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25-02-2016, 08:07
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#76
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Moderator Emeritus
Join Date: Oct 2013
Location: Jacksonville/ out cruising
Boat: Island Packet 38
Posts: 31,351
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Re: Lagoon 440 Tragedy
I come from a power boat background.
I have a hard time thinking that not sticking the pointy end of the boat into the waves when it gets really bad to not be the best option. Of course if you look at the Sportfishing boats I grew up with, they all have wide, flat, low transoms, with big swim platforms, and large sliding glass doors.
I have no Multi experience either, my current thought is if it gets really bad in my mono is to deploy that chute off the bow with 400' of three strand nylon.
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25-02-2016, 08:12
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#77
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Senior Cruiser
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: PORTUGAL
Posts: 30,561
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Re: Lagoon 440 Tragedy
Quote:
Originally Posted by a64pilot
I come from a power boat background.
I have a hard time thinking that not sticking the pointy end of the boat into the waves when it gets really bad to not be the best option. Of course if you look at the Sportfishing boats I grew up with, they all have wide, flat, low transoms, with big swim platforms, and large sliding glass doors.
I have no Multi experience either, my current thought is if it gets really bad in my mono is to deploy that chute off the bow with 400' of three strand nylon.
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Switch to Multiplait.. more expensive but.. oh so much better..
__________________
It was a dark and stormy night and the captain of the ship said.. "Hey Jim, spin us a yarn." and the yarn began like this.. "It was a dark and stormy night.."
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25-02-2016, 12:01
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#78
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Registered User
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Isle of Arran, UK
Boat: Lagoon 420 - Hull 52
Posts: 249
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Re: Lagoon 440 Tragedy
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rovin
Things we did wrong: we weren't suppose to be in the North Atlantic in winter.
Kevin
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Thanks Rovin for sharing your story. I remember the tragedy well and posted early on in this thread in 2007. It was very pertinent to me at the time, as just a few weeks earlier I had ordered a Lagoon 420 with the intention of sailing an Atlantic Circuit with my wife and six kids. In a curious way the tragedy reassured me that what we were planning was safe and we went on to complete a trip that will stay with us all forever.
At the time, I took comfort from the fact that two people had survived being caught in the worst imaginable conditions in one of the worst places to be at the worst time of the year. I concluded that it was the boat that saved your life and I think your story confirms this.
I'm delighted to hear that you and your wife are planning to buy a boat and sail away with your two boys. I guarantee it will be the highlight of your life.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rovin
... I would take my family around the world on a Lagoon 380 anytime or any other comparable cat that size and bigger.
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I'm very pleased to hear that your tragic experience has not put you off catamarans or Lagoons and I think you are right on both counts.
What I think is remarkable is that after 3 1/2 days of gale force winds, followed by about 12 hours of storm conditions you still had the physical and mental strength to survived on an upturned boat for eleven hours in such conditions. Some credit must go to the boat for, presumably, keeping you safe, warm, rested and comfortable for so long, before being finally overwhelmed, and then giving you a platform to survive on for a further eleven hours.
Take comfort from the fact that you will never put your boat and your family in the way of such conditions and don't get too hung up about liferafts, concentrate on never having to use them. I can thoroughly recommend an Atlantic Circuit, working with the winds, not against them; leave the Canary Islands in December and the Caribbean in May and you can't go wrong.
Chris
Octopus, Lagoon 420 Hybrid
Isle of Arran, Scotland
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25-02-2016, 12:26
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#79
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Registered User
Join Date: Jan 2014
Posts: 1,829
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Re: Lagoon 440 Tragedy
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rovin
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Once again my opinion. Take what you like from it. That's the point of this discussion.
Kevin
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Rovin Kevin,
Thank you for telling what happened. There are some important lessons in what you have posted.
Thanks,
Dan
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25-02-2016, 12:52
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#80
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Registered User
Join Date: Sep 2006
Posts: 9,398
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Re: Lagoon 440 Tragedy
Quote:
Originally Posted by LakeSuperior
Rovin, your thoughts on a drogue sound equivalent to how a series drogue might perform in those conditions. Some folks have described it as being linked to a rubber band as it evens out the time dependent wave driven loading.
From your descriptions of the sea state it seems that a parachute would offer higher loadings than the hardware would withstand and would simply tear out or chaff through.
Folks on CF also have discussed deploying a parachute off the bow and rigging to hold the bow at a angle to the waves like 30 degrees.
Any thoughts on a parachute versus a series drogue for the survival situation?
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A parachute sea anchor should be deployed from the bow. Appropriate hardware needs to be fitted if you plan to use this option.
The description does sound like a drogue would have possibly prevented the pitchpole, by avoiding the high speeds reached. However, then you'd have seas hitting the cockpit at higher relative speed.
Obviously a sea anchor off the bows would also prevent high speeds. The worry then would be the strength of the vertical forward windows. Being much smaller than the cockpit doors, you'd think they'd be less likely to break.
__________________
"You CANNOT be serious!"
John McEnroe
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25-02-2016, 14:14
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#81
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Registered User
Join Date: Feb 2016
Posts: 19
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Re: Lagoon 440 Tragedy
My brother just sent this to me today. It looks exactly like the system that peeled off the states at high speed and met up with us in the other low pressure system that we were already in.
This is why I called it a wave, it stretched from Main to the Caribbean where he was at the time thinking "this heading right for him!"
And a day later our EPIRBS went off.
Incredible how similar they are. When we were in the Bermuda hospital watching the news of a storm that came through the states and left a wake of destruction, Miami had 44 degree temperature, Denver airport had 100 mph winds and so on.
Almost the same week.
Sent from my iPad using Cruisers Sailing Forum
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25-02-2016, 17:07
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#82
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Registered User
Join Date: Jan 2014
Posts: 186
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Re: Lagoon 440 Tragedy
Quote:
Originally Posted by a64pilot
I come from a power boat background.
I have a hard time thinking that not sticking the pointy end of the boat into the waves when it gets really bad to not be the best option. Of course if you look at the Sportfishing boats I grew up with, they all have wide, flat, low transoms, with big swim platforms, and large sliding glass doors.
I have no Multi experience either, my current thought is if it gets really bad in my mono is to deploy that chute off the bow with 400' of three strand nylon.
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I would have thought that if a chute was deployed off the bow in 60+ knots of wind, then the boat would be still be going backwards at 15+ knots. Obviously not good at all and a guarantee to pitch pole over the stern.
A sailing cat is not going to have anything like enough horse power to make any head way into those winds.
May be for a sport fishing boat with a lot of horse power you could apply enough power to limit your backward speed to just a couple of knots or so. The sea anchor could then be used to keep your bow facing the right direction.
I doubt that if going forwards into the wind, even at several knots, in those conditions that you will have any stearage way. I.e. you cannot hold the bow into the wind. This means that the only way to do it is by going backwards and using a sea anchor.
This is all way out and beyond anything I have experienced or know about (or would ever want to come close to experiencing).
My feeling is that in real survival conditions for a mono you would want to be facing downhill and trying to keep your speed slow enough to avoid broaching - by towing a drogue, warps etc. Also the drogue might be necessary for keeping you pointing the right direction.
What is the right approach in a cat (or mono for that matter) which has large "patio" doors which are vulnerable to heavy water from over the stern? Is there anything you can do to prevent them breaking and huge volumes of water getting in?
I am interested in hearing about opinions and options (just in case).
Please keep this interesting and illuminating discussion going.
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25-02-2016, 22:16
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#84
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Registered User
Join Date: Jan 2015
Location: Discovery Bay, CA
Posts: 1,183
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Re: Lagoon 440 Tragedy
Quote:
I would have thought that if a chute was deployed off the bow in 60+ knots of wind, then the boat would be still be going backwards at 15+ knots.
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I would think going backwards wouldn't be good for the rudder. I believe this is just one of the drogue vs sea anchor arguments. I defer to sailors that have actually "been there done that" and know what they're talking about.
Thank you Rovin for sharing with us.
__________________
"Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore"- Andre' Gide
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25-02-2016, 22:47
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#85
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Moderator
Join Date: May 2008
Location: cruising SW Pacific
Boat: Jon Sayer 1-off 46 ft fract rig sloop strip plank in W Red Cedar
Posts: 21,135
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Re: Lagoon 440 Tragedy
Quote:
I would have thought that if a chute was deployed off the bow in 60+ knots of wind, then the boat would be still be going backwards at 15+ knots. Obviously not good at all and a guarantee to pitch pole over the stern.
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No personal experience to bring to bear on this statement, but it surely goes against what the vendors of para-anchors say. And to me it is obvious that a para-anchor being dragged through the water at anything even approaching 15+ knots would be immediately reduced to rags. Their whole point is to provide enough drag to effectively stop the vessel, and many users, especially sailing cats, have reported this to be the case.
I remember speaking with the owners of Ramtha, one of the cats abandoned in the Queens birthday storm in '94. IIRC they reported that the chute had kept them pretty well under control, but on one massive surge they moved backwards enough to damage the steering, and when the opportunity to abandon came, they took it. The boat survived on its own and was recovered, 'chute intact. there is no way to compare their events with Kevin's, but both were survival storm intensities.
Jim
__________________
Jim and Ann s/v Insatiable II, lying Port Cygnet Tasmania once again.
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26-02-2016, 01:49
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#86
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Registered User
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: UK
Boat: Woods Flica catamaran
Posts: 499
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Re: Lagoon 440 Tragedy
Thank you Rovin for sharing your real world experiences. Must be tough to re-live them but they may help someone else make the right decision at some point. Especialy choosing when to sail.
Glad that you are still planning to sail a cat away with your family and wish you every succes with it
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26-02-2016, 03:19
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#87
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Senior Cruiser
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Thunder Bay, Ontario - 48-29N x 89-20W
Boat: (Cruiser Living On Dirt)
Posts: 49,082
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Re: Lagoon 440 Tragedy
Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, Kevin.
Thanks for sharing your harrowing story, and many of the details of those terrible events.
I hope you stick around the Forum, and share some happier stories as you prepare to (& do) set sail on your next (less dramatic) adventure.
__________________
Gord May
"If you didn't have the time or money to do it right in the first place, when will you get the time/$ to fix it?"
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26-02-2016, 05:23
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#88
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Registered User
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: Warwick RI
Boat: Catalina 30
Posts: 1,873
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Re: Lagoon 440 Tragedy
Quote:
Originally Posted by a64pilot
I have no Multi experience either, my current thought is if it gets really bad in my mono is to deploy that chute off the bow with 400' of three strand nylon.
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My concern on this and to be upfront I have 0 experience with this. But my thought is, in even conditions half as bad as what Rovin experienced, how would you get 400' of line and a heavy parachute rigged up properly and deployed off the bow? Even jack lined in you are asking for a beating and the mechanism for injury is very high.
Now not arguing merit of which is better in a big sea state as I don't want to de-rail this thread. Just strictly talking ease and safety of deployment, a series drogue seems much faster and safer. It is pre rigged on the transom before doing a crossing and you can deploy it in seconds. See link below
Jordan Series Drogue - Launching and Retrieval
just my $.02, YMMV
__________________
-Si Vis Pacem Parabellum
-Molon Labe
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26-02-2016, 05:55
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#90
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Registered User
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Portugal/Med
Boat: Comet 41s
Posts: 6,140
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Re: Lagoon 440 Tragedy
[QUOTE=Rovin;2055422]
Quote:
Originally Posted by ontherocks83
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Things we did wrong: we weren't suppose to be in the North Atlantic in winter.
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I guess that sums it up rather well. No small sailing boat should be there at that time and a breaking 12 m wave, or even smaller, will have unforeseen dangerous effects, monohulls or multihulls alike.
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