Sheltered Water and settled weather.

[BurnitBlue]

This is really an offshoot of the Mac 26 thread.

In my experience there is no safety in sheltered water per se. In fact in many circumstances quite the opposite is true. It is not a false sense of security. It is a total myth.

And settled weather is only a valid observation in hind-sight. Usually the next morning.

How many of us have said at the end of a great day."Wow, that was a great sail in great weather". Yet how many would dare to say at the start of the day."OK chaps, we are going to have a great sail in great weather". The weather Gods would laugh. I remember one racing skipper that actually turned back to the dock before the race so he could throw a crew member off his yacht for saying a similar thing.

Together these two statements are, in my opinion, the reason there are actually more accidents in these conditions than there are in the open sea.

I recall a few occasions in anchorages that are completely landlocked and sheltered. I have had to motor to get inside them because of flat calm settled weather. Then at two in the morning all hell breaks loose and boats end up on the beach.

Writers of pilot books that state that such and such an anchorage is OK in settled weather are crazy. Settled weather is only determined the next morning after the event.

Therefore manufacturers that state that their boats are safe in sheltered waters (or settled weather) make me laugh.

Just my opinion over the years.

 

[KristiferColumbus]

This is really an offshoot of the Mac 26 thread.

In my experience there is no safety in sheltered water per se. In fact in many circumstances quite the opposite is true. It is not a false sense of security. It is a total myth.

And settled weather is only a valid observation in hind-sight. Usually the next morning.

How many of us have said at the end of a great day."Wow, that was a great sail in great weather". Yet how many would dare to say at the start of the day."OK chaps, we are going to have a great sail in great weather". The weather Gods would laugh. I remember one racing skipper that actually turned back to the dock before the race so he could throw a crew member off his yacht for saying a similar thing.

Together these two statements are, in my opinion, the reason there are actually more accidents in these conditions than there are in the open sea.

I recall a few occasions in anchorages that are completely landlocked and sheltered. I have had to motor to get inside them because of flat calm settled weather. Then at two in the morning all hell breaks loose and boats end up on the beach.

Writers of pilot books that state that such and such an anchorage is OK in settled weather are crazy. Settled weather is only determined the next morning after the event.

Therefore manufacturers that state that their boats are safe in sheltered waters (or settled weather) make me laugh.

Just my opinion over the years.

I have certainly nearly lost my life in the most benign of conditions & that was in a rowing boat!
If we could rule out all danger I wonder how many of us would still get the same buzz from sailing?

 

[glashen]

You may be right that some do have a misapprehension of these terms, but you do have to take the likely conditions into account, you are presumably not saying that you must always expect a gale to blow up from nowhere within 24 hours. I feel you should take decisions relating to the current conditions and the likely worst that can be expected. Generally boats can take worse conditions than their crews want to put up with so if you are sensible there is a safety margin.

There have been notable tragedies where crews should have been fully aware of the likely conditions but set sail anyway.

Finding the conditions worse than you hope is surely one of the lessons most sailors learn to cope through. But for most of us it isn't so much worse that it ends in disaster.