Trimarans tipping over like skittles.

flaming said:
Probably worth waiting for the skippers to give considered statements, but the 2 we have "first reactions" from don't quite fit the narrative that conditions were "normal".

First night spills….

So that's one that snapped a float and then pitchpoled whilst sailing upwind through the Alderny race.

And 1 that thinks the gust that flipped them was in the 40s. Which is a huge gust on a general 22-25 knot breeze.
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You are of course correct.
Do we all wait before offering comment or just me?
 
Mark-1 said:
I saw a load of 10yo kids having a great sail outside Yarmouth in exactly the same wind conditions in RS Teras. (Not 3m waves, obvs.)

So I'm going to say these boats are sub optimal for Ocean crossings and their crews appear to using the Rescue Services as Race Rescue Cover. If you're going to sail something that's 50ft long but capsizes like a Dart 18 then you should really have your own independent rescue cover sorted IMHO.

I'd still like a go in one.
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I've not managed to capsize my Dart 18 yet (touches wood), so apparently they are a lot safer than the Ocean 50s. ;-)
 
Blue Seas said:
You are of course correct.
Do we all wait before offering comment or just me?
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Oh comments are fine. You're not necessarily wrong that this is a worrying capsize rate... In fact, you're probably right... What I was really more "picking you up on" was the reference to them all coming in "just 4 hours" - the point being that this is when you'd expect failures.
 
flaming said:
Probably worth waiting for the skippers to give considered statements, but the 2 we have "first reactions" from don't quite fit the narrative that conditions were "normal".

First night spills….

So that's one that snapped a float and then pitchpoled whilst sailing upwind through the Alderny race.

And 1 that thinks the gust that flipped them was in the 40s. Which is a huge gust on a general 22-25 knot breeze.
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I saw several 35kt gusts in Southampton Water yesterday. Given that, I'm pretty sure someone around there will have seen a 40kt gust. Plenty of families out sailing. 0 CG rescues. (I checked BrambleMet but it's knackered.)

I appreciate the water stands up alarmingly in the LR channel (I have my own horror stories) but boats and crews expected to cross the Atlantic as their primary task ought to be able to shrug that off. And if we're going to say the problems are all in the first days this side of the Atlantic then just delay the start to local conditions the boats can handle. And if the start can't be delayed and suitable boats can't be constructed then have race provided vessels to deal with the inevitable capsizes.

Unless, of course they do a deal with the rescue guys to provide rescue cover, in which case good luck to them. Or maybe the rescue guys like doing it for the practice. Again fine.

At the moment it appears that ocean going professional boats are requiring dinghy levels of rescue cover from emergency services in wind that families in Centaurs are going to Cowes for lunch in. And yes the seas state will be off the scale different to the Solent but the boats, crew and rescue cover ought to be off the scale different too!
 
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flaming said:
I wonder if a C32 could actually get far enough ahead that the teams wouldn't have time to rebuild their capsized 50 foot tris, retake the start and still pass the C32 before the finish....
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If the repairs are done in the UK or Europe the C32 will have finished before the Risk Assement, Tax and HR forms have been completed to begin the rebuild of a Tri. :(

...and "Outside Assistance."
 
Isn't the issue of them burying their nose in the back of a wave as they hurtle off the one behind it due to their speed. Something I wondered about when looking at Dragonfly tris when they came up in a thread.
 
AllWinds said:
I've not managed to capsize my Dart 18 yet (touches wood), so apparently they are a lot safer than the Ocean 50s. ;-)
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I've sailed Dart 18s and Prindle 18s a little bit and I remember being very careful never to capzize (one exception IIRC) for fear of the effort of getting it back upright. In the opposite way, once I got a got a bilge keeler I started to go aground a lot. :D
 
flaming said:
Oh comments are fine. You're not necessarily wrong that this is a worrying capsize rate... In fact, you're probably right... What I was really more "picking you up on" was the reference to them all coming in "just 4 hours" - the point being that this is when you'd expect failures.
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Hey, there is plenty of time left for the rest to be flipped over.
 
flaming said:
whilst sailing upwind through the Alderny race.
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Probably an important point. It’s silly to keep quoting wind speeds as if they were benign if they were sailing with the tide through there. A 20kt wind could easily become a 28kt apparent wind and when boat speed is added it’s well into the 30s or 40s, possibly 50s with the speed these things go.
 
lustyd said:
Probably an important point. It’s silly to keep quoting wind speeds as if they were benign if they were sailing with the tide through there. A 20kt wind could easily become a 28kt apparent wind and when boat speed is added it’s well into the 30s or 40s, possibly 50s with the speed these things go.
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If they're holding to the accepted conventions in racing, true wind is the measure that includes tidally induced wind. I cannot imagine that sailors of craft such as this would use ground wind for anything to be honest.
 
flaming said:
If they're holding to the accepted conventions in racing, true wind is the measure that includes tidally induced wind. I cannot imagine that sailors of craft such as this would use ground wind for anything to be honest.
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Oh I thought it was forumites/reported quoting wind speeds sorry
 
These tri's crossing oceans does currently seem a bit like formula 1 cars doing the Paris-Dakar - but then the extreme vehicles created for that event did feed their tech down the food chain.
 
potentillaCO32 said:
Three 50ft trimarans capsize in first night of Transat race: all skippers rescued - Yachting World

It looks like trimarans in the transat race have been blown over in a blow. Are these things really safe?
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And presumably Formula 1 racing should be moved to VW Golf hatchbacks as surely F1 isn't safe ?

There are lots of ways to race old slow boats (though the Golden Globe Race had one of the highest rates of knockdowns and total boat losses).

Wait till you see the Ultims - they make these 50 footers look sedate. 100 foot long and fully foiling, going upwind last night at 27 knots over the waves.
Oh and an Ultim has flown (literally) around the world singlehanded - imagine doing 30-45 knots on foils in the Southern Ocean whilst (trying to be) asleep.
 
dunedin said:
And presumably Formula 1 racing should be moved to VW Golf hatchbacks as surely F1 isn't safe ?

There are lots of ways to race old slow boats (though the Golden Globe Race had one of the highest rates of knockdowns and total boat losses).

Wait till you see the Ultims - they make these 50 footers look sedate. 100 foot long and fully foiling, going upwind last night at 27 knots over the waves.
Oh and an Ultim has flown (literally) around the world singlehanded - imagine doing 30-45 knots on foils in the Southern Ocean whilst (trying to be) asleep.
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Nothing against super fast racing boats at all and fully believe in the trickle down effect from racing. As people seem to be ignoring, the super fast other 3 classes in the same race have not had to be rescued by the authorities.
Neither do most competitors in superfast tiny little scow bowed 6,50s in equal conditions.
 
At that level of racing, if you don't break something once in a while, you're not trying hard enough. Same as Formula 1 cars and WRC. I know La Hague pretty well, and it gets bloody windy, with strong gusts, and that's just ashore. ISTM that regular 3m waves mean you're going to get the odd one of 5m+. Stuff even a 50' multi deep into one of those at 30 knots, and it's never going to end well.
 
potentillaCO32 said:
Nothing against super fast racing boats at all and fully believe in the trickle down effect from racing. As people seem to be ignoring, the super fast other 3 classes in the same race have not had to be rescued by the authorities.
Neither do most competitors in superfast tiny little scow bowed 6,50s in equal conditions.
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The 50s started on a different day so were not in the same conditions - and the 40s have had a mandatory stop over in Spain imposed to avoid the bad weather coming through. The 50s were trying to go fast to get ahead of the weather, but clearly that has risks

But there is also a world of a difference in performance between these superlight trimarans and the Class 40 and Mini 6.5s
 
When I first started sailing, I didn't like the boat heeling much, it worried me it was going to capsize, and I thought perhaps I would be better with a cat or a tri.

But now I am generally happy that a heeling monohull is not about to capsize and you can judge how hard pressed you are by the heel and adjust the sail plan as necessary and generally if you are knocked down it will come back up again. Compare that to a multihull where it appears all seems well, until it suddenly isn't and you are upside down with no chance of righting.
 
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