What would you have done differently?

Doesn't look like they strapped the spinnaker down before the gybe. The twinners should've have been brought on on both sides. The spinnaker was too free to swing from one side to another and take the boat with it.

I don't think their kicker was eased until they dropped the main. Somebody should've been holding it who knew to dump it the split second things started to go wrong. If the skipper has to shout "kicker" it is too late.

Don't know why they ran aground, it seemed like they were clear to gybe or tack around under main in plenty of time. Maybe they were a bit fazed by the Chinese gybe.
 
Looks like a bit of driver error and bad timing to me.

They should gybe at the fastest possible boat speed to reduce the impact of the pressure on the new gybe. Also the helm should have given a bit more of a deeper angle once gybed than trying to keep dead down wind until the kite was made.
 
maxcampbell said:
After it all went wrong, was it inevitable that the engine was going to be needed?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytwSGiJEe1Y


A scrap of jib early on?
Click to expand...

Good video - worth watching. And good observations posted.
Should the spinnaker halyard have been released before someone had a hold of the foot of the sail? Crew seemed very inactive as the drama unfolded.
 
Once they'd gone through the Chinese gybe they didn't seem able to recover the spinnaker to leeward. With it still drawing, pinned by the starboard sheet, there was no way they could recover control. (I suspect trying to get the jib up would have just added to the chaos).

Its happened to us all. I ended up on Brambles Bank when the spi halliard jambed part way down, had to climb the mast with a knife, while it was bucking around!
 
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Doing things differently

Yes I have done similar things many times on the little boat. The spinacker gybe can be a scary thing.
However by my understanding this was not a Chinese Gybe but rather a Round Up.
Much depends on the skill of the helmsman in a spin gybe.
You have to hold the heading of the boat very accurately at square to the wind. When the boom comes over you must be ready to fight the round up to keep the boat running down wind. The mass of the boom and main sail coming over can be enough to heel the boat causing the round up. If you can't be sure of holding the boat heading you shouldn't have the spin up. On my light weight small tiller steered boat the helmsman always goes across to the new windward side before anything else. So being ready to fight the round up by pulling tiller. I actually increased my rudder depth to help in this situation and a new light weight boom also helps a lot.

As said once the round up has started all you can do is hang on. You can ease the spin sheet but this doesn't help much. Recovery is much quicker and easier if the spin is properly set. ie strapped down close to the deck. As soon as you release the down haul and brace the spin goes for the sky. Here it has huge leverage on the top of the mast and like a parachute it is very hard to get the wind out of it. The best gybe of spin is where the spin is kept drawing (floating) with pole disconnected. As soon as it colapses or swings sideways you are in trouble.
If you absolutely need to let the spin go you need to release the halyard sheet and brace in a way that they let the spin go completely free of the boat. Either lose it or pick it up later and rethread the halyard later.

Yes the crew were more concerned about getting the spin in than keeping speed on the boat which of course was needed to be able to turn away from the rocks. As said jib up would have helped the boat balance and speed. Or an earlier engine start.

Ah the madness of sailing olewill
 
dt4134 said:
Don't know why they ran aground, it seemed like they were clear to gybe or tack around under main in plenty of time. Maybe they were a bit fazed by the Chinese gybe.
Click to expand...
My guess is that the main was asserting its authority and wanted the boat to turn upwind, while the helmsman had the opposite idea and had stalled the rudder by putting the helm hard over to go downwind before there was any flow over it. In this case, letting the kicker off entirely would have helped, but it looks liek a strut, so they probably couldn't.

Pretty hard to gybe round in a confined space under main alone, I'd have thought.
 
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That's a good video to watch. It's hard to say what I would have done, easy to see what should have been done. It appears that some of the crew were running around but not being very effective, so perhaps some more definite command taking would have helped. e.g. dump the kite sheet & halyard, haul the jolly thing aboard.
A good example of how easy it is to sail other peoples boats from a bar room though.
 
It wasn't what led up to the gybe (which I wouldn't call "chinese" - to me that means a twisted main with different parts on different sides) that interested me so much as the prolonged period afterwards.

The helmsman seems to be trying to bear away, but the main keeps pushing her bum downwind, and she doesn't answer at all. Presumably the kite is pulling the centre of the boat downwind, from the top of the mast, but after they've recovered that, the boat still doesn't want to turn downwind.

They could have started the engine as soon as the kite was recovered, but might they have been able to tack? Or, as hinted at in my OP, I think I'd have been shouting for some jib to help her head get pulled downwind, but then I'd probably just have hit the veranda earlier and faster.
 
Too much there to analyse all the problems briefly, but for me the real problem was the helmsman who let the boat control him rather than vice-versa at about 30 secs (it was all pretty much OK until then) AND then lost spatial awareness, being more worried about resetting or recovering the kite than about where he was on the water. If he'd known how close to the bricks he was I suspect he'd have blown the kite to keep the boat out of danger.

As for getting some genny up, I suspect if they'd tried they'd have found the genny sheet hadn't been gybed over the pole, so that would have ended in a mess too.
 
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I think I would have sheeted in the main to get the boat moving and so recover steerage way, and then immediately gybed.

But it's easy sitting here, aint it?
 
As others have said the first error was not strapping the kite down.

That said, the original crash was driver error. Simply put he was nervous and let the boat take charge.

However once the crash happened and it was clear that they couldn't just gybe back out of it, they only eased the kite halyard, it should have been blown. That would have got the kite back in the boat much quicker, and also the boat would have just popped back upright.

Then once the kite is put away, the problem again is one of a lack of confidence. They're trying to turn a boat that isn't moving. A non moving boat won't tack, and to get that boat to bear away requires the kicker easing and the main sheeting in a little to get some speed without causing the main to screw them up into the wind.

As to why he was so close to shore, that's San Francisco bay, which has some pretty strong currents. If they're running against it, they need to be in shore to get out of it. Pretty much the same as running down the green to the squadron line at Cowes. I've seen similar chineese gybes put boats on the beach there too. Win or bust.
 
Yup. The skipper gave up skippering to either yell at the crew or to try and look blasé or nonchalant about it all ( because he could be seen from the shore )

At the 2 minute mark the retrieval was in hand by then the yelling should have been directed at getting a tack in and heading off shore.

Easy from the comfort of ones desk!
 
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How I wish there was audio from the boat! The command process that gets another spinnaker on deck (@ ~2:50) just before they find the putty seems to indicate an unrealistic competitive priority. I couldn't see any evidence of headless chicken syndrome so maybe they had done it all before.
From experience I know my spinnaker floats long enough to be recovered with sheets, guys and halyard attached - just a nuisance to re-reeve the halyard and dry the thing.
 
I am not a racer but it seems to me that if they had released one of the spinnaker sheets then boat control could have been recovered.

Possibly they had stopper knots on the spi sheets? Is that common racing practice. I know that as a cruiser that is supposed to be a big NO NO just in case you need to dump the multicoloured monster.
 
What's the big deal?

Well running that close to shore there wasn't much room for error. But nobody seems to have been hurt, nothing obviously broken and the sails and rig all seem to have escaped unscathed. Just a public example of unfortunate/inexperienced helming in very strong wind. That boat sure did pitch violently as they attempted the gybe.

I've seen plenty of broaches and knock-downs around the Solent much worse than that. Only problem really was that they ended up facing towards the shore with no room to get speed up to gybe out of there. I'm pretty sure that tacking without a Jib at that speed and in that wind wouldn't have worked.

So what's wrong with the bowman getting out a replacement spinnaker? That's his job and once the old one had gone it was no longer his problem but the job of the trimmers to recover it unless the skipper tells him otherwise.

So once the skipper was out of options the engine was started and they motored away. Couldn't really have started it any sooner because of all the lines in the water. As it was they motored away with one line over the side.

Some useful and interesting discussion earlier in this thread so we can learn from the mistakes of others rather than make all the mistakes ourselves. Big reminder seems to be to leave enough room for an unexpected broach and to know your wind limits of experience.
 
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