dunedin
Well-Known Member
Excellent article in the “Summer” issue of YM on “Storm Tactics from the Golden Globe Race”. Worth a read.
This race had a high attrition rate, much more than other races such as the Vendee Globe (which admittedly is in longer boats, but much lighter and built to minimum weight). Quite a number of boats were capsized and subsequently lost rigs and/or needed to be abandoned. So storm tactics which worked and didn’t makes interesting reading.
Many boats attempted towing ropes or warps to slow down in bad storms, including a number of the boats which were abandoned. On the other hand, the first two successful finishers seemed to have different views.
• Jean-Luc van den Heede (winner and most experienced sailor with 5 previous solo circumnavigations) was quoted as “used no warps or drogue in the race, instead favouring Bernard Moitessier’s philosophy of going as fast as possible in heavy weather, and running with the breaking waves at a shallow angle.”
• Mark Slats (second finisher with one previous solo circumnavigation) was quoted as “Caught in the same storm which dismasted Gregor McGuckin and Abhilash Tomy, Slats who was East of them had already experienced multiple knockdowns while trailing warps. <He> decided that sailing at ‘maximum power’, at the same direction as the waves was the best storm tactic.”
Merfyn Owen, very experienced skipper (including BT Challenge & IMOCA 60s) and yacht designer, supported this view saying “if you are sailing downwind with significant waves, maintaining as much speed as feasible is your best way of managing the situation” and then expanded more in explaining this.
Merfyn Owen also raised the subject of righting moments, and his view of misperceptions about what makes a stable boat. “One of the reasons for the pervading sense that designs such as those used in the GGR are more stable is a misreading of the angle of vanishing stability curves. …… People might point to that and say the old boat is much more stable, as it doesn’t have a vanishing angle until 145 degrees, so it is a much safer boat. However, for a larger or modern yacht, especially with a deep keel and bulb, the righting moment – the top peak of the curve – is quite a lot higher and the area under that curve is greater. It is that area under the curve that is important because it is directly equivalent to the energy required by a wave to roll the boat.”
So based upon this quoted GGR experience, if heading into the Southern Ocean without the arbitrary constraints of the GGR it would perhaps suggest for me:
• Having a boat that can continue to be sailed fast downwind safely (perhaps also using best gyro autopilot rather than wind vane, to avoid stalling with lower wind speeds in the trough of a big wave)
• A boat with a high area under the AVS curve – so wider and deeper bulb keel may be advantages, as well as pure length
• Continuing to sail actively downwind rather than towing warps/ropes
But most importantly also
• Getting weather routing and using the speed to help avoid the worst of the storms
Certainly food for through
PS PLEASE READ THE FULL ARTICLE AND IT’S CONSIDERED INPUTS/EVIDENCE from 6 of the GGR competitors, Merfyn Owen and GGR organiser before leaping to opinions
This race had a high attrition rate, much more than other races such as the Vendee Globe (which admittedly is in longer boats, but much lighter and built to minimum weight). Quite a number of boats were capsized and subsequently lost rigs and/or needed to be abandoned. So storm tactics which worked and didn’t makes interesting reading.
Many boats attempted towing ropes or warps to slow down in bad storms, including a number of the boats which were abandoned. On the other hand, the first two successful finishers seemed to have different views.
• Jean-Luc van den Heede (winner and most experienced sailor with 5 previous solo circumnavigations) was quoted as “used no warps or drogue in the race, instead favouring Bernard Moitessier’s philosophy of going as fast as possible in heavy weather, and running with the breaking waves at a shallow angle.”
• Mark Slats (second finisher with one previous solo circumnavigation) was quoted as “Caught in the same storm which dismasted Gregor McGuckin and Abhilash Tomy, Slats who was East of them had already experienced multiple knockdowns while trailing warps. <He> decided that sailing at ‘maximum power’, at the same direction as the waves was the best storm tactic.”
Merfyn Owen, very experienced skipper (including BT Challenge & IMOCA 60s) and yacht designer, supported this view saying “if you are sailing downwind with significant waves, maintaining as much speed as feasible is your best way of managing the situation” and then expanded more in explaining this.
Merfyn Owen also raised the subject of righting moments, and his view of misperceptions about what makes a stable boat. “One of the reasons for the pervading sense that designs such as those used in the GGR are more stable is a misreading of the angle of vanishing stability curves. …… People might point to that and say the old boat is much more stable, as it doesn’t have a vanishing angle until 145 degrees, so it is a much safer boat. However, for a larger or modern yacht, especially with a deep keel and bulb, the righting moment – the top peak of the curve – is quite a lot higher and the area under that curve is greater. It is that area under the curve that is important because it is directly equivalent to the energy required by a wave to roll the boat.”
So based upon this quoted GGR experience, if heading into the Southern Ocean without the arbitrary constraints of the GGR it would perhaps suggest for me:
• Having a boat that can continue to be sailed fast downwind safely (perhaps also using best gyro autopilot rather than wind vane, to avoid stalling with lower wind speeds in the trough of a big wave)
• A boat with a high area under the AVS curve – so wider and deeper bulb keel may be advantages, as well as pure length
• Continuing to sail actively downwind rather than towing warps/ropes
But most importantly also
• Getting weather routing and using the speed to help avoid the worst of the storms
Certainly food for through
PS PLEASE READ THE FULL ARTICLE AND IT’S CONSIDERED INPUTS/EVIDENCE from 6 of the GGR competitors, Merfyn Owen and GGR organiser before leaping to opinions
