Heavy weather sailing

[ashtead]

Just bought a copy for £2 in the charity shop -it looks a heavy tomb but is it packed with wisdom ? It looks like it might take a good few hours reading but given the price I thought it a worthwhile investment but is the advice from the 1980s still of value for your average sailor unlikely to be crossing Biscay in a force 8 ?

 

[Roberto]

There have been several successive editions, all with improvements and modifications to adapt to modern sailing.
The first ones indicated how to pour whale oil through the toilets to calm the seas, the latter editions have sections about weather, catamarans, etc etc.

 

[ashtead]

The version acquired dates from post fasnet79 with sad pictures of the wrecked morning cloud - surprisingly we never thought to bring back any whale oil back from Bequia so hopefully that section has been omitted.

 

[Wansworth]

The early editions still considered gales to be avoided and set out how to cope,modern yachts seem to keep on sailing in conditions where smacks hove too

 

[veshengro]

Modern yachts crews look at their pretty coloured screens, consult their weather prediction websites and alter course 3 days before the bad weather pounces. 50 years ago, you looked at the Barometer, the sky and the sea state then reefed down and hoped...

Look at the comments and replies on the forum about the Caribbean early Hurricane discussion. Everyone's eyeballs are glued to coloured screens and planning accordingly. Having been caught in a tropical Revolving storm and wrecked, I don't blame them, so no criticism from me.

 

[johnalison]

I have an early edition but seldom look at it since it doesn’t make me any happier. It might be one of several reasons why I never tried ocean sailing.

 

[Graham376]

Just bought a copy for £2 in the charity shop -it looks a heavy tomb but is it packed with wisdom ? It looks like it might take a good few hours reading but given the price I thought it a worthwhile investment but is the advice from the 1980s still of value for your average sailor unlikely to be crossing Biscay in a force 8 ?

I doubt many would plan a crossing in F8 but one has to be prepared for unexpected weather.

 

[michael_w]

It's the understated style I love. 'The mast falling down in the night disturbed my sleep'. To answer the OP's question, yes it's all very relevant. Out in the deep ocean there is no hiding place, Consolation is that you've got lots of sea room.

 

[veshengro]

15 years ago when I was crossing Oceans, that book and others like Frank Mulville's Single Handed Cruising and Sailing, and the Hiscock's books of course, were still quite relevant to me and I read them cover to cover and carried them aboard. My boat was heavy, long keeled, Tiller steered and similar to many of the boats which featured in the books. So although times/yacht styles had changed, for me ship handling in foul weather hadn't really changed. The second reason the books were of value to me was because of the forecasting and weather prediction advice they gave. I freely admit, I am totally clueless about electronics, I had no radar, Internet, Sat phone or any form of comms apart from a Nasa 25 mile range fixed radio and a hand held set, so the perhaps antiquated advice in the books was helpful. I did tow Warps in a bight and run off under bare pole on a couple of occasions and I'm still here. so the advice worked.
Now I think anyone going to sea who does not take full advantage of all the modern kit available, or at least that which offers increased safety in the form of weather watch, long range comms, and voyage planning assistance is very unwise. I might even buy one of those plotter gizmos myself, even if I'm only coastal rock dodging these days.

 

[Supertramp]

The old editions may be outdated versus modern technology, and related to older rather than modern yacht designs but there is a lot of wisdom in the pages. It comes from experience and observation. I have never come near the offshore conditions described but it somehow reassures me when in bad wind over tide seas or a sudden squall I didn't expect that there are choices and options. And that someone somewhere had (much) worse conditions and survived.

It just might give me the confidence to try something if I ever got exposed to extreme conditions.

 

[Iliade]

In 1975 a force 8 was to be feared; two levels beyond a yachtsman's gale. By 2020 a force 8 was required to reach hull speed on a reach... Back then it took us thirty days & nights to reach the Isle of Wight &c.

 

[roaringgirl]

We've had it on board for thousands of miles.I finally read it after I got the weather forecasting wrong between Bora Bora and Samoa. It has some good stuff in it and is worth a read.

Note that although there are pretty coloured weather apps available, which are impressively good, they don't tell you everything. I learned the hard way that in the south Pacific, a calm patch SW of French Polynesia with the easterly trades to the north and a westerly to the south is accurately represented on ECMWF and GFS models as an area of lighter winds, but it's also a convergence zone filled with squalls. For us it manifested itself as a 36 hour continuous squall with wind never below 45kts, topping out at 55 with constant 5-6m seas.

 

[neil_s]

I have issue 3 from 1980 on my bookshelf. Only do day-sailing, now, but I still have a browse every now and then.

 

[justanothersailboat]

I have the most recent and have had a look at an old one.

This book has changed a lot over time. The old one I saw (not sure of edition) has good writing style, gripping anecdotes, and might not be a 100% guide to what to do in a boat that's not as old school as theirs. The new one I own is oddly drab but contains large amounts of useful information and properly covers the differences between old and new boats and lots of data as well as anecdote. Both have wisdom but it night not be the same wisdom.

I'm glad I've read the new one. I wish I owned the original one. I've not been in that kind of situation yet and am in no kind of rush.

The Frank Mulville book about singlehanding also has a lot of its own kind of wisdom but is dangerous with it; it makes the land look too close and the wet part of the horizon too appealing.

 

[Wansworth]

one of my favourite tomes was the old ReedsAlmanac,within its covers was all you needed to venture to exotic lands.By osmosis I probably absorbed much of my sailing knowledge,how to put a reef in in a gale,put out a sea anchour.Probably Hiscock was the most beguiling with his pages of lists of things your needed to go voyaging even down to how many pounds of potatoes and onions you needed for an Atlantic crossing,almost insureing if you carried what was on the lists you were almost there

 

[MisterBaxter]

Claud Worth's 'Yacht Cruising' and 'Yacht Voyaging' are well worth a read too. Beautiful writing style and the things he got up to are extraordinary - a cruise round the British Isles - including Rockall - in a 50' engineless gaffer with his wife and a couple of paid hands sticks in the mind, in which (among many other things) he casually mentions climbing the mast at night in a hard wind to clear a jammed topsail.

 

[zoidberg]

My answer to the OP is 'Yes!'
You'll get far more out of it than the £2 you put in. Some of the best seamanship/wisdom is found by reading between the lines.

 

[Babylon]

I've got the 1975 2nd Edition (Adlard Coles), which I read as light relief during my extended divorce proceedings a decade ago...

Now, having just pulled it down from the bookshelves to check its vintage, the photo on the front dusk-jacket scares the bejesus out of me!

 

[Fr J Hackett]

I've got the 1975 2nd Edition (Adlard Coles), which I read as light relief during my extended divorce proceedings a decade ago...

Now, having just pulled it down from the bookshelves to check its vintage, the photo on the front dusk-jacket scares the bejesus out of me!

Don't worry your V27 would survive it even if you didn't

 

[chris-s]

Third edition here. After reading it I decided to make sure I did my utmost to never get anywhere near needing to refer to it. I also made sure the other half never laid eyes on it.