Alpha 42 "Be Good Too" rescue 300 miles off Cape Henry Merged

[S/V Alchemy]

If only Charles had heeded Herb's forecast...oh, wait...

[rockDAWG]

Originally Posted by S/V Alchemy

If only Charles had heeded Herb's forecast...oh, wait...

Oh no. Hahaha..... it is not even funny.

[minaret]

Originally Posted by Cotemar

Your right the bucket handles would be gone in a hurry. Line would hold out much better.

I have lots of extra line and a few buckets and a small drogue. Would spend a few hours figuring out what configuration would work the best then another few hours to learn the trimming, but at least the stern would be the stern and the bow would be the bow. What else would I be doing.

If you had one of those plastic five gallon buckets with the double plastic rim it might work even better to do a lashing around the rim with a little spanish windlass and four loops for the bridle. A few drill holes with lashings around the lashing to lock it in place would finish the job. Leather the loops and you might have a serviceable drogue!


Perhaps you could even vary the size of the hole cut in the bottom to adjust resistance...

[Cotemar]

Originally Posted by minaret

If you had one of those plastic five gallon buckets with the double plastic rim it might work even better to do a lashing around the rim with a little spanish windlass and four loops for the bridle. A few drill holes with lashings around the lashing to lock it in place would finish the job. Leather the loops and you might have a serviceable drogue!


Perhaps you could even vary the size of the hole cut in the bottom to adjust resistance...

That's the same Home Depot buckets I have on board. Thats a good start.

[Boatguy30]

Originally Posted by rockDAWG

Rick's cat uses 48 mm solid SS stock. 48mm is 1.89". How is that equivalent to a 1.5" pipe? I must miss something here.

My point was, if the builder was telling me they are using some super great rudder post that happens to measure 48mm OD. It would be concern they were using some type of pipe and maybe just welding caps on the end to make it look solid.

I'm sure that would never happen in "quality above all else" Chinese boatyard....

[DeepFrz]

Needless to say I have never tried steering with a drogue, however, articles I have read about people who have tell me it is not that simple. It appeared the drogue/sails/motor speed had to be constantly adjusted to keep the boat headed in approximately the right direction. The people that were successful were fully crewed boats. I have not heard of anyone being successful at this with only a single hander or a man/wife crew. Have any of you?

[minaret]

Originally Posted by Cotemar

That's the same Home Depot buckets I have on board. Thats a good start.

Of course. It's "All Purpose". I'm sure Homer would approve.

[minaret]

Originally Posted by DeepFrz

Needless to say I have never tried steering with a drogue, however, articles I have read about people who have tell me it is not that simple. It appeared the drogue/sails/motor speed had to be constantly adjusted to keep the boat headed in approximately the right direction. The people that were successful were fully crewed boats. I have not heard of anyone being successful at this with only a single hander or a man/wife crew. Have any of you?

I would guess this has a lot to do with the desired point of sail. DDW, probably not too hard to do with just a headsail or spinnaker up. Other courses would present a variety of challenges, I'm sure.

[Cotemar]

Originally Posted by DeepFrz

Needless to say I have never tried steering with a drogue, however, articles I have read about people who have tell me it is not that simple. It appeared the drogue/sails/motor speed had to be constantly adjusted to keep the boat headed in approximately the right direction. The people that were successful were fully crewed boats. I have not heard of anyone being successful at this with only a single hander or a man/wife crew. Have any of you?

The drogue off a bridle on the stern and the floor board tied to a spinnaker pole method, have both been used to limp home with success on double handed boats. It's not ideal and a slow go, but has worked.

The drogue off a bridle on the stern is more appropriate for a cat, as they have a wider beam to steer port to stb. with and usually do not carry a spinnaker pole.

[chris in SG]

Originally Posted by Boatguy30

My point was, if the builder was telling me they are using some super great rudder post that happens to measure 48mm OD. It would be concern they were using some type of pipe and maybe just welding caps on the end to make it look solid.

I'm sure that would never happen in "quality above all else" Chinese boatyard....

Seems to me there are enough issues in this thread about US quality work, without needing to bring the chinese into it..

[rockDAWG]

Originally Posted by DeepFrz

Needless to say I have never tried steering with a drogue, however, articles I have read about people who have tell me it is not that simple. It appeared the drogue/sails/motor speed had to be constantly adjusted to keep the boat headed in approximately the right direction. The people that were successful were fully crewed boats. I have not heard of anyone being successful at this with only a single hander or a man/wife crew. Have any of you?

Originally Posted by minaret

I would guess this has a lot to do with the desired point of sail. DDW, probably not too hard to do with just a headsail or spinnaker up. Other courses would present a variety of challenges, I'm sure.

In this situation of Be Good Too, deploying the drogue is not appropriate. I am not sure if sea anchor could help either giving the directions of the boat, wind and boat speed. If I read it correctly, at the time when the wave hit and stopped the boat, they were not at the helm. The boat was on autopilot. And yet, no one was being kicked down or injured except the rudders were damaged.

I hope they can recover the boat and the owners can come forward to share with us their views.

[Dsanduril]

Originally Posted by rockDAWG

... If I read it correctly, at the time when the wave hit and stopped the boat, they were not at the helm. The boat was on autopilot...

Actually, according to Doane the helm was locked hard over:

We now set up the boat to motorsail itself in a fore-reaching configuration under just the double-reefed main (there was no third reef). We locked the helm off hard to port to keep her from rounding up and were making progress eastwards at 4-5 knots. This seemed stable, though we were still getting whacked occasionally by waves on the starboard bow.

At about 1130 hrs we took a huge direct hit all across our front windows.

That may have contributed to what happened, the helm was already hard over (presumably to the stops, which he also says were there) when the wave sent them tumbling backwards.

[Dave852]

This is a long video but if you jump to 4.27 minutes you will see a drogue being used until approximately 6.00 minutes. At 7.00 minutes you can see the rudders jammed into the hull. At about 9.14 minutes you can see where the damaged tips of the rudders were removed and the repair to the hull just above where the rudders had caused damage to the hull. Its not documented very well as I was busy with other things at the time. The weather was good and I know it would have been harder with more wave action but I can say for sure that without the drogue we would have had to try beating the rudders off and if that did not work we would of had to call for help as we could not get the boat to go straight using other means as I have previously posted. For those that have not read all 400 posts I will repeat that I tried streaming hundreds of feet of line with anchors, fenders etc to no avail in an effort to not use the drogue. A drogue is an essential tool for that type of situation imho
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/jZoZv0cENLM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Ovive Sails From Florida To Australia - YouTube

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

The Hanse recommended position is close to the bearing as possible. This is to avoid flexing forces from the AP tiller arm that AP arm was fitted too far from the bearing

Dave

DAve, that is the point that I was trying to make... ineffectually, I guess!

With the boats that I am familiar with, utilizing s/s rudder posts, no such warnings are posted. The shafts are stiff enough and resilient enough that excessive flexing does not happen. Apparently aluminium shafts are more vulnerable in this sense.

As others have said, I reckon that steering gear is a bad place to scrimp on scantlings or materials.

Jim

[beiland]

Originally Posted by Dave852

This is a long video but if you jump to 4.27 minutes you will see a drogue being used until approximately 6.00 minutes. At 7.00 minutes you can see the rudders jammed into the hull. At about 9.14 minutes you can see where the damaged tips of the rudders were removed and the repair to the hull just above where the rudders had caused damage to the hull.

Looks as though you were fortunate that your rudders were jammed in a relatively straight ahead configuration,...unlike those of the alpha cat in this discussion.