & although bigger & if it had a crew it would be safer but when single handed it charges round the ocean like a mad dog. In a F7 off the Firth of Forth I was taken ill once & needed RNLI assistance at night in heavy sea. The coastguard told the life boat that I was doing 5.3kts & I was under bare poles.
In a F9 en route from Ijmuiden to Lowestoft one night I had a crew & without that crew I would have been in bother as the boat needed helming every minute. The electric autopilot just would not cope ( My aeries was not rigged)
So the point of this is that size is not always the friend. The way the boat handles in a storm is the important thing. It is great having a quick boat & the Hanse is certainly that but it can be tiring & I would suggest that certain long keeled boats with better balance & handling ( like my Stella) will make a less tiring trip & this may actually make a shorter passage due to the ability for a crew to keep going.
I would feel just as safe in a Stella, if it had a self draining cockpit, as I would I my Hanse in a gale If I had to lay offshore for a while
 
I make 4 knots under bare poles in a F9. And it is very comfortable - like a magic carpet. 8 knots with the stay sail up in the same conditions. In both cases the autopilot has no trouble steering (if the course is more or less dead downwind).
 
paella said:
So if I move from a 28 ft boat to a 32 ft boat how much safer will I be?
Click to expand...


About 4 ft safer!

Every boat owner must find the best tactics for their particular vessel. Westernman, IIRC has the ex Tom Cunliffe pilot cutter. The way it behaves is as I would expect.

I cannot heave to in my boat at the moment, it has a Hoyt Boom self tacking jib. I will make two strops with heavy caribiners to hold the boom still and in the right place and then practice the manouver.

A boat the same as mine was abandoned by a delivery crew off Cape Hatteras when the engine failed. I feel sure hoisting a scrap of jib and running downwind would have saved the vessel. Their reasoning for abandoning ship was getting chucked about too much inside. Well, they would, with no control over the vessel.

I have never experienced more than a F8, off Cherbourg, coming from Alderney, waves as high as the spreaders. We were clipped on in the cockpit, half the staysail, going with the wind and tide. The big French Douanes boat shadowed us, making sure we were OK. The boat, an Island Packet 350, was making 10.5 kts. SOG!

Once in the lee of Barfleur it got much better, Cherbourg was entered OK.

We heard Jersey CG weather as we entered, " wind 4 to 5, moderate, good.

Not what we had, thats for sure.............................
 
Last edited:
Pye_End said:
This page gives a bit of an insight. http://www.oceannavigator.com/Ocean-Voyager-2011/Dangerous-waves-and-your-boat/

Whether you would get to choose between a like for like a 28 v's 32 us another matter. A Twister 28 v's Contessa 32 maybe? Having a well found/well maintained and well skippered boat are perhaps most important factors.
Click to expand...

I have run before storms in very similar boat designs of 33 and 50 feet, PTE long keel heavy displacement. Both behaved in similars ways, but the smaller eventually under bare poles and the larger under staysail alone. We ran at about 30 degrees off dead down wind. The smaller boat doing 2-4 knots and the bigger doing 6-8, a monitor vane gear was steering the smaller one and a big hydraulic ap for the larger.

The emotional and physical drain in each case was very different. One benig exhausting and the other almost routine. I will always recall the sounds in the smaller one. Shrieking winds, followed at irregular intervals of the large roar of a wave, a tremendous bang of being hit, and the dead silence for a second as the boat was covered, and then the sound of water pouring off again.

The bigger boat we just kept going, although while we had a deep reefed main up we surfed/were thrown down the face of a wave and saw 21.4 knots on the GPS and white water 2 metres above the deck on both sides. That’s when we went down to the staysail only and the waves rolled through and stopped picking as up to surf.
 
westernman said:
I make 4 knots under bare poles in a F9. And it is very comfortable - like a magic carpet. 8 knots with the stay sail up in the same conditions. In both cases the autopilot has no trouble steering (if the course is more or less dead downwind).
Click to expand...

I have to admit that my only experience ever being out in a F9 was not very exciting. Only once did we get any water onto the deck - and that was just as mother in law was coming up the companion way to say that lunch was ready (a fair bit of it hit her in the face ;-).

The waves when looking behind, particularly as we rounded the renowned Cap Bear, looked enormous and spectacular, but passed gently under the boat without actually causing enough pitching or rolling to upset your coffee - and with the exception of that one very special wave for MIL, without actually wetting the deck.

Lunch was a lovely Thai chicken stew which had been cooking for over an hour.
 
aslabend said:
I've a nic26 - long keel with cut away forefoot. To heave to with the bow about 35-45 degrees off the wind I have to roll away a lot of the headsail but it does work (well enough to take a break or reef the mainsail). She does fore-reach at about a knot and a bit but is basically happy. I've not tried this in real stormy conditions only up to F6/7.
Click to expand...
I have a nic 26 too. Hove to you have to spill the mainsail as far as it will go, then as you say back just a bit of foresail. It's like heaving to in a dinghy! The boat is very comfortable and will sit dead quiet in the water. I've only done it in 6/7 too but would be happy to do it in stronger winds. One thing - most of us are coastal sailors. We do need to allow for the fact that we are going to go down tide at whatever speed the tide is running..
 
In the lifeboat museum in Southwold there is a bag for dripping oil into the sea to calm it. It's relatively small and I believe only a modest amount of oil needed to be dripped.
 
paella said:
So if I move from a 28 ft boat to a 32 ft boat how much safer will I be?
Click to expand...

I asked a ships captain friend of mine this question and he laughed before replying its still a little boat....

My own experience in moving from a 26 ft boat to a 33 ft boat is one went over the waves and the other goes through them. I had been caught out in some huge overfall waves in the little 26ft Etap and it didn't let me down. My tactic was to put the engine on and get out of the overfalls fast. (South Stack - Anglesey) With the engine on I had more choice about the angle to take the waves at. Its obviously not a long term solution in a mid Atlantic storm but it did work for me in those circumstances.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top