Masthead floats at sea: obvious benefit, or deadly mistake?

[mjcoon]

Surprised nobody's invented something resembling an automatic lifejacket which would be packed tightly at the top of the mast [no windage, minimal weight]. If inversion occurs, automatic inflation occurs after a short interval.
Is this a market opportunity, after all, most sailors are gullible enough to buy any new piece of kit?
Almost as bad as golfers.

Or the device that was on Dragons' Den which was meant to fetch your key-ring up from the bottom of the harbour. Might need a bigger version, perhaps...

Mike.

 

[Heave2]

I learnt to sail assymetric dinghys at minorca sailing. check out the sailing fleet pics on minorcasailing.co.uk. No connection just a satisfied customer. They all had large floats/buoyancy bags sent up with the mainsail. They flop to leeward and have a negligible effect on sailing performance but capsizes are a doddle with no inversion and much safer when learning to sail trapeze boats as much less risk of being dragged under the water. The only downside was the stick I got using one back home when I bought a Laser 4000 but I could sail for much longer when learning as did not have to spend ages and lots of effort recovering from inversions. On the other hand the large lump of iron under my current boat works even better.

 

[[23929]]

Or the device that was on Dragons' Den which was meant to fetch your key-ring up from the bottom of the harbour. Might need a bigger version, perhaps...

Mike.

Try taking an inflating life jacket 10 m down under water and pulling the toggle. I doubt the inflation pressure will overcome 10 m over water pressure. The thing would need to inflate at the water surface to stand a chance of working.

 

[DinghyMan]

Try taking an inflating life jacket 10 m down under water and pulling the toggle. I doubt the inflation pressure will overcome 10 m over water pressure. The thing would need to inflate at the water surface to stand a chance of working.

The mechanism is the same as fitted to a lot of surface marker buoys that us divers use - pull the toggle to fire a small co2 cart and off it goes.

Would work down to a depth where the ambient pressure was the same as the CO2 cart which is approx 80bar so if your masthead gets below 70m you are in trouble.....

 

[Whiskey Bravo]

Readily available: http://www.tridentuk.com/sailing/Wayfarer_Anti_Capsize_Cushions_And_Mast_Floats.html

There's another million I won't make. Must try dinghies again one day.

 

[Deleted member 36384]

There's another million I won't make. Must try dinghies again one day.

Just keep thinking, it only takes one idea put into practice .......

 

[Seajet]

Righting a dinghy from an inversion is not significantly more problematic than that of a normal 90' capsize. It's not really an issue.

There speaks the voice of inexperience !

Some boats monohuls let alone catamaran dinghies can decide to stay inverted, and it is more than slightly problematic to right them; drifting downwind upside down usually means contact between seabed and masthead, a snag if the masthead digs in.

This is about the time it would not be losing face to accept the help of a rescue boat to pull her up, otherwise it is going to be a struggle, I have known people say ' sod it ' and swim ashore to get the boat later.

I knew someone with a Laser ( or was it a Topper ? Long time ago but the result was the same ) who got it inverted, she didn't have the weight to pull it back up, when the mast stuck in the mud the boat rotated around it and unlocked, she lost the rig.

Dan, the 2 pint milk bottle is all that a ladylike boat like an Osprey requires, try holding down such a bottle in the bath, quite a force - some boats require much more, but it would be better for all concerned if one skipped the Plan B buoyancy and just built in demolition charges, U-Boat style.

I rather doubt an empty 2 pint plastic milk bottle has too much masthead weight stability effect, though of course racers would whinge about windage.

We used the extra external halliard and float to ' hoist down to the masthead ' years ago on the Scorpion and Osprey when racing in waves and strong winds.

There are a couple of 1960's Iroquios cat cruisers at my club with masthead buoyancy ( I have met other owners who have capsized these things in sheltered waters ), one filled up the ' flying saucer ' with radar reflectors, I suppose the weight isn't too great compared to the disc itself, but looking at that and the rudder linkages I'm afraid they don't appeal to me, if I found myself on one mid-Channel in a gale I think a bottle of scotch and a revolver might be more use than an almanac...

 

[Iain C]

Masthead floats...work of the devil, I tell you...

 

[[23929]]

The mechanism is the same as fitted to a lot of surface marker buoys that us divers use - pull the toggle to fire a small co2 cart and off it goes.

Would work down to a depth where the ambient pressure was the same as the CO2 cart which is approx 80bar so if your masthead gets below 70m you are in trouble.....

You've forgotten about the pressure, volume, temperature law

 

[TSB240]

We used the extra external halliard and float to ' hoist down to the masthead ' years ago on the Scorpion .

Is a burgee haliard strong enough ?

Cant remember when they went out of vogue in the Scorpion racing fleet. Most of us were using fixed masthead burgees 25 years ago and never had any other haliards other than a main haliard going to the mast head.

Most "capable" and experience dinghy sailors in virtually any class should be be more than able to recover from a full inversion without recourse to a masthead flotation device.

 

[Greenheart]

I knew someone with a Laser ( or was it a Topper ?) who got it inverted, she didn't have the weight to pull it back up, when the mast stuck in the mud the boat rotated around it and unlocked, she lost the rig...

Andy, you wicked fellow. You must have read about that here, on the forum, because it happened to ME! I was younger and more slender then, but I lost the Topper rig off Seaview, an awfully long time ago. Now that I'm planning on sailing a bigger dinghy, I'd been assuming the trouble of righting her would grow too...nice to hear that an Osprey isn't a real pain to bring up.

Here's an Iroquois...that certainly is a big piece of kit at the masthead...

View attachment 29494

 

[Seajet]

Well I'm obviously incapable, only sailed dinghies winter and summer from 1976 to about 1992, since then stuck to summers and fast cruisers.

As I don't like following rules and going around in circles, I tend to go ' fast cruising ' in racing dinghies, current one is an old Osprey though we have yet to get her going as the owner is a bit busy right now.

As we didn't / don't have a rescue boat on these jaunts I try to take precautions.

If you've never found certain types of ( monohull ) dinghy irrecoverable from an inversion - except after a loooong time and lots of effort - you haven't been out much.

 

[Seajet]

Andy, you wicked fellow. You must have read about that here, on the forum, because it happened to ME! I was younger and more slender then, but I lost the Topper rig off Seaview, an awfully long time ago. Now that I'm planning on sailing a bigger dinghy, I'd been assuming the trouble of righting her would grow too...nice to hear that an Osprey isn't a real pain to bring up.

Here's an Iroquois...that certainly is a big piece of kit at the masthead...

View attachment 29494

Dan,

I can assure you it wasn't you, SHE was much more attractive !

If righting an Osprey alone, especially offshore on a cruising trip - not really a great idea though we have cut down and reefable sails, will let you know how that goes - you'd need all the help you can get, it's a very surprisingly stable design for such a performer, but sods' law says you'd put her over in the worst spot.

A mk1 crumpet crew would be handy for all sorts of reasons, but if you mention ' chiefly ballast ' they seem to malfunction.

 

[yachtorion]

If you've never found certain types of ( monohull ) dinghy irrecoverable from an inversion - except after a loooong time and lots of effort - you haven't been out much.

+1

In ideal conditions, like a nice deep lake on a calm summer day on a level 2 course, where the centerboard has stayed down and you have easy access to an uncleated genoa sheet, and where you knew the capsize was coming and perhaps even manage to maneuver yourself on top of the hull before it inverts... righting an inverted dinghy not too bad mostly.

Add chop, or current, or wind, or a looser centerboard and an element of surprise, or a mast stuck in the mud.... it can get very difficult.

 

[prv]

I knew someone with a Laser ( or was it a Topper ? Long time ago but the result was the same ) who got it inverted, she didn't have the weight to pull it back up, when the mast stuck in the mud the boat rotated around it and unlocked, she lost the rig.

My grandad once told me about someone who did the opposite - mast in the mud, couldn't right it, ended up giving up and swimming ashore. As the tide went out the mast was forced deeper into the mud, until eventually it built up enough resistance to stop digging in, and instead the hull stayed where it was, supported above the water on a pole like some kind of vast navigation beacon.

Supposedly it did pull back out when the tide rose again, and the owner was waiting in a friend's motor launch to retrieve the dinghy and tow it home.

Pete

 

[Seajet]

Pete,

I'd have loved to have seen ( and photographed ) that; " which side do we pass, skipper ? " Errrr...

 

[TSB240]

I am still intrigued as to what external haliard you had on a Scorpion....


And how you are prepared to dive under an inverted hull

in a rough sea

to undo the haliard

and hoist your floation device to the mast head.

I would have thought it was more practical to tie it on at the top before you leave the safety of the dinghy park?

Now who am I to suggest that you are not capable of any of the above?

But there again I only sailed round in circles

Andy you are talking out of a place where the sun dont shine.....

 

[Greenheart]

...are you prepared to dive under an inverted hull in a rough sea to undo the haliard and hoist your floation device to the mast head?

I would have thought it was more practical to tie it on at the top before you leave the safety of the dinghy park?

Andy you are talking out of a place where the sun dont shine.....

I'm sure you're mistaken...the hoistable fender which needn't offend the eye or the aerodynamics of the upper mast, was my idea, wasn't it?

So if anyone's spouting nonsense, it's me! And the halyard needn't be tied off somewhere out of reach from the upturned hull...I suggested it could be led to a point just forward of the shrouds.

 

[TSB240]

We used the extra external halliard and float to ' hoist down to the masthead ' years ago on the Scorpion and Osprey when racing in waves and strong winds.

Dont think so Dan........

 

[Seajet]

I am still intrigued as to what external haliard you had on a Scorpion....


And how you are prepared to dive under an inverted hull

in a rough sea

to undo the haliard

and hoist your floation device to the mast head.

I would have thought it was more practical to tie it on at the top before you leave the safety of the dinghy park?

Now who am I to suggest that you are not capable of any of the above?

But there again I only sailed round in circles

Andy you are talking out of a place where the sun dont shine.....

TSB240,

it is you who are talking BS.

The float was on a separate dedicated external halliard, similar to a burgee halliard but stronger and running through a well fitted block, if you'd bothered reading previous posts.

in the late 1970's/ early to mid 1980's I sailed a Scorpion, when cruising or racing offshore I fitted a strong 4mm halliard running through a block rivetted to the masthead and depending on the time, place and race had a variety of floats to choose from , 2 pint milk bottle to old fender from my cruiser...

If one is fit enough to sail performance dinghies - which includes swimming out from under spinnakers and thinking nothing of it - one can certainly manage to be on a boat and pull a line to get the float in position to help, which is all there is to it.

If not swimming round, briefly diving under a boat at surface level to sort something or other out - say to put the centreboard down for the person on the other side - is completely standard for fast dinghy crews, what are you, some sort of a fairy ?!