What's a storm?

[Sybarite]

Re: What\'s a storm?

I once helped a friend deliver his new 43' Casamance catamaran to Gibraltar. We too had a gale off Portugal and the owner wanted to see how fast he could go and ignored my advice to reef. We were surfing at speeds of up to 18 knots and even went under one wave rather than over it. The wind was virtually aft. After a few uncontrolled gibes he ripped his mainsail. To get it down we had to turn into the wind and this took us 45 minutes with both engines at full throttle.

I shudder to think what would have happened if somebody had gone O/B especially as we were sailing out of season.

Incidentally, soon after he put the spinnaker up and it lasted about 10 minutes. The rest of the trip was under genoa alone.

John

 

[Christopher_B]

Re: What\'s a storm?

Ouch. S'pose if you'd gone O/B he'd have slowed down and saved his sails. Bad result from his point of view /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Peppermint]

Re: A decent guide might be if you can\'t steer.

Your sailplan is out of balance on any point of sailing if steering is v.difficult.

If your jumping off waves or approaching a given point too fast you might be over canvassed.

So a storm is a movable feast. It depends on your mood, sea state, boat size, wind strength and direction, your heading, and loads of other variables.

You ask a valid question to when you say "the wind speed indicator - what are they for?" It's mystery to me. They tell you nothing you can't feel and if it gets really windy they add to the crews worries, if they're the worrying kind.