Heavy Weather Suvival

Csail said:
All i do is full throttle into the big waves and hope.Worst was doom bar outside padstow late one night.Other bad places are between flatholm and steepholm and also ramsey sound. Nash sands gets nasty but don't go near turbot bank buoy.
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Full throttle is not enough to stop you going backwards in most production yachts once you get to F9 or more.

Certainly by the time you have a hurricane or a cyclone, there is no-one left who can go forwards into that, but plenty who can survive that.
 
rotrax said:
Hi Snooks, Our mentor,with hundreds of thousands of ocean miles under his belt suggests that beating into the wind is the first step, under storm sails. If things get worse "dodging" by motoring head on to the waves like the trawlers is the next tactic. Next up is running before the wind trailing a bight of rope-the longer the better. Finally lying ahull with everything battened down and fingers crossed. I hope to avoid these situations but you never know.....
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I have sailed into the wind in very extreme conditions, though probably not achieving any real VMG to windward. I have also motored (dodged) to windward in same conditions. Continuing to do this would have been preferred, but the engine died. Both these were aft having the keel in the air several times.

Full details are in recent editions of HWS. My only doubt about your mentor's advice is re lying ahull - the point comes where it virtually guarantees a roll. Good way of saving crew energy though early on before conditions become really bad.

More and more evidence seems to be coming through, particularly from ocean racers, that active sailing is safer than any passive technique.
 
jwilson said:
I have sailed into the wind in very extreme conditions, though probably not achieving any real VMG to windward. I have also motored (dodged) to windward in same conditions. Continuing to do this would have been preferred, but the engine died. Both these were aft having the keel in the air several times.

Full details are in recent editions of HWS. My only doubt about your mentor's advice is re lying ahull - the point comes where it virtually guarantees a roll. Good way of saving crew energy though early on before conditions become really bad.

More and more evidence seems to be coming through, particularly from ocean racers, that active sailing is safer than any passive technique.
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I would tend to agree about active sailing. Bare Poles would have to be a very last resort, and only then when abandon yee all hope. :D

At this point in the thread it would be interesting to ask what peeps thoughts are on using a Sea Anchor ? By that I mean a proper sea anchor, not a drogue.
 
Sandyman said:
I would tend to agree about active sailing. Bare Poles would have to be a very last resort, and only then when abandon yee all hope. :D

At this point in the thread it would be interesting to ask what peeps thoughts are on using a Sea Anchor ? By that I mean a proper sea anchor, not a drogue.
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The books I have read from people much more experienced than me suggest that for normal cruising boats (i.e. not anything ultra light weight or ultra anything), that sea anchors are never a good move. They will not stop you going backwards. You risk then breaking your rudder (we are talking serious weather here, not a F9 or less) and being totally out of control.

Much better to go forwards at a controlled rate. This will have to be before the wind - there comes a point where there is no way you can go forwards when pointing your nose towards the wind. For me this is the upper end of F9. I suspect for most boats (e.g. your average Bavaria) it will be about this same wind strength as well.

Nothing wrong with bare poles - you will be going plenty fast enough without anything up and have plenty of control. In my case I get about 5 knots with bare poles in a F9. Then once you start going too fast - say approaching your maximum waterline speed, you will then start towing drogues, warps, sails and anything you can find to keep your speed under control to avoid broaching.

I have always been safely tucked away somewhere before that has been necessary.
 
jwilson said:
I have sailed into the wind in very extreme conditions, though probably not achieving any real VMG to windward. I have also motored (dodged) to windward in same conditions. Continuing to do this would have been preferred, but the engine died. Both these were aft having the keel in the air several times.

Full details are in recent editions of HWS. My only doubt about your mentor's advice is re lying ahull - the point comes where it virtually guarantees a roll. Good way of saving crew energy though early on before conditions become really bad.

More and more evidence seems to be coming through, particularly from ocean racers, that active sailing is safer than any passive technique.
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From the books I have read, the general opinion seems to be that once things get so bad that heaving to is not possible, that when running off towing drogues it is no longer possible to control the boat, or you are continuously getting pooped by very large waves over the stern, that the only thing left is to lie a hull.

It is not easy to capsize your average yacht when lying a hull - even with huge waves much bigger than the beam of the yacht (which is when a capsize becomes theoretically possible). Try capsizing your a toy boat in the bath. Even though its AVS is much worse than your yacht it still takes some doing!
 
My dad pointed out another reason for sailing into the storm, and their reasoning for doing so in 79, and that was to reduce their time actually in the storm.

I'm not saying it will work for every boat, but it's something else to consider.
 
michaelchapman said:
The books I have read from people much more experienced than me suggest that for normal cruising boats (i.e. not anything ultra light weight or ultra anything), that sea anchors are never a good move. They will not stop you going backwards. You risk then breaking your rudder (we are talking serious weather here, not a F9 or less) and being totally out of control.

Much better to go forwards at a controlled rate. This will have to be before the wind - there comes a point where there is no way you can go forwards when pointing your nose towards the wind. For me this is the upper end of F9. I suspect for most boats (e.g. your average Bavaria) it will be about this same wind strength as well.

Nothing wrong with bare poles - you will be going plenty fast enough without anything up and have plenty of control. In my case I get about 5 knots with bare poles in a F9. Then once you start going too fast - say approaching your maximum waterline speed, you will then start towing drogues, warps, sails and anything you can find to keep your speed under control to avoid broaching.

I have always been safely tucked away somewhere before that has been necessary.
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Interesting reply. I have read a number of articles written by some very seasoned sailors
who swear by sea anchors. Many of them state they wouldn't venture on a long passage without one. Take a look here http://www.sea-anchors.com/
 
>The books I have read from people much more experienced than me suggest that for normal cruising boats (i.e. not anything ultra light weight or ultra anything), that sea anchors are never a good move. They will not stop you going backwards. You risk then breaking your rudder (we are talking serious weather here, not a F9 or less) and being totally out of control.

Only if you have a spade rudder or part skeg. Long keelers and full skeg rudders are fine. We have a long keeler and carry a parachute anchor.
 
I read the books about lying to under bare poles. Way back in the late 70's I tried it for real in a 29ft long keel (Trintella 29) on passage from Bergen to Shetland. Just 2 of us and some 8 or 10 hours later we decided the wind had eased enough to continue. Problem was that the motion without any sail set had been so bad that we were utterly exhausted dspite deep safe leecloths for the two saloon berths.

I have experienced dodging in a trawler in force 11, winter north sea, and do not fancy trying to hold a small boat's bow into anything like that with a parra drogue. I have also run off in a force 9 in a small catamaran (North Sea 20 plus miles off Fair Isle) We were going too fast and the acceleration from a breaking wave strike has to be experienced to be believed. Later trailing warps helped to keep the speed down.
Now I carry a Jordan drogue in the cockpit locker and in survival conditions will head down wind to ride the punches. However, every boat is different and every storm will give different sea conditions so there is no one answer. The more tactics you have and the better you know your boat the better your chances.

Incidentally, had an exhillerating run around the SW corner of Norway this summer in northerly winds. Triple reefed main and a metre or so of jib unrolled but sheeted tight to keep us pointing down wind with the Monitor gear steering - wind force 7 to 8, seas 2 metres or so and everything under control. Long keel hevy displacement cutter.
 
Sandyman said:
Interesting reply. I have read a number of articles written by some very seasoned sailors
who swear by sea anchors. Many of them state they wouldn't venture on a long passage without one. Take a look here http://www.sea-anchors.com/
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All these theories about para anchors are a lot of spheres, truly.
You cannot fight big seas.
If you try they will have you for breakfast.
Instead of fighting them the thing to do is to use their energy to advantage.
The only way to do this is to run with them.
But you cannot run unprepared.
Special kit is required for this.
But this special kit is not in the popular public domain nor is it well known at all though it has been satisfactorily tested in the Bass Strait by the Aussie Navy and adopted by the Aussie Coastguard.
I have used the method when ocean sailing and been confronted with Father Neptune throwing a really serious tantrum of the dire sort.
I would not consider anything else.
 
Sandyman said:
Interesting reply. I have read a number of articles written by some very seasoned sailors
who swear by sea anchors. Many of them state they wouldn't venture on a long passage without one. Take a look here http://www.sea-anchors.com/
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Even with a large sea anchor the bow of a modern yacht will tend to yaw away from the wind when the towline goes slack as it will when the boat passes through the trough of the wave. For these reasons the use of a sea anchor deployed from the bow is not recommended
U.S. Coast Guard Report No CG-D-20-87 sec 6-6
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Take a look at http://seriesdrogue.com/vs/ for a different view point.
 
VO5 said:
All these theories about para anchors are a lot of spheres, truly.
You cannot fight big seas.
If you try they will have you for breakfast.
Instead of fighting them the thing to do is to use their energy to advantage.
The only way to do this is to run with them.
But you cannot run unprepared.
Special kit is required for this.
But this special kit is not in the popular public domain nor is it well known at all though it has been satisfactorily tested in the Bass Strait by the Aussie Navy and adopted by the Aussie Coastguard.
I have used the method when ocean sailing and been confronted with Father Neptune throwing a really serious tantrum of the dire sort.
I would not consider anything else.
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And this "special kit", is?
 
KenMcCulloch said:
He's going to tell you how the Australian 'Seabrake' is superior to any other heavy weather drogue, particularly the widely well regarded Jordan Series drogue. It gets a bit tedious after a while.
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He is not going to tell you anything.
He has already told you on another thread and proved his point.
He is not going to repeat it again you will be relieved to learn.
For everybody else, they can find out for themselves, the easy way or the hard way.
 
KellysEye said:
- You can run off towing drogues if you have them or a weighted very long loop of rope. Tie the rope to the cleats and tighten with the winches to spread the load. Prepare this well before the weather arrives and deploy before the conditions make it impossible. Bear in mind running off you must be a long way offshore.
- Its always better to keep sailing offwind or broad reaching but not beam reaching. A big sea can roll you when beam reaching. We chose to broad reach it reduces the apparent wind.
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That is consistent with everything I have ever read or heard. Trying to beat into a storm sounds crazy to me. You can't get anywhere close to the eye of the wind under storm sails, so you will be more or less beam on to the weather and very vulnerable to being rolled. And any VMG to windward you do manage to make will merely intensify the storm.

I would run off as recommended by the Pardies and others. It is amazing how a howling gale which seems to stress your boat and crew to the max on a beat, turns into a pleasant ride, when you turn downwind in harsh conditions.

If you start to speed out of control and threaten to broach, then start trailing stuff. Ideally, a Jordan Series Drogue.

If even that gets tough, then heave to.

If you can't heave to, batten down the hatches, lie ahull, and pray.

As far as I know, that's the textbook sequence of tactics, and I don't have any reason to argue with it.

A big caveat is that my knowledge of what to do in a storm is purely of the armchair type. I've been in a F9 off Portland Bill with gusts over 50 and 9-ish metre waves, but these were not storm conditions on our boat -- running at 13 knots with a scrap of headsail out, surfing, listening to Mahler, and enjoying the ride. I don't think I even clipped on. Our speed reduced the apparent wind to an unthreatening 35-ish. We got green water in the cockpit once when a wave broke over us, before we turned downwind, but otherwise no drama.

Attempting to beat into that, however, would have been unimaginable.
 
Dockhead said:
That is consistent with everything I have ever read or heard. Trying to beat into a storm sounds crazy to me. You can't get anywhere close to the eye of the wind under storm sails, so you will be more or less beam on to the weather and very vulnerable to being rolled. And any VMG to windward you do manage to make will merely intensify the storm.

I would run off as recommended by the Pardies and others. It is amazing how a howling gale which seems to stress your boat and crew to the max on a beat, turns into a pleasant ride, when you turn downwind in harsh conditions.

If you start to speed out of control and threaten to broach, then start trailing stuff. Ideally, a Jordan Series Drogue.

If even that gets tough, then heave to.

If you can't heave to, batten down the hatches, lie ahull, and pray.

As far as I know, that's the textbook sequence of tactics, and I don't have any reason to argue with it.

A big caveat is that my knowledge of what to do in a storm is purely of the armchair type. I've been in a F9 off Portland Bill with gusts over 50 and 9-ish metre waves, but these were not storm conditions on our boat -- running at 13 knots with a scrap of headsail out, surfing, listening to Mahler, and enjoying the ride. I don't think I even clipped on. Our speed reduced the apparent wind to an unthreatening 35-ish. We got green water in the cockpit once when a wave broke over us, before we turned downwind, but otherwise no drama.

Attempting to beat into that, however, would have been unimaginable.
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I agree with you.
Interesting post you have made, and it introduces a dimension I had not spotted before now in this thread, which is the "proposal" / "idea" of beating into a storm.
I presume the idea is to beat into the centre of the storm (where theoretically the sea might be calmer and the wind less).
That might be a workable idea if it were practically possible.
But even if it were practically possible then there is the rest of the action to arrive (unless it is a line squall and not a real storm, since real storms are caused byvery deep depressions moving across quickly). So I don't quite understand what benefit there would be in trying to do this except delay the inevitable arrival of the second leg.:eek:
Surely as a matter of practical choice one would seek to get it over with quickly rather than seek out a double whammy ?
For this reason running with it is the practical and sensible option to allow it to pass over, (because invariably the storm advances at a faster rate than the speed of the boat through the water so as not to stress the boat, and so as not to seek complications that can be avoided.
The main consideration ought to be to maintain directional stability above all else, because if directional stability is lost, then broaching becomes a very real risk, and to be avoided at all costs.
 
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Conachair said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWJxVNq0N5E&feature=player_embedded

And plenty more - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWJxVNq0N5E&feature=player_embedded

There's someone who knows what big seas are like.

In a little boat.
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Conachair, we concede it is a little boat.

And indeed it is bumping about, yes indeed.

But these are not big seas. Nope.

They are normal seas for a F5 bottom F6 in the ocean.

A big sea is something completely different, with huge swells and massive overhanging crests and if accompanied by winds above an 8 then spray everywhere going across like bullets with repeated cracking sounds additionally if accompanied by heavy rain. When you experience a big sea you have experienced it and not before.

There is an additional video in which he describes the difficulty of retreiving his Jordan Series Drogue after a hooley. He succeeds in reteiving it over an hour struggling with it and complains of the effort in doing so, and talks about his hands cut to shreds.

I am not going to discuss this again. I have already done so in detail in another thread.

The requirement is for the provision of directional stability and ease of reteival.

The drogue he uses slows down a boat but does not satisfy the requirements I mention in my previous sentence, nor does it succeed in keeping the stern down, which is a critical component to effectively maintaining directional stability in large following seas as I describe above.
 
Conachair said:
Please don't, it just kills the thread.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mingming-Ar...3519/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1316816891&sr=8-1

Have a read, this is someone who knows big seas.
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I disagree with you.
When I ventilated the subject properly and proved my point despite persistent pointless argument the thread had nearly 10,000 views.
What I mean is I am not prepared to make the EFFORT to explain all of the principles (proven and adopted by the Australian Coastguard) all over again, thank you very much Conachair.
 
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