Rode Size for a Galerider Drogue
posted by John & Phyllis
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Question: Would you recommend 3/4" or 1" rode for use with a Galerider Drogue for a 46 foot 33,000lb cutter?
Answer: I would think that 3/4" would be adequate, but you should check with the manufacturer who should know what the loads generated by each Galerider size are. With that piece of data in hand you can then size the rode. I would allow at least a 100% safety factor since nylon rope's strength can degrade quickly with chafe and sun damage.
By the way, we far prefer the Jordan Series Drogue over the Galerider (see this post), unless you will be using the Galerider, as we have, off the bow.
Labels: Seamanship
Comments about Parachute Anchors from New Zealand
posted by John & Phyllis
Web Site
Our heavy weather series continues to attract interesting comments and suggested alternatives from experienced ocean voyagers. This one comes from Lane and Kay Finley who have a lot of ocean experience and make films about sailing, which are mostly sold in NZ and Australia. They also have a great web site with lots of good information.
“During the filming we launched a parachute anchor according to the manufacturer’s recommendations. It was a rather breezy day, but not storm conditions. Even in these mild conditions, the strain and stress that was generated to our boat’s substantial deck fittings was huge. We came away wondering what vessel could stand up to a real storm when tied to one of these anchors.
We decided we would not carry one onboard as we would rather take our chances running with warps, as this has worked well for us in several situations in the past. However, to bring it [the sea anchor] aboard, we merely cast it loose and then motored around to the top of it and picked up the trip line, which was floated on a buoy. It came onboard with no trouble.”
There are two interesting points in the above:
- It confirms our concerns about the stresses imposed by sea anchors.
- Casting off the main warp prior to picking up the trip line will reduce the chances of a tangle or getting a line around the rudder or propeller and makes a lot of sense.
Lane and Kay go on to say:
Just a note on warps and drogues: We have an 18mm (3/4”) garden hose onboard that is 25 meters long. When we begin sliding down the front of 10 meter seas we take the coiled up hose with the two ends threaded together, pass a 200 meter nylon rode through the coil and throw it off the stern with one end of the line on the starboard primary winch and the other end on the port primary winch. Because the garden hose has no flat surfaces (like a tire) it lies just under the surface of the water, does not have to be weighted and will not pop out and skip. It slows the boat down to around four knots and gives us complete control. There is no worry about chaffing because, well it’s a garden hose. When we want to bring it in, or adjust the length, we just wind in on the primary winches and because the line is in a loop, there is a two to one purchase in our favour. When we get to the next port, we use it to wash the boat down and fill our water tanks. Don’t laugh – it’s the best drogue we have ever found! We used it in the Queen’s Day Storm in 1994, 85 knots and 16 metre seas. [One of the worst storms to hit a fleet of sailboats in history.] It worked a treat!Who would have thought, a garden hose! Just shows that being innovative and keeping the goal in mind, rather than fixating on gear, can solve a lot of problems offshore.
Labels: Seamanship
Heavy Weather Gear and Strategies #13—Drogue Retrieval, an Alternative from Hal Roth
posted by John & Phyllis
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The last two posts in the series, in which we wrote about our solution for the retrieval of our Jordan Series Drogue, drew an interesting e-mail from Hal Roth, who did not like our solution because of the loads involved.
He was kind enough to share an excerpt from his upcoming book, to be published by International Marine in May, detailing the problems our mutual friends Willem and Corri Stein had retrieving a Jordan Drogue in the Southern Ocean (the event that inspired our own testing) and outlining his own retrieval idea. With Hal’s kind permission we are reproducing it below:
“At the end of the day, the Steins, tired from steering and the violent motion, deployed their Jordan series drogue which had 150 small cones sewn along a one-inch polyester line 400 feet long with a 22-pound block of lead at the end. As soon as the drogue was out, Terra Nova's speed dropped to two knots, and she kept her stern nicely into the seas. Life became tolerable and allowed the crew to sleep.
"The next day the wind abated a bit, but the strain on the drogue was still too much to even think about getting it back on board," said Willem. There was a new problem. Due to the heavy pitching of the boat in the seaway, the bridle lines tangled around the water blade of the Aries wind vane gear. The Steins hoisted a storm jib which put more force on the drogue lines and kept them free of the water blade.
When the wind eased, the Steins tried to haul the drogue on board, but the task seemed impossible. "Even getting it around one of the sheet winches was such a dangerous exercise that I gave up after I nearly got one of my hands amputated," said Willem. The Steins might have been able to use their engine to back down a little on the drogue while they pulled it in, but the engine was out of order because water had run into the fuel tank during the knockdown a few days earlier.
Willem and Corri waited two more days for the sea to calm down. Finally in desperation they cut the lines to the drogue. I've sailed with Willem and Corri in Newfoundland and know they are tough, dedicated, experienced small-boat sailors. It must have been a hard decision to cut away the drogue which they had made with so much effort.
After thinking about this problem, I wonder if the following might be a solution? Run a 1/2-inch diameter recovery line from the anchor windlass at the bow outside the lifelines and back to the stern. Loosen one of the bridle lines (hitch on a short line and take it to a winch to pull some slack in the bridle line so you can disconnect the shackle from the chainplate) and attach the recovery line. Then let go the other bridle line. Now with the stern no longer fastened to the drogue, the boat should swing around 180° and drift downwind from the drogue, bridle, and recovery line. You will have to pay attention to the lead of these lines at the bow, but it should be possible to pull them straight in with the powerful windlass, whether it's operated by hand, an electric motor, or hydraulic power. I've never attempted this with a series drogue, but I think it or some variation is worth a trial.
Anything to save fingers! Note that this scheme moves the recovery effort away from complications of a line around a spade rudder or the water components of a wind vane steering device. Additionally, the recovery effort at the bow eliminates problems of winching in the line in the cockpit with complications from the stern pulpit and other cockpit or transom gear.
In spite of these reports, other users of drogues write of simply pulling in the line by hand with no apparent difficulties. Obviously the recovery of drogues needs more investigation."
We think Hal’s idea makes a lot of sense although we would probably stick with our own plan, at least initially, since it keeps the operation in the security of the cockpit and does not require a turn into the wind and seas.
Another thought is that if we did try Hal’s method we would hoist our triple reefed mainsail or storm trysail before making the turn. This would allow the boat to lie heaved-to and keep her steady while we retrieved the drogue over the bow. This would be much like our technique for stopping wave strikes when heaved-to.
Earlier Posts in the Series
#1 Goals
#2 Heaving-To
#3 When Heaving-to is Dangerous
#4 Options When Heaving-to is Not Working
#5 Stopping Wave Strikes While Heaved-To
#6 Survival Storms
#7 Our Old Backup System
#8 Our New Backup System
#9 You Need a System
#10 Jordan Drogue Launch System
#11 Jordan Drogue Retrieval System
#12 Drogue Retrieval, The Devil is in the Details
If you want to make sure that you don’t miss the next installment in this series, without having to keep checking this blog, subscribe to our feed or automated notification e-mails, both available on the side bar. You will then receive a short notice when the next post comes up. Of course we will respect your privacy and will never divulge your e-mail address or shower you with junk. If you don’t like the feed you can unsubscribe in a moment.
Labels: Seamanship
Heavy Weather Gear and Strategies #12—Drogue Retrieval, The Devil is in the Details
posted by John & Phyllis
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In the last post in this series we talked about the difficulties in retrieving a Jordan Series Drogue and a way to make it practical using a drill motor and winch bit. However, that is only part of the solution. Like so many things in offshore sailing, the devil is in the details.
But before I get into that, a word of caution from a very experienced source:
“I'm scared of the way you have tested the series drogue, particularly motoring ahead with the drogue out behind you and then trying to winch it in. I feel there is a potential life threatening load on the winch and blocks and if anything lets go, someone could be killed.”
This quote came in an e-mail from Hal Roth. For those of you who don’t know of Hal, he is the author of 13 (soon to be 14) well respected books on offshore voyaging drawing from several hundred thousand miles of experience, including two single handed races around the world. This guy, together with his wife Margaret, has truly “been there and done that”.
Based on nearly 100,000 miles of sailing Morgan’s Cloud, I was confident of her gear’s ability to take the loads—after all they were no higher than we typically see on our genoa or spinnaker sheets. However, Hal’s point is valid: the loads we are talking about here are potentially life threatening, so be careful. If you try the techniques we are discussing, think about every step and make sure that you don’t position yourself in the bight of a line or where a piece of gear that fails will hit you—this is just another good reason to practice retrieval before you have to do it when tired and seasick.
Now back to the details. When testing retrieval, the first challenge we were faced with was to get the heavily loaded series drogue line onto the winch. To make this easier, before deploying we tied a retrieval line (blue) to the point where the bridles and drogue line connect. We took this line to our largest sheet winch and ground it in until the bridles came tight, preventing further travel. We then used a nipper line (red), that we dead-ended at a massive chain plate, tied with a double rolling hitch (a single slipped) to the drogue line to take the load. Next, we moved the blue line down the drogue line for another haul. It took three iterations to get the drogue on the winch (it would be fewer on an aft cockpit boat).
By the way, a rolling hitch is probably the most useful of the four or so knots that we regularly use on Morgan’s Cloud. I like the second version in the linked Wikipedia description best. If you can’t tie a rolling hitch, or another equally effective constrictor knot, then we recommend that you learn. This knot can get you out of deep yoghurt. A double rolling hitch is simply two rolling hitches tied one after another with about a foot between them. In my experience, the rope will break before a double rolling hitch slips.
Other things we discovered during our testing:
- We need exactly four turns on the winch; less and the line will slip, more and the drogue cones will not strip off the winch.
- A second person must aggressively tail the winch to stop the cones fouling.
- The cones will hang up on any fitting in their path. That is the reason for the black sail tie on the aft cleat.
You need a really large and well rounded fairlead with some way to capture the line to stop it jumping out. Our fairleads were custom built to our design some years ago as part of our rudder loss strategy and have fastpins that capture the line. They worked great during our test with no hang ups.
We are not suggesting that our system exactly as I have outlined it will work for everyone, or even anyone. Rather it highlights some of the challenges of drogue retrieval and can be a starting point for experimentation. Just remember that you need to solve these problems before you go to sea, not in big left over seas after a three day caning.
Next post we will look at an alternative retrieval system proposed by Hal Roth.
Earlier Posts in the Series
#1 Goals
#2 Heaving-To
#3 When Heaving-to is Dangerous
#4 Options When Heaving-to is Not Working
#5 Stopping Wave Strikes While Heaved-To
#6 Survival Storms
#7 Our Old Backup System
#8 Our New Backup System
#9 You Need a System
#10 Jordan Drogue Launch System
#11 Jordan Drogue Retrieval System
If you want to make sure that you don’t miss the next installment in this series, without having to keep checking this blog, subscribe to our feed or automated notification e-mails, both available on the side bar. You will then receive a short notice when the next post comes up. Of course we will respect your privacy and will never divulge your e-mail address or shower you with junk. If you don’t like the feed you can unsubscribe in a moment.Labels: Seamanship
Do It Your Way
posted by John & Phyllis
Web Site
We will be traveling for the next week so the blog will be quiet unless we get to an Internet connection.
When we get back next week we will be sharing some really great comments on the Heavy Weather Series from experienced sailor and author Hal Roth and two time circumnavigator Evans Starzinger, including some good ideas for drogue retrieval.
The chance to discuss heavy weather strategies with experienced voyagers like Hal and Evans as well as Lin Pardey has been an unexpected benefit of writing this series and a real privilege.
To me the take away from these interactions is that there are a lot of right ways to do things at sea. The point being that it is not really important whether you do things our way, or Hal’s way, or Evan’s way. Rather the key to safety offshore in heavy weather is that you look at the available information, critically evaluate it in the light of your capabilities and boat, and then come up with and test your way.
Labels: Seamanship
A Professional Fisherman’s Take on Heavy Weather
posted by John & Phyllis
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[We received an e-mail a few weeks ago from our friend Bob Tetrault who has been following our heavy weather series. Bob went to Maine Maritime, has a master’s ticket, and has fished the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank in all kinds of weather. He currently owns three boats that fish the Gulf of Maine. His email is primarily about his experiences dragging up abandoned sea anchors but it is also full of other interesting nuggets of information and is a fascinating look at how the professionals deal with heavy weather.
Bob, unusually for a fisherman, owns a sailboat; a beautifully maintained Pearson 55 called, appropriately enough, “Sea Return”.]
“The sea anchor we carry on “Sea Return” was purchased new, a 24' Paratech. It has never been out of the bag. When I was fishing and towing [sea anchors] up they were usually military parachutes without much warp which leads me to believe they were cheap and cut free rather than retrieved.
Even now it’s not unusual to see a posting on a bulletin board at our ice plant advertising a sea anchor for sale. They are usually in good shape just snarled and a little dirty from being towed from the bottom. The last one I saw was a Paratech style with no warp, just the swivel.
When fishing well offshore and caught in a bomb or weather that was much more than predicted, we would haul our gear (net) while we still could, remove the otter boards, and put the net back off the stern. We would then cover the engine room vents with custom made tarpaulins and put the checker boards in the stern ramp so they couldn't wash out, leave the deck lights on and turn in. One crew member would always be on watch. If we started taking green water over the stern he would start up and work ahead slowly and the wash would keep the seas from breaking in on us.
[Same theory as the slick created by a boat properly heaved-to.]
Once I had to rig a pennant from the bow and winch the warps to the bow [so as] to lay bow-to, which was really about fifty degrees [to the wind] with the wheel house windage working against the significant drag of the fishing net. [Generally] we didn't [like] to do this because bringing the two warps to a point on the bow had the potential for the net to snarl but it was certainly safer [than being stern-to]. The resultant slick did the job. We would move very little, maybe a knot in >50 knots of wind. We don't carry anemometers so everything was an estimate but be assured foam was blowing off the wave tops.
[This would be in effect the same as the Pardey bridle or our own use of a Galerider.]
The biggest problem on an offshore dragger is the paravane booms. You must keep them out of the water and keep from rolling down too far or they would want to nest in the rigging on the opposite roll. They are usually lashed down to the rail but the lever is minimal compared to force of wave and gravity and the attachment point would part away.
I never once felt my crew and I were in danger while laying-to as I describe. The power of the sea commands a lot of respect; it can be awesome as you know.
As an aside, sometimes we would collect a deck full of puffins. They would gather at the stern under the deck lights presumably because it was calmer and some fish scraps would wash off the deck. Anyway the seas would wash them one at a time up over the checkers until we had dozens crouched down in the corners under the bulwarks. Getting them back in the water was always a big chore because they couldn't stand and got pretty excited when man was present so we would wash them one at a time out the scuppers with the deck hose.
All this reminds me that I need to discover what works best for “Sea Return”. You really need bad weather to experiment and I always find some excuse not to test my plan.”
Labels: Seamanship
Heavy Weather Gear and Strategies #11—Jordan Drogue Retrieval System
posted by John & Phyllis
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In the last post I wrote about our deployment system for our new Jordan Series Drogue on Morgan’s Cloud. In this post I’m going to look at how we are going to get the damned thing back aboard after the storm.
You would think that the first place to look for a solution to this challenge would be the manufacturer or designer of the drogue system. Well, afraid not. While the information provided with the Jordan Drogue is generally far better and more realistic than that provided by their competitors, even Jordan has punted on this important issue. He does provide one example, but it is for a 26 foot boat.
To try and determine what retrieval would be like, we did the following experiment with Morgan’s Cloud: While motoring at 1200 rpm—not much over idle and our best guess at the forward speed of the boat in say 30 knots of wind at the end of a storm—we tried to grind in the drogue using one of our powerful three-speed Lewmar 65 sheet winches. We learned the following:
- I could not budge the handle in the first two speeds.
- In the third and most powerful speed, the load felt equivalent to grinding in the last few inches of our jib when going to windward in 20 knots of true wind. Something that I can just manage, and not too often thank you.
- After grinding in about 10 feet I was pretty much done in, with 30 feet (9 meters) to go before the first cones would come out of the water thereby reducing the load, and 350 feet (106 meters) to go before completion.
- Despite being strong and 10 years my junior, Phyllis had trouble moving the handle at all.
We were fresh, well rested and in a flat calm bay. I would expect that after a blow and on a pitching deck our performance would be halved from that observed above. See this
post.
Our conclusion is that any solution that requires manually grinding the drogue in on a winch is totally impractical for us. In addition, at 56 years old, 6’ 2”and 190lb with a reasonable level of fitness, I’m probably at the median for fitness and strength for cruising men and so I think this will be a common problem. As Phyllis found, women will typically have even more trouble since the amount of force that you can exert on a winch handle is substantially influenced by your weight.
Morgan’s Cloud weighs 52,000 lb (23,500 kg). My guess would be that, unless the crew is made up of Americas Cup grinders, the above conclusion would apply to any boat that weighs more than 20,000 lb (9000 kg) and maybe less than that. Keep in mind that as the boat gets smaller, so do the winches, thereby scaling the problem.
One option would be to wait for very calm weather and then retrieve the drogue with the boat stopped, but on
Morgan’s Cloud we want to get sailing as soon as we can to get out of the way of the next blow. Also, there are few things more uncomfortable than wallowing around with too little sail up in the slop left over from a big blow.
To solve this problem we looked at and rejected two solutions:
- Fit at least one electric winch: Really expensive and would probably require upgrading our whole electrical system since electric winches work a lot better on 24 volts and we are 12 volt. Also, I don’t like electric sheet winches: they separate you from the loads on your boat and enable you to break things in truly spectacular ways.
- Lead the drogue to our powerful anchor windlass: Not very practical because of lead considerations and the amount of times a nipper line will be required before the drogue gets to the winch drum. Also, this moves the whole operation onto a pitching exposed foredeck rather than a nice secure cockpit. (Keep in mind that we want to do this when it is still blowing pretty hard.)
What we did do was to buy a 24 volt
Milwaukee right angle drill motor and a
special bit that fits in a standard winch socket to go in the chuck. This whole rig cost us less than 10% of the cost of an electric winch and it has plenty of other uses on our boat. Yes I know, I was skeptical too, but this thing is miraculous: Using it we were easily able to grind the whole drogue in under load in less than half an hour. Since its effective length is about 60% more than a 10” winch handle, the torque load is quite easy on the operator too.
There are a few things to know:
- You need several batteries so you won’t have to stop the retrieval to charge. In our case, three batteries do the job of retrieving our Jordan Drogue.
- In the early stages when the loads are high, it pays to stop for a minute or so every three minutes to let the drill cool. If the battery overheats, a safety will trip on that battery and only charging will reset it.
- The drill is not water proof. One good slop of salt water will probably ruin it.
The drill motor is only part of the total solution. How do you get the heavily loaded drogue line to the winch? What about chafe as it comes over the stern. Will the cones snag on things? We ran into all these challenges in our experiments. I will write about our solutions to them in the next post.
Earlier Posts in the Series
#1 Goals
#2 Heaving-To
#3 When Heaving-to is Dangerous
#4 Options When Heaving-to is Not Working
#5 Stopping Wave Strikes While Heaved-To
#6 Survival Storms
#7 Our Old Backup System
#8 Our New Backup System
#9 You Need a System
#10 Jordan Drogue Launch System
If you want to make sure that you don’t miss the next installment in this series, without having to keep checking this blog, subscribe to our feed or automated notification e-mails, both available on the side bar. You will then receive a short notice when the next post comes up. Of course we will respect your privacy and will never divulge your e-mail address or shower you with junk. If you don’t like the feed you can unsubscribe in a moment.Labels: Seamanship
Heavy Weather Gear and Strategies #10—Jordan Drogue Launch System
posted by John & Phyllis
Web Site
OK, enough blather about why we selected the Jordan Series Drogue and why you need a complete system for dealing with a drogue or sea anchor; on to the nuts and bolts of our deployment system.
Attachment Points
When setting up to use our new Jordan Series Drogue, the first issue we examined was attachment points for the bridle. Although we have massive stern cleats and fairleads that would theoretically be able to stand up to Jordan’s projected maximum load of 30,000 lb (13,600 kg) for Morgan’s Cloud, we opted to fabricate and build two dedicated chainplates for the following reasons:
- Any rope that passes over a fairlead is potentially vulnerable to chafe no matter how well rounded that fairlead is. (It is amazing how often we have read accounts of heavy weather deployment of sea anchors and drogues that end with a broken warp due to chafe.)
- We don’t want to be messing around with chafe gear and be trying to “refresh the nip” by adjusting bridles under heavy load in storm conditions.
- We want to be able to set up our Jordan Drogue system before we go to sea and leave it that way without having to remove it to free a cleat for something else.
- We want to get the bridle legs as far out on the corners of the boat as possible, which should make her yaw less. Also, this positioning has the added benefit of keeping the bridle legs away from the self steering gear.
Before we leave the subject of chafe and loads, it is worth noting that most of the examples on Jordan’s web site discuss quite small boats. In our opinion, the owners of boats displacing 30,000 lb (13,600 kg) and up (MC displaces 52,000 lb (23,500 kg) fully loaded) need to spend a lot more time and effort in this area. For example, when we test deployed our Jordan Drogue on a flat calm day while motoring at just 1200 rpm the load was in excess of 3000 lb (1360 kg) (estimated in relationship to known loads on our primary winches). Think about that and then envision
Morgan’s Cloud on the top of a 50’ (15 m) breaking wave and starting down the front—now there is a terrifying picture. It is not at all inconceivable to us that, as the drogue takes the strain of stopping the boat from surfing, the load would go to ten times that of our test.
After some calculation, we ended up having two stainless steel chainplates 27” (68 cm) long by 2.75” (7 cm) wide fabricated from ½” (130 mm) stock. We fastened the chainplates to our toe rails with seven 7/16” stainless steel bolts. We can only get away with this positioning, even though these toe rails are massive and welded to the hull, because there is a substantial existing chainplate (originally designed to take the load of the spinnaker sheets) in the way of three of the bolts. For most boats, to get adequate strength it will be necessary to bolt through the hull and a substantial backer plate. In the case of fiberglass boats it may be necessary to build up the laminate thickness in the way of the plate.
Set UpBefore going to sea, we will shackle the bridle legs to the chainplates with two ¾”
Crosby 209a alloy galvanized shackles with a safe working load of 14,000 lb (6350 kg) and a deform point of twice that, and then wire the shackles closed. Interestingly, the weakest point (every system has one) in all of this is the hole in the chainplate, which will fail at about 26,000 lb (11,800 kg). Since it is unlikely that more than 70% of the peak load will come on one bridle leg, this is well within acceptable limits.
We will then carefully lead the bridles clear of the self steering gear, back to the the aft deck and flake (never coil) them, together with the series drogue, into a sail bag with the bitter end and 12’ of chain, to act as a sinker, going in last. We will tie the chain end to the mouth of the bag so it does not get lost and keep things tidy by using plastic wire ties to lash the bridle to the stern rails. Finally, we will lash the bag down securely on the aft deck.
DeploymentTo deploy, we just have to cut the wire ties, flip the port bridle outside the self steering gear, open the bag and chuck the chain over the side via the same route as the bridles come inboard—a far cry from
this scenario.
While different boats will require different deployment systems we think they should all be:
- Completely chafe free.
- Strong enough to withstand Donald Jordan’s design loads. As can be seen by the steps we had to go through, on larger boats this is not a trivial challenge.
- Completely pre-rigged before going to sea.
- Preferably deployable without opening a locker hatch and so opening the boat to the sea. Difficult or impossible on some boats, I know.
- Easily deployed by a seasick, scared and tired sailor in the black dark. (We even have the steps written down, complete with pictures, in the boat’s manual, since I know that in such conditions I’m capable of making some deeply stupid blunders.)
Those of you with sharp eyes will note that there is an extra line in the photograph. All will be revealed in our next post on retrieval.
Earlier Posts in the Series
#1 Goals
#2 Heaving-To
#3 When Heaving-to is Dangerous
#4 Options When Heaving-to is Not Working
#5 Stopping Wave Strikes While Heaved-To
#6 Survival Storms
#7 Our Old Backup System
#8 Our New Backup System
#9 You Need a System
If you want to make sure that you don’t miss the next installment in this series, without having to keep checking this blog, subscribe to our feed or automated notification e-mails, both available on the side bar. You will then receive a short notice when the next post comes up. Of course we will respect your privacy and will never divulge your e-mail address or shower you with junk. If you don’t like the feed you can unsubscribe in a moment.Labels: Seamanship
Heavy Weather Gear and Strategies #9—You Need a System
posted by John & Phyllis
Web Site
Many of us (I have been guilty of this myself) buy storm survival gear, throw it in a corner of the lazarette, and head off to sea congratulating ourselves on our foresight and seamanship…not a good idea.
Fast forward to a building storm at sea. You are seasick, exhausted, and the boat has just experienced a partial knockdown, scaring the living daylights out of you. You need that drogue deployed and you need it now, before the next big wave makes the partial knockdown look like a gentle pat on the back. Oh yes, it is black dark too. (Why is it that this crap always happens in the dark?)
The drogue is in a corner of the lazarette under all the junk that you threw on top of it in the hurry to get to sea. To get it out and get the warp to set it on, you are going to have to move all this stuff in the dark. Worse still, the hatch will be open to the sea while you do it—seriously dangerous in this kind of weather.
OK, with superhuman fear-driven strength, you get the drogue out, together with several hundred feet of heavy line, and slam the hatch shut with only a few thousand gallons of water getting into the boat. Not enough to sink you, you hope.
Now, assuming the wind or a wave don’t tear the whole works out of your hands and wash it away, you just have to figure out on which side of that vital and oh so fragile self-steering gear to rig the bridle legs and what to cleat them to. Oh yes, that several hundred feet of line is now a hopeless tangle. What about chafe? Oh no, the chafe gear is in the lazarette. It’s got even darker and, if you’re anything like me, you have to take a break to puke.
The point of all this is that when you buy storm survival gear and lug it to the boat, you are about one third of the way to a storm survival system. The second third is putting together and trying out a deployment system that ideally will be set up and ready to go before you even leave the wharf. And then, don’t forget, you have to have a way to get the damned thing back aboard after the storm—the last third.
Next post we will look at our deployment system on Morgan’s Cloud for our newly-acquired Jordan Series Drogue.
Earlier Posts in the Series
#1 Goals
#2 Heaving-To
#3 When Heaving-to is Dangerous
#4 Options When Heaving-to is Not Working
#5 Stopping Wave Strikes While Heaved-To
#6 Survival Storms
#7 Our Old Backup System
#8 Our New Backup System
If you want to make sure that you don’t miss the next installment in this series, without having to keep checking this blog, subscribe to our feed or automated notification e-mails, both available on the side bar. You will then receive a short notice when the next post comes up. Of course we will respect your privacy and will never divulge your e-mail address or shower you with junk. If you don’t like the feed you can unsubscribe in a moment.
Labels: Seamanship
Mooring By The Stern
posted by John & Phyllis
Web Site
This post has been archived to our main site. Please see Anchoring.
Labels: Seamanship
Heavy Weather Gear and Strategies #8—Our New Backup System
posted by John & Phyllis
Web Site
On Morgan’s Cloud our heavy weather system has always included two options: our standard strategy of heaving-to, with or without a drogue over the bow, and, although we have never had to use it, a backup system. In the last post I wrote about our decision to replace the old backup system and in this post I’m going to write about the new backup system we selected and why.
I have always had reservations about running off, with or without a drag device, because of the ever present risk of a broach that can lead to a knock down or even a roll over. While drag devices claim to reduce this risk, I have been concerned about a drogue like the Galerider tumbling or pulling out of a wave face with the resultant rapid acceleration of the boat. After all, this only needs to happen once in a multi day survival storm to trigger a disaster. In addition, in most cases, running off involves steering which violates one of our most important goals for a heavy weather survival system.
The Jordan Series Drogue solves the steering issue and, most importantly, it can’t pull out of a wave face since its long length and multiple cones guarantee that most of it will always be in the water. These benefits and Donald Jordan’s well reasoned analysis of his design, which agrees well with our observations at sea, together with the impressive 15 year track record of his system, convinced us to buy a Jordan Series Drogue from Ace Sailmakers. We bought one with 166 cones on 350' of rode, made up of 110' 1" nylon double braid—upsized from Ace Sailmaker's recommendation of 7/8"— tapered to 115' of 3/4" and then to 125' of 1/2" for the last 75 cones.
I would recommend that all voyaging sailors read Jordan’s design notes, whether you buy one of his drogues or not. The key things that I learned from him are:
- It’s not the wave strike from a breaking crest that gets you, but the sudden stop at the bottom of the trough. This is well substantiated by analysis of wave damage to yachts. Also, I think it is much of the reason that heaving-to works so well.
- What you see of wave behavior at sea during a storm is an optical illusion that can lead you to draw the wrong conclusions about where the real dangers lie.
- Jordan is a qualified engineer that has applied real science to the problem of heavy weather survival. In light of the preceding point, this is really important.
- Nowhere in his solution is there the kind of weaknesses in logic that you see in the promotion of many competing storm survival systems. (We have written about some of these weaknesses in other posts in this series.)
- He has no commercial interest in the system.
- There is actually very little danger of being damaged by a wave breaking onto the stern (being pooped) while running off. I would agree, in that in all my years of sailing I have never been on a boat that was truly pooped. Yes I have seen the cockpit filled with water on several occasions, but in most cases the boat had just slewed on a wave face and the water washed in from the lee side or quarter.
- That the gear you have and how you use it is much more important to your survival than what type of boat you have.
For those of you who would like more detail to substantiate Jordan's findings I would highly recommend reading the
US Coastguard Report on his research and findings.
One glaring weakness in information about the Jordan Series Drogue is the lack of a viable short handed retrieval system, particularly for larger boats where the loads are very high. This was brought home to us by the experience of two friends of ours, very experienced and strong sailors, who were forced to cut a Jordan Drogue away in the Southern Ocean. In the next post in this series we will look at the modifications we have made to
Morgan’s Cloud to make deployment easier and safer and retrieval practical.
Earlier Posts in the Series
#1 Goals
#2 Heaving-To
#3 When Heaving-to is Dangerous
#4 Options When Heaving-to is Not Working
#5 Stopping Wave Strikes While Heaved-To
#6 Survival Storms
#7 Our Old backup System
If you want to make sure that you don’t miss the next installment in this series, without having to keep checking this blog, subscribe to our feed or automated notification e-mails, both available on the side bar. You will then receive a short notice when the next post comes up. Of course we will respect your privacy and will never divulge your e-mail address or shower you with junk. If you don’t like the feed you can unsubscribe in a moment.Labels: Seamanship
Heavy Weather Gear and Strategies #7—Our Old Backup System
posted by John & Phyllis
Web Site
As discussed earlier in this series, our primary gale and storm survival strategy is heaving-to, with or without the addition of a drogue off the bow, as discussed in this post. However, we have always carried a second system in case our rigging was damaged making heaving-to impossible. We also believe, as discussed in this post, that there may be conditions in which heaving-to, even with a drogue, just does not work.
Up until this year, we carried a 24-foot diameter PARA-TECH sea anchor and all the gear to set it as our backup system. However, despite thinking that it was the best option at the time we bought it, we have never been entirely happy with this solution, as I discussed in this post. In summary, we got rid of our sea anchor for the following reasons:
- The deployment of so much heavy gear off the bow in storm conditions would be both difficult and dangerous.
- I believe that the pitching and yawing in true storm conditions would be truly horrendous. Most modern sailboats, particularly with the forward windage of roller furling headsails like “Morgan’s Cloud” has, yaw a lot at anchor when it is blowing hard—imagine the same behavior in 30-40 foot seas! There are ways to ameliorate this, such as riding sails, but this is still more gear to rig and to break in survival conditions.
- The yawing problem can be solved by using a Pardey Bridle but I have real reservations about rigging such a system on a boat the size of “Morgan’s Cloud”.
- I think that it is unlikely that Phyllis and I would be able to retrieve the sea anchor and its associated gear, particularly after being beaten up and exhausted by several days of lying to it in storm conditions. On this subject I got an email last week from a friend who is a commercial fisherman running three draggers off the US east coast. He says “I have never needed to purchase a sea anchor. Towing a bottom trawl in the Gulf of Maine has routinely provided sea anchors of all types and shapes. Judging from what I have seen people often discard the sea anchor rather than deal with its recovery.”
- The PARA-TECH manual, like that provided with the Galerider, demands that you deploy the drag device on a long rode so that it is immersed two to three waves back from the wave the boat is on and that the device is in the same relative point on its wave as the boat is on hers. Give me a break! Waves in storm conditions are confused and of varying heights and periods. They do not conform to the pretty diagrams in these manuals and even if they did, how, pray tell, are you to see in storm conditions with blowing spray where the thing is several waves to windward?
- A 24-foot sea anchor, the size recommended for “Morgan’s Cloud”, is going to be essentially impossible to drag through the water. Being attached to something in storm conditions at sea that has almost no give will generate forces that are truly frightening to think about. The PARA-TECH manual calls for at least 600’ of nylon rope to ameliorate this problem. However, recent research shows that nylon rope that is being heavily cycle loaded, particularly when wet, is much more subject to failure than we all once thought. The problem lies with self heating due to friction between the fibers that can eventually lead to the rope failing through melting. I suspect that this may be the reason that many sea anchors are lost due to rode breakage, rather than the chafe that has usually been blamed. Recently I spoke with a woman who had deployed a sea anchor on a trip to Bermuda. It worked well, but the nylon rope broke during recovery after the gale. This would suggest to me that it may have been weakened by the problem noted above.
So, while I’m not suggesting that sea anchors never work well or discounting the fact that they have saved many lives and boats, I think there is now a better storm survival backup system, at least for us on “Morgan’s Cloud”, and that is the subject for the next post.
Earlier Posts in the Series
#1 Goals
#2 Heaving-To
#3 When Heaving-to is Dangerous
#4 Options When Heaving-to is Not Working
#5 Stopping Wave Strikes While Heaved-To
#6 Survival Storms
If you want to make sure that you don’t miss the next installment in this series, without having to keep checking this blog, subscribe to our feed or automated notification e-mails, both available on the side bar. You will then receive a short notice when the next post comes up. Of course we will respect your privacy and will never divulge your e-mail address or shower you with junk. If you don’t like the feed you can unsubscribe in a moment.Labels: Seamanship
Heavy Weather Gear and Strategies #6—Survival Storms
posted by John & Phyllis
Web Site
In the last five posts in this series I have been writing about the techniques that have worked well for us on “Morgan’s Cloud” in gales and strong gales at sea. That is up to Beaufort Force 9 (41-47 knots). Next I’m going to write about our thinking on how to handle a storm of Force 10 or above that would threaten our very survival.
I'm happy to say that I did not take this photograph at sea, but rather from the shore after tropical storm Noel.
But before I get to that, I want to make clear that the waves generated by gales and strong gales, particularly if they are apposed to even a low velocity ocean current, can, if she is not properly equipped and handled, roll the average cruising boat completely over and injure or even kill her crew. I say this because I have noticed that many sailors exaggerate the wind speeds of gales that they have experienced and therefore give the impression that a Force 8 gale (34-40 knots) is no big deal. Usually they quote the top gust they registered, which is pretty meaningless, particularly since wind instruments are notoriously inaccurate once the wind gets over 30 knots. What matters when gauging the severity of heavy weather at sea is how strong the sustained wind is and how long it has been blowing for. (For more on this see “Liars, Damned Liars and Sailors”.)
Before I get into writing about survival storms, I have an admission to make: despite about 100,000 miles of offshore sailing experience over nearly 40 years, I have never been in one. On a few occasions I have experienced winds in excess of 50 knots, and on one memorable occasion, what I think was 70 knots or maybe a little more, but these blows did not last long enough to produce truly huge breaking waves. In each case I was on strong well equipped boats with experienced crews and my survival was not at risk unless we did something stupid.
Having said that, let’s all remember that a sustained wind of just 30 knots blowing against the Gulf Stream can turn into a survival storm if you handle it badly. Some years ago I got caught out in the Gulf Stream off Cape Hatteras in an unforecast rapidly intensifying low (bomb). The winds were blowing against the Stream at a steady 40 knots with gusts in squalls of 50 knots or so (verified from ship reports). The waves were huge, steep and starting to break. We rode it out by slowly jogging to windward with storm jib and trysail set. It was not a survival storm for us because I had a very strong and experienced crew of six aboard who were able to carefully steer over every wave for two days. But for a couple without an adequate strategy to manage these conditions without having to steer, it would have been a very dangerous situation. The point is that what constitutes a survival storm is as much about you and your boat as the weather.
Up to now in the series, I have been writing from experience. Now I’m getting into conjecture. But it is important conjecture. Despite the advances in modern weather forecasting, and taking into account the more frequent and intense violent weather we are seeing in recent years, there is a real chance that, if Phyllis and I go on sailing offshore, particularly in the high latitudes, we will get caught in a multi-day storm with sustained winds in excess of 50 knots that will be a survival storm for us. If that happens I want to make damned sure that we have a plan and the best possible gear to execute it.
So what about just staying heaved-to, perhaps with the drogue off the bow, as we have written about in the last three posts in the series? Would that be safe with the sustained winds over 50 knots and 30-40 foot breaking seas with the possibility of a 60 footer around? I don’t know for sure, but I think it might be. And I’m not alone in that surmise: Some months ago I had an interesting email exchange with Lin Pardey. She and Larry firmly believe that heaving-to, with a sea anchor if necessary, is the ultimate heavy weather strategy. She also quoted an interview she did with the late Sir Peter Blake who seemed to believe the same, and backed it up with a story of going through a true survival storm that overwhelmed another boat nearby, while heaved-to. Lin, Larry, and Sir Peter, between them, have wrung more salt water out of their socks than I have sailed over, as the old saying goes, and probably they are right. But, what if they’re not? What if the mast breaks and we can’t set any sail? What if…?
Bottom line, I’m a belt and suspenders kind of guy, and I want an alternative. Next post, we will talk about non-heaving-to storm survival systems: our old one, the new one we replaced it with, and why.
Earlier Posts in the Series
#1 Goals
#2 Heaving-To
#3 When Heaving-to is Dangerous
#4 Options When Heaving-to is Not Working
#5 Stopping Wave Strikes While Heaved-To
If you want to make sure that you don’t miss the next installment in this series, without having to keep checking this blog, subscribe to our feed or automated notification e-mails, both available on the side bar. You will then receive a short notice when the next post comes up. Of course we will respect your privacy and will never divulge your e-mail address or shower you with junk. If you don’t like the feed you can unsubscribe in a moment.
Labels: Seamanship
Heavy Weather Gear and Strategies #5—Stopping Wave Strikes While Heaved-to
posted by John & Phyllis
Web Site
As we have discussed in post #3 in the series, heaving-to is only safe as long as the boat does not forereach out from behind her own slick. It is the slick that causes waves to break before they reach the boat. In post #4 we looked at some alternatives to stop the wave strikes we were experiencing while heaved-to in a gale but that we rejected because they did not meet our goals for a heavy weather strategy.
In this post we will look at what we eventually did, how it worked and how it has become an integral part of our heavy weather strategy—I know, some of you thought I would never get to the payoff.
Having watched “Morgan’s Cloud”’s behavior for a while after the wave strike, I realized that all we needed to do to solve the problem was to slow her down just a bit and keep her bow just a bit up to windward. Large measures like our huge sea anchor really weren’t called for. However, the staysail was already rolled right in and the triple reefed mainsail centered, so we had done all we could with the rig to keep her bow up to the wind. (Learn about our heave-to method here.)
What we needed to do was to add some drag and give the bow a bit of a tug to weather to keep it from falling off the wind. While still heaved-to, I shackled 250 feet of 7/8” nylon line to our Galerider drogue and then struggled forward dragging the substantial weight of gear behind me. After passing the bitter end through our well-rounded bow fairlead, I cleated it off and then slid the Galerider down the windward side of the hull some 10’ aft of the bow (I did not want the drogue blowing off to leeward where the boat could reach over it) and into the water. This was surprisingly easy to do with the wind holding the drogue against the hull. Once the drogue was immersed, the boat slowly forereached away from it while I paid out the line. There was none of the high loads or fast run out of the line that you get with a drogue deployment over the stern when running off.
As soon as all the line paid out, the result was immediate and miraculous. The boat slowed to a virtual standstill from the 1-2 knots she had been making and the bow no longer fell off to leeward when a gust hit after a lull. We lay heaved-to like this for 18 hours very comfortably with no further wave strikes.
The great thing about this drogue technique is that, unlike with sea anchors, the loads were very low. The rode was quite often slack and I would estimate the highest load as lower than that you would get on an anchor rode in a 15 knot breeze. In fact, the gear could have been much lighter than I actually used, or what would be required for a sea anchor on a boat our size. ("Morgan’s Cloud" displaces 26 tons.)
In the morning I was occasionally able to see the drogue in a wave face to windward. Despite it only being set on 250 feet of line, the Galerider showed no signs of pulling out of a wave face or being tumbled. Again, I think the secret here is that the low loads on the drogue allowed it to sink well into the water thereby reducing this danger. Originally I said that if I did it again I would use 500 feet of line, but having thought about it some more, and in light of the above, I think I would be happy with 300 feet.
When the wind started to ease, we easily recovered the drogue, using the anchor windlass. Even though it was still blowing near gale, I would estimate that the load on the windlass was less than that when pulling up our anchor and chain on a calm day, because the boat was still heaved-to and we were not trying to sail away from the drogue.
It is important to understand that although the goal and result of this use of the Galerider are the same as Lin and Larry Pardey’s technique of setting a sea anchor on a bridle while heaved-to, the positioning and deployment of the drag device is very different. In our case the drogue ended up to windward and slightly aft of the boat with the rode making an angle of about 130 degrees to the bow and there was only one line to rig, instead of two.
Please read this, it’s important.
There are a couple of cautions with this technique:
- It specifically violates the Galerider’s instructions in which the manufacturer says that it should never be deployed from the bow of a boat.
- If the boat should tack through the eye of the wind with the Galerider deployed in this way, I think there is a chance that the boat could sail over the rode and perhaps the drogue. In a gale at sea, this could definitely ruin your whole day. “Morgan’s Cloud” showed no signs of tacking. In fact, I would be hard put to see how she could have tacked since the drag of the drogue was stopping her getting up enough speed to get her bow through the eye of the wind, nor was the drogue exerting enough pull to drag her bow through the wind—sort of a self limiting system. But if you have any fears that your boat might tack while set up like this, I would strongly suggest you use Lin and Larry’s technique instead. Finally if you limp into a harbour I’m anchored in with hundreds of feet of line and a Galerider wrapped around your rudder and prop, I will not be taking the blame for it or diving in the water to cut it off!
Since that day in early 2000 we have not had occasion to use this technique again, but it is really comforting to have it in our back pocket. By using the Galerider in this way, I’m confident that we can stay heaved-to safely in sustained strong gale or even storm force winds.
But what happens if it blows even harder and the waves get truly mountainous and breaking? What would we do then if heaving-to, even with the drogue, stops working? That will be the subject of the next post in the series.
Earlier Posts in the Series
#1 Goals
#2 Heaving-To
#3 When Heaving-to is Dangerous
#4 Options When Heaving-to is Not Working
If you want to make sure that you don’t miss the next installment in this series, without having to keep checking this blog, subscribe to our feed or automated notification e-mails, both available on the side bar. You will then receive a short notice when the next post comes up. Of course we will respect your privacy and will never divulge your e-mail address or shower you with junk. If you don’t like the feed you can unsubscribe in a moment.Labels: Seamanship
Heavy Weather Gear and Strategies #4—Options When Heaving-to is Not Working
posted by John & Phyllis
Web Site
In the previous post in this series I wrote about an experience we had on “Morgan’s Cloud” when being heaved-to turned out to be dangerous. In this post I’m going to cover the options we considered to stop the breaking wave strikes we were experiencing.
Running Off
I did briefly consider running off towing the Galerider drogue that we have carried for years. However, the significant wave height was running 20-feet (confirmed by weatherfax) with some bigger breaking waves around (like the one that hit us). We had stopped sailing earlier because even our massive autopilot was no longer able to handle the loads and, while the autopilot might have handled steering while dragging the drogue, I had recently heard from two friends that had had Galeriders pull out of a wave face resulting in their boats rapidly accelerating; a very dangerous occurrence that, in the conditions we were experiencing, could have led to a bad broach or even a roll over, particularly if the boat was being steered by the autopilot. All in all, this option failed all five of our goals.
Lying to a Sea Anchor
At the time, we carried a 24-foot diameter PARA-TECH sea anchor that we had bought in case we were dismasted or some other damage made it impossible to heave-to. I considered using it but was loath to do so because the deployment process required setting it on 600-feet of 7/8-inch line as well as a trip line with three fenders on it; way more complicated and fraught with opportunities to get hurt than I was comfortable with in the very rough conditions. I was also skeptical about our ability to retrieve this massive sea anchor and its associated gear, which would weigh several hundred pounds when wet, at the end of the blow. I know you are supposed to just pick up the trip line and pull it in, but the thought of trying to haul the boat upwind to, or motor up to, the trip buoys and snag them with a boat hook in the left-over sea after the blow was an evolution so full of opportunities for disaster that it gave me the horrors.
(We had bought the sea anchor with an awareness of the retrieval problem and were willing to accept that since we felt that it was the best technology at the time. Assuming that it had done its job in a true survival storm, the loss of several thousand dollars worth of gear if we had to cut it away would be an acceptable price to pay. However, in this case, although the wave strike had been violent, we did not feel that the conditions were actually threatening our survival.)
So with the deployment challenges, together with reports that said that lying to a sea anchor in big breaking seas can result in violent yawing and pitching, this option failed two of our goals, at least.
The Pardey Bridle
At the time, we were set up to use the sea anchor discussed above with the “Pardey Bridle”, a method for deploying a sea anchor while remaining heaved-to with sail up, pioneered by Lin and Larry Pardey. I think this technique would have removed the wave strike danger without the yawing and attendant violent motion problem of the sea anchor alone. Also, if I had fully understood their method, I would have bought a much smaller sea anchor than that recommended by the manufacturer and perhaps lighter gear, making deployment and retrieval easier. Having said that, I would guess that Lin and Larry’s boat weighs less than half what “Morgan’s Cloud” does, making the loads a great deal smaller and deployment much easier for them.
Although we did not try it then, because of the deployment and retrieval problem, I think the “Pardey Bridle” technique discussed in Lin and Larry’s Storm Tactics book and video makes a great deal of sense. I would also strongly recommend that anyone who goes, or is planning to go, to sea in sailboats read the section of their book on the dangers of running off in heavy weather. I had long been uncomfortable with running off, but it was Lin and Larry’s book that really clarified and confirmed my thinking on the matter.
Next post we will look at what we did to solve the forereaching and resultant wave strike problem and how this technique has become an integral part of our heavy weather strategy on “Morgan’s Cloud”.
Earlier Posts in the Series
#1 Goals
#2 Heaving-To
#3 When Heaving-to is Dangerous
If you want to make sure that you don’t miss the next installment in this series, without having to keep checking this blog, subscribe to our feed or automated notification e-mails, both available on the side bar. You will then receive a short notice when the next post comes up. Of course we will respect your privacy and will never divulge your e-mail address or shower you with junk. If you don’t like the feed you can unsubscribe in a moment.
Labels: Seamanship
Heavy Weather Gear and Strategies #3—When Heaving-to is Dangerous
posted by John & Phyllis
Web Site
The key to heaving-to safely is keeping the boat directly downwind of the slick created to windward by her own drift to leeward. I can’t overemphasize how important this is. If a heaved-to boat forereaches fast enough to get out from behind the slick, heaving-to can actually become more dangerous than continuing to sail because it is the slick that causes waves to break before they reach the boat.
Some years ago Phyllis and I had this point forcefully brought home to us in a high pressure gale south of Bermuda. The winds were well in excess of forty knots and significant wave heights some 20 feet (confirmed by weather fax). As usual, we heaved-to and retired below to wait it out. All went well for a few hours until we were hit hard on the weather side by a breaking wave. Keep in mind that a significant wave height of 20 feet means that there are theoretically waves of 40 feet out there. I don’t know how big the one that hit us was, but suffice to say “Morgan’s Cloud” heeled to about 40-50 degrees and was pushed violently sideways. I suspect that a smaller boat may have been knocked down past vertical. Also, MC is massively constructed of aluminum; in a boat less overbuilt I would have feared structural damage, particularly to the lee side. (It is interesting that in such events it is usually the lee side of a boat that is damaged when it is slammed down against the water, not the weather side from the wave strike.)
I'm happy to say that I did not take this photograph at sea, but rather from the shore after tropical storm Noel.
I spent the next half hour in the cockpit observing the boat’s behavior. It soon became apparent that the substantial variability of the wind speed after the cold front passage, with lulls in the mid-twenties to gusts around 50 knots, was the culprit. The boat would fall off the wind during the lulls and then sail out of her slick with the next gust. Add the wrong wave at the wrong moment and bang. (Generally, high pressure driven gales—when it keeps blowing hard, or even blows harder, after the cold front passage, as the following high moves in—have more variable winds than low pressure gales due to vertical instability in the air mass.)
To make things safe we needed to slow the boat down and stop the bow falling off to leeward. However, the staysail was already rolled right in and the triple reefed mainsail centered, so we had done all we could with the rig to keep her bow up to the wind. (Learn about our heave-to method here.)
Next post we will look at the options we considered and the quick and easy solution we deployed to solve the problem.
Earlier Posts in the Series
#1 Goals
#2 Heaving-To
If you want to make sure that you don’t miss the next installment in this series, without having to keep checking this blog, subscribe to our feed or automated notification e-mails, both available on the side bar. You will then receive a short notice when the next post comes up. Of course we will respect your privacy and will never divulge your e-mail address or shower you with junk. If you don’t like the feed you can unsubscribe in a moment.
Labels: Seamanship
Heavy Weather Gear and Strategies #2—Heaving-To
posted by John & Phyllis
Web Site
On “Morgan’s Cloud” heaving-to has been for years, and still is, our first and favorite strategy when the weather gets nasty. It satisfies all of our goals discussed in this post and has the particular benefit of being surprisingly comfortable. In fact we have even enjoyed a sit down dinner at the salon table when heaved–to in a full gale.
We also believe that in most conditions a sailboat properly heaved-to is much less vulnerable to being knocked down or rolled than one running off, at least if the running boat is not using a good drogue system.
In recent years heaving-to has fallen out of fashion. I think this is because of, what I believe to be, the misconception that modern fin keel boats won’t heave-to well. In most cases the actual problem is the limited ability that modern sloops have to appropriately adjust their sail area to lie heaved-to comfortably, rather than a hull form issue.
On “Morgan’s Cloud” we have found that as the wind increases, we need to slowly reduce the ratio of sail area in the fore triangle to that of the mainsail. When heaved-to in 25-30 knots, we need about a third of the roller furling staysail rolled out and backed to keep the boat from tacking through the wind. But once the wind is over 30 knots, this much staysail will cause the boat to lie too far off the wind and forereach ahead. In fact once the wind gets over gale force (34 knots) “Morgan’s Cloud” lies most comfortably with three reefs in the main and both headsails rolled up completely—the windage of the rolled sails is enough to stop her from tacking.
Our heaving-to system on “Morgan’s Cloud” makes use of the following gear:
Cutter Rig
"Morgan's Cloud" is a cutter and so we use the backed staysail when heaved-to, which brings the center of effort much further aft than would be the case if we used the jib. I think that sticking a small storm jib way out on the bow, a long way from the keel and the center of lateral resistance, makes it very difficult to heave-to well. So even if a voyaging boat is rigged as a sloop I think she should have the ability to quickly and easily rig an internal headstay and running backstays to allow a storm staysail to be set.
Staysail on a Roller Furler
Our staysail is on a roller furler, which allows us to easily adjust the fore triangle sail area in the small increments that we have found necessary to achieve a stable heaved-to attitude. I know there are those that will question the wisdom of relying on a roller furling working sail in gale force conditions; however, the loads on our partially rolled staysail are very low because the area we show goes down as the wind speed goes up, till finally we fully roll it up when the wind reaches gale force. (We do carry a storm jib in case the staysail gets damaged but have never had to use it on this boat.)
Easily Adjustable Staysail Sheet Leads
It is vital to be able to adequately flatten the staysail as its area is adjusted. To this end one of the first changes we made to the boat was replacing the original staysail sheet lead tracks and their difficult to adjust pin stop cars with Harken roller bearing cars that are easily adjusted under load using 4:1 tackles. We also lengthened the tracks to make sure that we can get the correct sheet angle, even when the sail is rolled almost all the way in.
Three Reefs in the Mainsail
We have a very deep third reef in the mainsail that reduces the area from its original 600 square feet to about 250 square feet. This coupled with a powerful and easy to use reefing system and roller furling headsails means that we can go from full working sail to heaved-to in minutes with no sail changes. (We do have a storm trysail bagged on its own track ready to go at all times, but have never had to use it on this boat, even when heaved-to in winds in excess of 40 knots.) The subject of three reefs brings me to one of my pet peeves: reefing systems that require the crew to re-reeve the first reef pennant as the third reef pennant after the second reef is taken in, or some such variation. It is already blowing hard and a crew member has to balance on the boom end to reeve the third pennant. Even with a messenger line this is dangerous. If you have three reefs, and I believe you should, then all three pennants should be reeved at all times.
Wide and Easy to Use Mainsheet Traveler
We have quite often been in sea and wind conditions where “Morgan’s Cloud” lies closer to the wind and more comfortably with the boom right on the center line or even a little to weather. This is easy for us to do since we have a massive dual-car low-friction Harken roller bearing traveler system that spans the whole aft cabin roof. Like the staysail, the cars are fitted with 4:1 adjuster tackles. I think many voyagers make the mistake of thinking that such “high tech” deck gear is for racers only. While this stuff is expensive, it pays huge dividends in making a short handed boat easier to handle in fair weather and foul.
So once we have used all of the above gear to get “Morgan’s Cloud” perfectly balanced for the conditions—neither forereaching too fast nor threatening to tack—we retire below and maintain a watch on radar from the warm and dry chart table with a quick peek out every 15 minutes and a security call with our position and status as “limited in our ability to maneuver” broadcast on channel 16 every half hour—beats heck out of epic hero stuff like steering for hours in a spray swept cockpit.
Different boats will require modifications and strategies that are different from ours, but by using these concepts as a starting point and with some thought I’m convinced that most boats can be made to heave-to well.
In the next post we will look at what we do when the conditions are such that no matter how we adjust things, “Morgan’s Cloud” continues to forereach out of the zone of wave strike protection caused by the slick she leaves to windward when properly heaved-to.
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Labels: Seamanship
Heavy Weather Gear and Strategies #1—Goals
posted by John & Phyllis
Web Site
Before discussing the actual nuts and bolts of our gale and storm survival gear and strategy on “Morgan’s Cloud” I’m going to write a bit about our goals when we are putting together gear and thinking about strategy for dealing with heavy weather at sea.
Keep the Keel Side Down
If you read accounts of sailboat losses at sea due to heavy weather, the series of events that eventually leads to abandonment almost invariably starts with a knockdown, rollover or pitchpoling. It’s also amazing how often the survivors say that everything seemed to be going fine until suddenly and without warning the mast was underwater.
No Requirement to Steer
A boat steered by a good helmsperson can survive amazingly violent conditions with little gear or forethought other than strong storm sails. However, I’m no Bernard Moitessier*. For me, the Zen of steering lasts about an hour on a good day. Add some breaking waves, howling winds, and cold temperatures and my Zen time goes to less than five minutes. Phyllis came to sailing as an adult and, although a surprisingly good helmsperson, she must concentrate and work harder when steering than someone who has sailed from childhood. Realistically I don’t believe that the two of us could steer “Morgan’s Cloud” for more than 6-8 hours in a gale (and less in a storm) without exhausting ourselves and eventually making a bad mistake.
No Requirement for Automated Steering
Although we have a massive autopilot that can and does steer well in near-gale and even gale force conditions when running off, we are not willing to risk an ambush from Mr. Murphy by relying on it in these conditions.
No Sail Changes and No Moving Heavy Gear Around
I’ve paid my dues wrestling to hank on a storm jib on a pitching wave-swept foredeck or standing on a winch and threading the slides of a storm trysail into a track gate above a furled mainsail as the wildly thrashing bunt of the sail tries to take my head off. Been there, done that, and don’t need to play that game anymore. In addition, my middle aged back does not take kindly to dragging sodde
