Interesting report from the Marine Casualty Investigation Board - Ireland

[westernman]

Fair enough, its not something I know anything about at all. I was more responding to someone suggesting they could have set them whereas they dont appear to have had any, and looking at the video the boat looked completely out of control of any kind. Does heaving to cease to work at all once the winds get up to that sort of force? (i know thats not the best kind of boat for heaving to, but in one that was more amenable to it?

I'm looking at it wondering what I would do if my boat gets caught in similar kind of crap, and I'm thinking, jsd. ?

Do be honest I don't really know. I have never tried heaving to in a F11. I try to avoid getting into those situations!

The windiest conditions I have been out in have been a F9 and we had a fantastic sail downwind under stay sail only (which is a small sail compared to the normal downwind sail area of my boat). We averaged 8 knots and hit 9 knots on occasion. I.e. at the upper end of what is possible while staying under control.
That sail was very comfortable and well under control. The deck stayed dry. We were doing 5 knots under bare poles. I could only make forward progress towards the wind under full power in the short lulls. The last 500m out of the harbour took an hour.

If I had filed a passage plan for that trip, they would have called the police and locked me up for being insane!

I have heaved to when I got caught out in a F7 under full sail and the effect is magic. In those conditions the boat heeled only moderately and slipped sideways nicely through the water which had a magical effect of calming the oncoming chop. While the waves were short, steep and nasty, there were not the size these guys were seeing.

My guess is that although you can heave to in some pretty heavy conditions, there becomes a point where this is no longer viable. After all, heaving to, you are providing a little bit of forward motion with jib backed and main pulling a bit. This works well, well above conditions where you would have thought it would have laid the boat flat on its side. However, the sails are pulling (otherwise they would flog to bits). So there has to be a point where this is no longer possible.

I am thinking also laying bows to a sea anchor, also only works up to a point. At some point the windage on the rigging is going to drive you backwards too fast and the boat will turn and end up beam on to the seas. F11 is probably enough to lay a typical plastic cruising boat with no sails up almost onto its beam ends. I have seen such boats heeled over in our marina to 45 degrees during a storm.

I think the best survival strategy is to run off and tow enough junk behind the boat to keep the speed down.

I think with enough sea room (they had tons), this is the most comfortable way of dealing with this. If the boat can be made reasonably water tight (and most boats can be), i.e. all the hatches shut, wash boards in, companionway closed etc., the boat itself will survive. Best to put everything moveable some where where it can't move or is out of the way of the crew. E.g. in the bow cabin. The crew then need to hang on tight for the ride and try to avoid flying around the cabin. So may be a well padded stern cabin is the place to be. All wedged in together to avoid being thrown anywhere.

Terrifying!

 

[stranded]

The report is wrong about the notice of the storm. We were anchored off the Isles de Cies when we saw the windy forecast, remarkably accurately in both time and place - 5 days before it hit! Gave us plenty of time to pootle up to Muros to sit it out. The big shock to us was that Arc Portugal set off with that in the forecast - one incident alone that would preclude us ever considering joining a rally.

 

[RJJ]

Do be honest I don't really know. I have never tried heaving to in a F11. I try to avoid getting into those situations!

The windiest conditions I have been out in have been a F9 and we had a fantastic sail downwind under stay sail only (which is a small sail compared to the normal downwind sail area of my boat). We averaged 8 knots and hit 9 knots on occasion. I.e. at the upper end of what is possible while staying under control.
That sail was very comfortable and well under control. The deck stayed dry. We were doing 5 knots under bare poles. I could only make forward progress towards the wind under full power in the short lulls. The last 500m out of the harbour took an hour.

If I had filed a passage plan for that trip, they would have called the police and locked me up for being insane!

I have heaved to when I got caught out in a F7 under full sail and the effect is magic. In those conditions the boat heeled only moderately and slipped sideways nicely through the water which had a magical effect of calming the oncoming chop. While the waves were short, steep and nasty, there were not the size these guys were seeing.

My guess is that although you can heave to in some pretty heavy conditions, there becomes a point where this is no longer viable. After all, heaving to, you are providing a little bit of forward motion with jib backed and main pulling a bit. This works well, well above conditions where you would have thought it would have laid the boat flat on its side. However, the sails are pulling (otherwise they would flog to bits). So there has to be a point where this is no longer possible.

I am thinking also laying bows to a sea anchor, also only works up to a point. At some point the windage on the rigging is going to drive you backwards too fast and the boat will turn and end up beam on to the seas. F11 is probably enough to lay a typical plastic cruising boat with no sails up almost onto its beam ends. I have seen such boats heeled over in our marina to 45 degrees during a storm.

I think the best survival strategy is to run off and tow enough junk behind the boat to keep the speed down.

I think with enough sea room (they had tons), this is the most comfortable way of dealing with this. If the boat can be made reasonably water tight (and most boats can be), i.e. all the hatches shut, wash boards in, companionway closed etc., the boat itself will survive. Best to put everything moveable some where where it can't move or is out of the way of the crew. E.g. in the bow cabin. The crew then need to hang on tight for the ride and try to avoid flying around the cabin. So may be a well padded stern cabin is the place to be. All wedged in together to avoid being thrown anywhere.

Terrifying!

Agree with most of that. Not much has in fact changed since Adlard Coles' day, in my view.

Storm jib and heaving to when it's feasible and/or when you're short of sea-room. I think for most AWBs this is up to somewhere between 40 and 50 knots. Then run off.

I am never going to go bows-to a sea-anchor. I think you're highly vulnerable to the boat and anchor moving in-sync with a wave pattern and therefore surfing backwards, before catching (if not breaking) the rudder and spinning into a beam-on situation; also to enormous snatch loads if they go out-of-sync.

Running off - several warps, spare chain. Might even hoik the kedge over. It makes sense to me to try to pull the stern down, as well as aft, so that your luggage is in the slower-moving more stable water as well as beneficially pulling the stern downwards into breaking waves.

 

[RJJ]

These were issued on the departure day (valid Jun7th)
View attachment 110580
View attachment 110579

These could have been received while on passage, second and third day, both valid Jun7th
View attachment 110584

View attachment 110585

OK that's pretty compelling. Suggests the report was being rather polite to them...agreed?

 

[Laminar Flow]

The one thing I've heard of people doing successfully is trailing warps with bare poles.
This was reported first-hand by someone caught out in the southern ocean, and was also in a RNJ video I watched the other day on youtube

Thankfully, I've never personally had to try it in anger.

I've tried warps, in bights: useless. Add a tire or two, now we are talking. Cheap and cheerful, negative buoyancy and survived being dragged along in a F10 a lot better than a heavy duty drogue. Two tires reduced the bare pole speed of a 30t cutter from 6.5 to 2kts.
Edit: this was in a F10 gusting 60+

 

[SimonKNZ]

Did the 39 become the 40 (eg same hull?) looks very similar to Patrick Laine’s vessel.

It's slightly obscure but I understand they went from the German measurement system (to rudder post) to the normal one (LOA), so the numbers changed - eg the 2004 38 is longer LOA than a 2006 39. From the photos in the report, looking at the in-hull windows this is a 2006-ish 39 Cruiser. It also has "39" on the mainsail! It's interesting when you see small incorrect details like this, and the beam being shown as 3m when it is 4m, you wonder what else in the report is wrong.

 

[doug748]

OK that's pretty compelling. Suggests the report was being rather polite to them...agreed?

In view of those NOAA charts, It would be really interesting to know what Windy was showing on the 3rd.

It is a hell of a trip to undertake without monitoring any weather forecasts. Having said that, if they had been checking the UK Shipping Forecast on the Navtex, the only prior notice they would have had was the midday Shipping Forecast on the 5th - Gale force 8 later in Fitzroy. ( With an overnight gale warning.)
At that point they could probably have diverted towards the west French coast and been safe, but even so, a strong crew might have felt they could carry on.

.

 

[Laminar Flow]

Heaving to is only feasible up to a certain point. It bears to remember that a boat can capsize in a breaking sea of about 30% of it's length i.e. 3m for a 30 footer, 4m for a 40 footer. This would coincide with RCD parametres.
I have hove to in a 43' heavy displacement, long keel ketch in a F10 under try sail, not something I would like to try again, as you lay awake at night with the seas breaking over the boat.
Any suggestion of being able to make progress, to weather in anything over a F8 in the open sea is nonsense and even in a F8 is rather questionable for most types of boat we are talking about.

 

[Roberto]

updating

 

[steve yates]

I've tried warps, in bights: useless. Add a tire or two, now we are talking. Cheap and cheerful, negative buoyancy and survived being dragged along in a F10 a lot better than a heavy duty drogue. Two tires reduced the bare pole speed of a 30t cutter from 6.5 to 2kts.
Edit: this was in a F10 gusting 60+

How did you attach the tires to the warps? And how much warp did you pay out?

 

[Laminar Flow]

How did you attach the tires to the warps? And how much warp did you pay out?

I carried 4 x 40m 24mm poly warps (for the Panama canal). I streamed one each side of the transom and joined them at the tires so they formed a bight with the tires making a connecting link. I used bowlines to tie the tires to the poly; the two tires (left overs from the french canals) I seized with a number of turns of 12mm braid.

 

[kof]

So my take on this is (and having done that passage many times).

- The crew broke before the boat (well the boat didn't break at all) and was recovered. So the boat was seaworthy enough to handle the conditions.
- if you take the offshore passage make sure you have storm sails. Other option is the route closer to the coast and keep an eye on the weather and dodge into a harbour well ahead of it.
- They had lots of sea room so maybe without storm sails, just batten down the hatches, lie on the cockpit floor and wait it out, or if they were up for it, drag warps behind and run off downwind. As I said, the crew (as is usual) broke first and probably just wanted off and I can understand that.
- The boat was recovered undamaged so survived just "lying ahull" with nobody attending.

The report (as is usual with the stuff from the MCIB) is laughable - "These conditions were beyond the yachts design capacity as a category ‘B’ offshore vessel. " yet the boat come through undamaged, was found, boarded, engine started and continued on it's trip.

I'm surprised the keel didn't fall off!

Actually as the owner of an identical yacht (Bavaria 39 Cruiser) the fact they reboarded several days later, pumped out the bilge, started the engine and made passage home is very nice reading

 

[doug748]

For me the nub of the question is:

Were they wise to set off on that passage with a force 7 gale forecast and timed to arrive as you close the Spanish coast?

This is not a pejorative point, you could either take the attitude:


1) I have a good crew and boat, force 7 is not a problem, off we go.

or

2) No way Pablo, we will let it pass through and set off later.

What would you do? Serious question.

.

 

[JumbleDuck]

- The crew broke before the boat (well the boat didn't break at all) and was recovered. So the boat was seaworthy enough to handle the conditions.
[...]
- The boat was recovered undamaged so survived just "lying ahull" with nobody attending.

Both true-ish (the boat had a lot of water in it) but only with the wisdom of hindsight. If they thought that conditions were such that the boat was at imminent risk they were quite right to call for help rather than hang on and find out whether they were right or not.

 

[Roberto]

2) No way Pablo, we will let it pass through and set off later.

What would you do? Serious question.

No way I would leave with weather charts like the ones above.
This chart (also available on the 3rd, not by fax though) puts a big question mark on likely rapid deep cyclogenesis, models may or may not indicate it but it is a distinct risk (and on this occasion happened indeed)

I cannot find the forecast made on 3rd valid 7th, this is the analysis for Jun7th and most likely not very different from it.



Re "not looking at onboard navtex", that means accepting a significant reduction in available weather information: in that area Navtex provides three different bulletins originated from three different weather primary sources, one can receive the Met Office bulletin, Meteo France bulletin, and Spanish AeMet bulletin; they cover +48 hours, the MetOffice and the Spanish providing "extended outlooks" up to a few days forward. I think neglecting these rich pieces of weather information which were actually available onboard is taking very unnecessary risks.

BTW I managed to find the GFS gribs at the time, I'll post when I have a sec

 

[Achosenman]

We a similar sized Jeanneau and have drogue ready to be trailed aft if we ever were caught out in anything that extreme. My judgement which may be argued against is that as our sails including the rolling jib have coped with 65 knots heavily reefed we don’t have storm sails as we couldnt go upwind against the kind of waves prolonged 50 knot plus winds would make so would be bare poles and then if needed a drogue to reduce the amount of time beam onto the waves and slow us down.

Hope it never happens but as my wife asked me last weekend to “just for fun” plot out a route from Panama to Australia, I want to be reasonably ready.

I agree with you about Jeanneau boats. I did a professional sail training course on Jeanneau's and Bennetau's, at the 40ft size. F7 gusting F8 was a normal day for at least 50% of the time. It became strange sailing without reef 3 in.

The Jeanneau's were our courses favourite boats for passage making. They were dry, felt safe and were kind to us. The First '40 fleet was wet, a hard ride and needed lots of constant work from the crew. A very tiring experience and it got old fast.

 

[Roberto]

BTW I managed to find the GFS gribs at the time, I'll post when I have a sec

These are some GFS grib screenshots, the archives are cumbersome as they are huge individual files covering the whole world, one file for each forecast horizon up to 384 hours, for of each of the four daily runs: for example there is one file covering the whole world for the GFS forecast made with the 0600 run on Jun3rd valid t+96hours... one has to open each file, it's all black as it shows the whole world covered with arrows, find the area and zoom in, screen copy etc etc.
Anyway, here are a few: dates on the bottom show the date the forecast was made and available Jun 3rd (0000 and 1200 runs), dates top left show forecast valid times on 7th.

 

[dom]

Good research Roberto

I’d happily depart in a F7 with a forecast of patches gusting F8/9.

That was clearly a fully-formed big baby with the possibility of turning jumbo. Would have visited the museums instead!

My guess is they didn’t see the forecast - crazy if they did given their boat/experience.

 

[Frogmogman]

The big shock to us was that Arc Portugal set off with that in the forecast - one incident alone that would preclude us ever considering joining a rally.

Of course, as Skipper, as a member of a rally you are not obliged to set off when the organizers say, if you have those concerns. The safety of your boat and your crew are your responsibility.

I well remember back in about 1985, a couple of us persuading our skipper that we didn't have to participate in a channel race due to leave Cowes on a Friday evening, when there was a force 7 forecast. He agreed, so we decided to spend the weekend in the sheltered waters of the Solent, participating in a couple of Solent points races.

On the Saturday, we lost the mast just off the brambles bank......

 

[kof]

Agreed and that's why I'll never sit in my armchair and judge the actions of another skipper. They made the decision they thought was correct and who am I to judge from my comfy armchair.

Good news is the boat was solid - yes some water but the fact that the batteries kicked in and the engine started means it wasn't that bad (maybe left the companionway open?).

If it was mine I would invest in storm gear such as sails and warps if my plans were to do more passages like that.

Both true-ish (the boat had a lot of water in it) but only with the wisdom of hindsight. If they thought that conditions were such that the boat was at imminent risk they were quite right to call for help rather than hang on and find out whether they were right or not.