What would you do?

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I have read many articles about how the shock to the forestay can snap or weaken it.

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I can't say I have ever noticed such an article, nor can I envisage such an outcome. I would endorse the downwind under genoa only as a safe, wind angle tolerant, easily controllable solution, especially with a novice crew.
4 boat lengths away when he tacked? Kind of makes it more of his problem.
 
Yes i do use a storm jib but not of the forestay. I rig a second saty further aft. I find it better. but it was not worth it in this day.

No excuse about staying outside the traffic lane...I always do it. If i a out of their way in shallow water...they can't hit me. I use this in blind nav a lot.

There was plenty of space for me and i was about 10 meters away form the buoy with the tide directy behind me. On a straight course this causes no problems as the tide will not take me onto the buoy. But any turn to port would put me in danger...

You seem to forget that from sitting down sailing alone with no traffic around that we needed to avoid...to a boat tacking and having about 30 seconds to avoid....it all took place very quickly.

If i were to sail for every possible event i would never go within 100 meters of any buoy. to me 10 meters is not shaving past a buoy.
 
Is there a good reason for not using a turning block forward and leading the preventer to a cleat aft so that in an emergency you can release frm the cockpit so as to restore manouverability. I always used this system, never much fun going forward on a boat rolling away downhill

No matter how you spin the argument you were give way vessel and had put yourself in a position where you could'nt.

Cannot see any blame attaching to the racing boat he was stand on and stood on until such a point that only he could avoid a collision and duly avoided it.

Faultless in my book.

Don't wear the argument for not going on channel side of buoy - totally unconvincing, you only needed to be a few yards on the other side to allow him room to tack - nothing in regs to say you cannot do that. Certainly a better option than a collision.

Less than convinced about use of genoa come to that, not usually that rough off Netley I would have thought, although I can see point in training people to steer downwind under main.

What would I have done - gone to the other side of the buoy - at worst he would only have had to delay his tack for a moment or two.

Just a passing though - If he is a racing boat with a professioal looking crew and expensive sails close hauled and you are on a run or very close to a run with only the main up held by a preventer with an inexperienced man on the helm -

Are you absolutely certain that it was him who kept changing course and not you

As an after-after though should there be some nautical version of an L plate so people can give a bit of leeway to boats used in teaching people to sail?
 
[ QUOTE ]

Yes i do use a storm jib but not of the forestay. I rig a second saty further aft. I find it better. but it was not worth it in this day.


[/ QUOTE ]

I wasn't suggesting that you should have used a storm jib, merely questioning how it could be a recognised safe tactic to use one downwind in a survival gale if there was a risk of breaking a forestay under headsail alone, as you apparently believe there is. In simple terms, I don't believe there is any risk to the rig in using a headsail alone in heavy weather and indeed we have so done many times on many boats as well as used genoa + mizzen on a ketch.

[ QUOTE ]
If i were to sail for every possible event i would never go within 100 meters of any buoy. to me 10 meters is not shaving past a buoy.

[/ QUOTE ]

With beginners on the helm, a lumpy sea a fast running tide and a preventer rigged that cannot quickly be released I would say 10m off a big green buoy IS shaving it!
 
in the situation you found yourself i dont think you could have done any different.as a learning experience for your students - brilliant. you cannot teach these situations in a classroom and your students will have learned a lot. in hindsight avoiding the situation is the most important and with a buoy coming up and racing boats tacking up to it i would keep well out of the way.
thank you for bringing up the situation always brings out the best in forumites.
anyone know why the colregs make the windward boat the giveway. ive always felt that the leward boat has the greater ability to manoevre
 
[ QUOTE ]

As an after-after though should there be some nautical version of an L plate so people can give a bit of leeway to boats used in teaching people to sail?

[/ QUOTE ]

It's called having the whole crew in lifejackets in a flat calm! Either that or the only person in "decent" foul weather gear is hanging onto the backstay! Dead giveaway!
 
[ QUOTE ]
Benefit of hindsight here but if the preventer removes the option of gybeing then your only option is to luff up. In that situation don't pass close to leeward of bouys and other obstructions as this reduces your options to zero.

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Agree. And am grateful to the person who rigged my boat. She has port and starboard spinnaker pole downhauls running from the cockpit to blocks on the foredeck. Each is long enough to double up as a preventer, and is easily released from the cockpit. Before I acquired this setup, I never felt comfortable with a preventer rigged.
 
OK... you asked "what would you do?"

Assuming that going the other side of the buoy would not have put you in any danger.... i.e. Hovercraft or Fast Cat or big ship nowhere near, (relatively), and doing so would have taken all of the heat out of the situation, I would have gone the other side of the buoy.

It seems that the only thing which stopped you doing this was your principle... and sometimes, we have to do the opposite of what either our training, or principles suggests. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Having said that... if he tacked 4 or 5 boat lenghts away from you, (50 yards or so), thus creating a collision situation, and a collision within a minute or so if avoiding action isnt taken, then he is clearly in the wrong in the first instant. I'm not sure why, but I'm sure someone will know which rule applies.

Seems to me that, both before and after his tack, he was the stand on vessel... so firstly he shouldnt have tacked, and secondly he should have maintained his course and speed after the tack.... So shouting at you was well out of order.

After he had tacked, whether he was right or wrong, I would have gone the other side of the buoy.
 
Hi. i think you should have anticipated , and either tacked and then gybed, thus losing ground and allowing the racing boat to pass safely in front. I take my hat off to instructors, who often do several tasks , navigating, cooking the evening meal, unblocking the heads, ? almost simultaneously. Perhaps if you thought it could be wavy you should have brought a pal you could rely on to act as mate.
Race committees are asked not to use navigation bouys as marks of the course, I know.
I suppose some of these yellow racing marks have been lifted as it's nearly the end of the season.
 
[ QUOTE ]
anyone know why the colregs make the windward boat the giveway. ive always felt that the leward boat has the greater ability to manoevre


[/ QUOTE ]

I have always assumed this came from days of less efficient rigs and sailing in the lee of another boat meant significant loss of motive power and hence ability to make steerage way.
 
Dead simple,

When he started to force the issue by not standing on, pull out the trusty 12 bore and blow his genoa to hell.
Then arm the crew with cutlasses, board him and ask if he still wants to argue the toss.......

If only.......

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Sam101 - Many thanks for sharing this with us. Stories/experiences like this, are all good learning material. For us. For everyone. For me. There for the Grace of God go I. I've been sailing all my life, and I'm learning all the time. Many thanks.
Best wishes
 
Surely, if you had a preventer rigged, it would be best to have it led through a block forward and then the tail back to the cockpit. It can then be let off at the cockpit instantaneously and the boat gybed ][as long as the crew duck as the rope comes across!]
I keep a line rigged along the underside of the boom with a snap shackle at the gooseneck end, normally held onto a fitting on the boom. I can then undo that and attach it instead to the line I am going to use as a preventer, that way I don't have to reach to the outer end of the boom when I need the preventer
 
We use an old spinnaker sheet, with snap shackle at one end and a bight tied in the rope approximately a metre back from the shackle. Rigging just involves pinning the boom in momentarily whilst the shackle is thrown around the end and clipped into the bight. The line runs out board to the centre fairlead, or bow cleats (depending on wind strength) and back to the spinnaker winch on the coach roof. The whole thing can be dumped easily and will adjust to allow a controlled gybe without risk of hanging crew.
 
I have some sympathy with your situation. I once posted for a nasty situation I got myself into, and, if I am honest, was looking for peeps to tell me how clever I had been. I was, however, rudely awakened by a number of posts making me feel a complete twit - really cos I hadnt quite painted the situation as it felt at the time, not being a literate soul.

However, I think you were dead wrong to not have your preventer rigged back to the cockpit, for immediate release. That is how a preventer is meant to be rigged, cos the whole point is that it takes care of an involuntary gybe, and nobody wants to go forward on deck to loosen the preventer.

That you were an instructor, showing 'how it is done', simply serves to exacerbate the situation.

The racing yacht is not meeting you under racing rules, as these determine how boats racing behave to one another, so he should have held his course, and he was a pita. If someone tacked into a stand on position with some 30ecs notice, I would give him 5 blasts and I would hold my course unless by doing so I was sure to hit him - which was unlikely, racing boats fully crewed are immensely manoeuverable.

Also, I am confused by your description [ QUOTE ]
My boat sailing along with plenty of water about me. No boats near apart a racing fleet off to my starboard. They were all on starboard tack and heading about 180 degrees to my course.

[/ QUOTE ]This doesnt quite make sense. The fleet to starboard of you almost running dead downwind, must have been on port tack, then tacked onto starboard? And if they were on a course about 180, then when they tacked they would have been on a course almost dead to windward??. Not that it makes much difference, but I think your angles are a bit adrift???
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[ QUOTE ]
anyone know why the colregs make the windward boat the giveway. ive always felt that the leward boat has the greater ability to manoevre


[/ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ]
I have always assumed this came from days of less efficient rigs and sailing in the lee of another boat meant significant loss of motive power and hence ability to make steerage way.

[/ QUOTE ]
I always thought it was because the downwind boat was harder on the wind and may be forced to tack to avoid the upwind boat together with the fact that you can be blanketed. Whereas the upwind boat unless they are on a dead run usually just has to alter course and trim the sails.
 
Re: Headsail only

I've been keeping out of this due to a complete lack of familiarity with the area.

This comment, however, if true, worries me. I frequently sail under headsail only downwind in a rough sea. I would be grateful for any references as to why this practice might put my forestay at risk.
 
Re: Headsail only

[ QUOTE ]
This comment, however, if true, worries me. I frequently sail under headsail only downwind in a rough sea. I would be grateful for any references as to why this practice might put my forestay at risk.


[/ QUOTE ]

Me too and along with thousands of others, IMO the comment is bollox.

It is a common tactic in severe storms to reduce sail to just a storm jib, that would be the ultimate test of the use of headsail only and I would think proves the point. As I said elsewhere as well, it is quite common to sail a ketch in heavy weather under genoa and mizzen, once again no mainsail. Look also at the famous picture of Sir Francis Chichester rounding Cape Horn in Gypsy Moth IV under storm jib alone. Nuff said?
 
There's something dodgy about the whole premise. The kind of preventer that you might attach for a mid-ocean run is all about avoiding chafe, and needs to be only convenient enough to undo every couple of days. However for coastal sailing, especially in the Solent, I'm baffled about why you wouldn't be thinking of quick gybing drill when you put it on in the first place. There's also quite a few degrees of play without gybing from a dead run to close hauled - I can't believe that every one of those courses would mean hitting bouy or other boat.

Even more worried about the foresail nonsense - the only time that I've been aware of that as an issue in on a catamaran with no backstay, where you have to be wary of full genoa alone, especially in any kind of lumpy sea where hitting a wave at 10 knots might bring the mast down in theory. Running under mainsail alone as a choice, or as an instruction exercise is fair enough, but for safety??
 
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