Storm Ciaran

Also a hurricane winds need to be sustained at the speed or above, the fishy event was only gusting above those speeds.
 
dunedin said:
Having had to rescue a number of other peoples genoas in gales, my thinking is slightly differnt.
1) Furl the entire sail as tightly as possible from the first turn - stop 2 or 3 times when furling, cleat the sheet, and pull furling rope as tight as physically possible, then continue.
2) Ensure three tight turns of the sheets round the sail - then tighten these as much as possible - I sometimes winch gently. (Never leave any clew out, and certainly never leave the sheets dangling loose).
3) Rather than putting on a sail tie or wrapping a halyards round (unnecessary if done 1 tightly enough) take a short piece of strong rope and tie the furling drum so that it cannot loosen if the main furling rope slips or breaks.
The last is important as the reef line failing was the reason for two of the jibs coming free and ripping that I have seen.

Hope none of our boats get damaged in this storm.
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Although the tight wrap and fastening are necessary, a wrap with the spinnaker halyard can't do any harm and should there be any weak stitching on the sail's leech it might forestall disaster.
 
With such a tight centre. The precise track becomes critical. Computer models have a built in smoothing of around 5 grid lengths; the effective resolution of the ECMWF and UK models is about 50 km. wind strengths will vary greatly from place to place being dictated my local topography and buildings. There will be places with extremely strong winds and others much less.

The big change from 1987 is the ability to warn days ahead of an extreme event. The precision that we would like, even in the short term, will be a long time coming - if ever. Limits on predictability are set by the inherently chaotic nature of the atmosphere. It is highly unlikely that observing systems will ever be good enough to measure local variability.
 
Just looked at Méteo France and Brest is looking at 150kph. We, bit further south, 100kph. Quite enuf thankyou! Actually very quiet at the mo.
 
oldharry said:
, make sure it is tightly furled so the wind cannot pluck at a loose fold
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This is the biggest cause of shredded head sails. Its actually much rarer for them to unfurl.
Last winter in one storm i could see 5 flapping headsails around the harbour and the sustained strong winds caused two of them to be dismasted.
 
johnalison said:
Although the tight wrap and fastening are necessary, a wrap with the spinnaker halyard can't do any harm and should there be any weak stitching on the sail's leech it might forestall disaster.
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Each to their own choices, but IMHO the halyard is bound to move around in a severe storm and more likely to cause damage to the stitching
 
Went down yesterday to remove canvas but didn't remove genoa or mainsail as boatyard launch turned up to take boat ashore(was due to come out on Thursday but I assumed they would cancel) . I did tighten the genoa though.
Felixstowe Port closed and all Quayside cranes had Storm ties fitted.
 
We had a bit of a breeze and rain at about five pm, when heading for the Blue close hauled. By the time we came out it was just rain.
Quiet here now, maybe 20-25kts. 11pm, on the Lizard. Seven stones lightship has given up for the moment.
 
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