Heavy weather .. Lessons Learnt

Re: Washboards minor contribution

I think you've missed the main reason for lanyards on washboards - it's to prevent them going overboard AFTER they've been taken out.

You need the bolts as well, but they need to be accessible from outside as well as inside.

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Re: Tome\'s frig and Para-Anchors

<<Smaller vessels - say under 30 foot as the Pardeys are - may be of some merit.>>

The Pardeys always would lie at an angle to their anchor using a warp back to a winch. Slipping back this way created a slick which they claimed had a calming effect on the worst of the waves.

John

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Re: Washboards minor contribution

Surely the main use of lanyards on a monohull is to keep the boards in and the companionway watertight when (if ) the boat rolls past the horizontal. which monos do more often than multis, in fact.

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Re: Back to basics.

Heaving to as an option. A lot is written about the reluctance of fin keelers to heave to. And it does take a lot of effort to get some of them to lie well. But others are good as gold. If you can't get the thing settled, often the bows keep blowing downwind, motoring on low rev's can help.

It's worth practising this and other heavy weather techniques in some waves.

My favorite spot is in the needles channel with an option on hand to run into shelter. You can beat into some decent waves, do some basic manuvres, even try your MOB.

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Re: Getting knocked about in the boat

Try here using spring brackets screwed to crossmembers and the correct length spring loaded studs through the sole boards. 1/4 turn fasten & unfasten. Use stainless of course.
Or there's <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.southcoipsg.com/prd/hierarchymain.Showhierarchy?par_nNodeID=7002&par_nLang_ID=0>these.</A>

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Para-Anchors thoughts

I don't own one but I have been interested in the concept and read a good deal about them, hence the links I provided. I agree with many of you: sitting in mid-Channel on a parachute does not seem a sensible nor safe proposition, whereas I might think differently in mid-Atlantic.

I do not understand the Pardey's methodology. Anchor warp loads on my boat in any current increase enormously if I move the warp away from the bow roller. It would seem that their method effectively does the same thing, presenting the forward quarter to the waves instead of the stem.

The logic of presenting the bows to the waves instead of the transom in extremis seems incontrovertible to me. Even in the mildest of bad weather it is quite common for waves to slap on the transom and for spray to enter the cockpit if moored into the wind. I can only guess the effects of really big waves in a similar situation, although I accept that the boat's movement in the same direction as waves will reduce the effects.

Finally, I have read that a plastic (milk) bottle crate on the end of a long warp makes an excellent substitute for a series drogue, and that even a car tyre works quite well. Any experience?

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Heaving to

A very valuable and underutilised technique.

I find however that it's virtually impossible to get a stable attitude with an overlapping foresail on my boat.

However I wouldn't rate it terribly highly as a riding-storm technique, it's OK up to seastate 7.

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Re: Para-Anchors thoughts

That must have been Carlsberg Special. I knew a couple of guys once who carried a crate of CS up a mountain and then drank it. Idiots.

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Re: Para-Anchors thoughts

That must have been Carlsberg Special. I knew a couple of guys once who carried a crate of CS up a mountain and then drank it. They had no idea how they got down again. Idiots.

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Re: Para-Anchors thoughts

Weel .. if they drank the mountain .. they'd sort of get back down without knowing .. it would just sort of subside gradually
[url = http://www.atlasbrewery.com/sisters.htm] Here's a real mountain brew, bewed by a real mountain[/url]

<hr width=100% size=1>O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
 
Re: Para-Anchors thoughts

If that's your best joke jimi no wonder your fridge was throwing itself around the boat in frustration

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Re: Parachute drogues

I take it you were unimpressed by Noel Dilly's pitch, then?

The argument that the effectiveness of a para-anchor is compromised by being periodically capsised by wave undertow seemed quite convincing to me.

Unless you are being held firmly in relation to the oncoming wave, a pitchpole is always a possibility, whichever way the bows point.

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Re: Para-Anchors thoughts

Vyv, the guy who used to own the boat next to us used to always carry a tire on his after deck for that purpose and had used it in earnest. Unfortunately I cannot ask him any more about it because he died about a year ago, but he had commented favourably to me about its use.

John

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Re: Para-Anchors thoughts

Last week I found my radar reflector (octagon type) was foul with gulls muck so I shackled it on to a looped warp and let it flow with the tide on my mooring to clean it. I was surprised at the hefty amount of drag it produced. Has anyone any experience of using one as a sea-anchor or am I imagining things?. I mean - is it feasible for use in emergencies?.

<hr width=100% size=1>The line between balls and lunacy is very thin.
 
Re: Parachute drogues

Well, put shortly, yes. Not from experience, but from an engineering point of view. The circularity of water movement is restricted to the top few metres of the water, and the parachute is supposed to be weighted so as to drop it below this level. In any case, the circularity suggests that any tendency to capsize the parachute would be followed by a tendency to fill.
Re the pitchpole, yes, I agree, but not sure that drogue has a particular theoretical advantage over the other.
This whole area seems fraught with different opinions from those who have spent substantial time 'in the thick of it', contradicting each other. In that case, I feel my engineering experience is just as good at guessing the 'best' as any other way - except perhaps sticking a pin in a wall map of opinions!
;-))

<hr width=100% size=1>Black Sugar - the sweetest of all
 
Re: Para-Anchors thoughts

I don't know about radar reflectors but I spoke to a world girdler who had been through more than one storm by trailing a car tyre on a long length of warp. Anything that slows your speed to manageable must be a bonus although I'd doubt the stength of a radar reflector in anything apporaching survival conditions.

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Re: Para-Anchors thoughts

Brian

I'm sure this would work, but as always it's the retrieval that could be difficult.

Tom

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