windward in 20 m/s (appr. F 8-9)

Well you are all braver than me..

Having gone to windward in a sustained 25 knots wind for 5 days in open water in a Rival 38, it is not an experience I'd want to repeat. With due respect to those who have experence of big winds in the Solent and dare I say it the Channel, open waters are different especially if the wind has been in the same direction long enough to get the sea to its theorietical heights. The waves are higher, about twice as high I'd guess but longer in period with mini-crests forming on the basic wave form. If we are talking less than a day or so the waves just don't have the time to reach those proportions.

I'm not saying that the Solent and Channel experiences are invalid just different.

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True gale or apparent gust?

Real gales of F9 strength are very rare around the UK in the summer. The great majority of people will sail a lifetime without encountering one, though many will have experienced gusts of 20m/s across the deck. I would bear that in mind in relation to some of the opinions you will be getting.

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Re: True gale or apparent gust?

Not everyone limits their sailing to the summer, so F9 is not so unusual (though best avoided, IMHO).

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Re: Gunnar

Hello Roberto!

What came out?....I wish I could tell you!

First of all, the forum I´m referring to is un-moderated without any log-in. So it attracts a lot of nuts posting all sorts of stupidities.
But if I try to make a conclusion of the more serious postings, about 50 % ´(I´m among them) beleives that the average cruising yacht, equipped and crewed as normally can be expected in Swedish waters would not make it. Maybe in theory, but not practically.
You have to remember that we normally sail in very sheltered waters, we have no tide, no current to speak of and mostly we cruise in the shelterered waters in the archipelagoes. So we are a bit spoilt, and the average cruising yacht is not very well for prepared for a blow in the open sea.

But the rest strongly beleives it can be done, some of the even with some joy! But either these are people which mostly race and are used to have a strong crew and a well prepared yacht. And some of them obviously do not have any experience of what it takes to sail in a F8, and simply doesn´t know what they talk about.






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Extreme ghosting's good believe it or not - I've been trying to work out why, quite repeatably, we can pull away from lightweights of a similar handicap - the other M33 which races regularly on the Clyde can too. The only explanation I have is that the broad beam carried well forward and the flat aft give a much lower wetted surface than would a finer entry, for the same displacement. In ghosting conditions, the only resistance is skin friction - directly proportional to wetted surface.

2 - 8 knots is bad upwind, and very much worse if that's with a left over slop (that beam again). At 9 knots apparent the boat comes to life as if you'd thrown a switch and we're level pegging on handicap. At 20 knots and over we can keep up with good M336s (nominally 4 mins/hr quicker).

It's a lot different off the wind as the standard spinnakers are getting on for 1000 sq ft: with a kite up the only place that's undercanvassed is my skids. We're overpowered with 14 knots on the beam and the 0.5 oz kite, out of control at 16 (and, yeah, I know it's meant for ghosting...!)

Incidentally, the final version of the 33, the 333, has about 7% more upwind sail area and the short answer to the question is, yes.

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Donald,
Downwind is better - I'm right behind you. I think the initial post was one of those "how bad can it get before we're doomed"/closing on lee-shore, sort of roundrobins. And as for designers and heroics, the M33's Primrose was inclined to take it a bit far himself, rolling one through 360 in the OSTAR, then sailing 1000 miles home unassisted and with a spinnaker pole for a mast.

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I'm curious what started this discussion in Sweden, was there a particular case, or is it all theoretic?
My answer to your question would be a fairly clear no. My reasoning is from some experiences, but certainly not exactly the one you describe. But I certainly match your average family cruiser.
(1) Many years back I was out along the California Pacific coast with a 29ft rented boat. When the wind picked up to a good F7, we had real trouble clearing one headland, and it wasn't a matter of going to windward, but more a matter of how much height we would loose. This boat had the usual furling genoa and a main with just two reefs. At some point the main with the two reeefs was too much and boat started rounding up to weather, and with a bit of the genoa out, which looked like a potatoe sack, we were knocked almost flat several times. In the end we had to take the main down and go just with the substantially furled genoa, and barely made it around the particular headland.
(2) Some years ago I was beating to windward against a 25kn trade in a very typical charter boat of 36 ft. The wind had been blowing for a few days and waves weren't small. Also it had led to at least 1 knot of current against us. Again reefed main and furled genoa. We could go to windward, but it took us a whole day for about 10 miles. The boat banged into the waves very frequently, which almost brought it to a stop. Had the wind been a lot stronger, I don't think we would have found a sail configuration, that would have allowed us to keep beating against the wind. And I think we would have made more leeway, than we made good.
(3) On out current, significantly larger boat, we had to beat into 35kn of wind for a day, en-route to the Azores. This time with an in-mast furling main of which we had maybe 25% left, and a cutter stay sail of which we had about 75% left. The wave recording bouy about 40 miles away, polled by a friend via internet reported a wave height of 8m. We did make progress, but it was very wet, very uncomfortable, and I noticed that we were becalmed in valleys, loosing some of the power, on the other we couldn't manage more sail when on top. So the overall performance starts dropping off significantly, and I think we would have heaved-to if the wind went into the 40-ties. I don't think we could have gone on with the furling genoa, as it gets a very poor shape at this level of reefing and the gap to the main gets so big that you can't get enough power upwind, to make it through the waves and against the current.



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Re: True gale or apparent gust?

If one is looking at the Channel Light Vessel, and taking the weather forecast, and the Coast Station Report for the Channel Light Vessel says "Southwesterly, force nine" then it is force nine where one is, says I!

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Re: True gale or apparent gust?

Tend to work the same way myself .. and if my windspeed is showing a consistent 38knots apparent and I'm running at 6knots tend to think I'm in a consistent 44knot breeze!

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HaraldS!

From beginning it was all theoretic, a innocent guy who opened up Pandora´s Box!
He simply expressed his thoughts that he belived his Vagabond 33 (sturdy long keeled GRP double ender similar to Laurin and Allegro, I guess you know them) would be able to do this.
Soon some contributors, like me, throwed in some real life experiences, so the whole thread somewhat changed direction, not surprisingly with a lot of references to Fastnet Race -79 and stories of nasty experiences.
The thread, including some 'spin-off' threads will eventually chrash into the 200-postings mark!

The interesting thing is, that almost everone who has any real experiences from beeing out on the open sea in F8 + is quite convinced that in most cases it will be more or less impossible to go to windward!

Any more pilots for sale? Looking for west coast France, Spain, Portugal and Canaries/Cabo Verde/Madeira! If not, any recommendations?

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Re. point one. I can identify with that. Its one of the reasons Im going to rope my third reef. When attempting to run in F8/9 with only 2 reefs I had full lock on the rudder trying to keep the angle. The 3rd reef would have hade life a lot easier


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Re: HaraldS!

Gunnar, glad to hear I'm not the only chicken who respects an F9 and tries to avoid it by all means...

As to the pilots: When do you need them? Where are you now? I mean your boat?

I have most of what you look for except West France, (all the popular RCC pubs.), but still need them this summer. Could probably spare the Spain/Portugal one and North Africa by early September, need to keep the Atlantik Islands until we leave the Cape Verdes late in the year.

Were are you headed?

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I\'ll buy that F9, certainly.

From a station report. My local weather station has not yet reported F9 this year. Last time was 27 October 2002. However, there have been days with gusts up to 50kts.

It's been puzzling me for a while that people have been regularly reporting sailing in the Channel in winds as strong as the Fastnet storm (which was F9 over most of its range). I've noticed a growing tendancy among yachties to rate strong winds by the Bft equivalent of the gusts recorded on the yacht's anometer rather than a station report, and suspect some - not all - Scuttlebutt reports may be similar. Obviously such gusts are dramatic enough, and may be quite localised so not experienced some distance away. But the sea-state will not correspond to the conditions of a true gale.
 
Re: I\'ll buy that F9, certainly.

If you're referring to me, the Channel buoy was recording a consistent 40knots and the windstrength was also reported as that by the guy in the Sigma that also posted. I'm not talking gusts .. I'm talking steady readings. On the second occasion I was talking consistent F8 with occas 9. Confirmed by Zephyrsailors wind readings outside Cherbourg .. and anyway there's large distances between stations where the wind can be quite different ... hope that helps

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Re: I\'ll buy that F9, certainly.

So are you suggesting that when we are out in weather that our instruments are recording as F9 we give the met office a call to ask them to verify our readings with the local station? Well, I suppose it will make a pleasant change from all those soft sods asking for radio checks

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Claymore
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Re: HaraldS!

Me and my boat are still in Sweden. The plan is to leave Stockholm 1'st of May and through the Kiel Canal head to Scotland and then sail anti-clockwise round Scotland and Ireland.
We will continue over to Brittany and after spending som time there go down to N. Spain and Portugal and spend the winter in and around the Atlantic islands, before continuing into the Med next spring.
So the pilots I´m talking about will really be needed next summer. This does not fit with your plans as far as I can see!

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Re: I\'ll buy that F9, certainly.

Actually I suppose we could save a lot of dosh on buying all these expensive ST60 wind instruments. All we need to do is call the nearest weather station to see what the wind direction and speed is. Perhaps they could even issue wind speed bulletins at pre specified windspeed so we know when to reef. "AWB's,AWBs,AWBs 15knots, first reef in .. Over!" or "Moody 33s,Moody 33s, Windspeed 30knots , time for first reef";-)

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