Full keel vs fin keel for offshore?

[newhaul]

Jim remember I'm the king of cheap if I can get it free I will.

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by newhaul

true they are not as detailed as winlink is however even basic black and white you get what is needed to do a forecast of what you should expect within the next few days where ever you are. That and the mark1 eyeball.

I think we've missed stays and are in irons here. I'm saying that the kind of file size used in winlink/saildoc gribs will NOT produce anything like the detail shown in the second chart in your example. Remember that we're talking about files limited to something like 10 kb at most, and those can take a while to download. I'm not knowledgeable enough to say, but I bet your chart would be multi megabytes. The sun will have died into a red dwarf before that file would finish downloading!

Jim

[Paul Elliott]

GRIB files via sailmail or winlink over ham or marine SSB are typically 10kBytes or so, but they're not limited to that. Using Pactor-3 you can go perhaps double that size and still have reasonable download times. More important, much of the detail shown in newhaul's example is added by the display program after the GRIB data is received -- The GRIB data is overlaid on a static chart, and shading between contours is interpolated. GRIB's do *not* show the frontal information pictured in the example, for that you need to get the WFAX image files, or "Fleet Code" data if available.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

I think we've missed stays and are in irons here. I'm saying that the kind of file size used in winlink/saildoc gribs will NOT produce anything like the detail shown in the second chart in your example. Remember that we're talking about files limited to something like 10 kb at most, and those can take a while to download. I'm not knowledgeable enough to say, but I bet your chart would be multi megabytes. The sun will have died into a red dwarf before that file would finish downloading!

Jim

the second one shows as just under 800in as a screenshot picture.
This is another screenshot of a grib at 142kb internet based with pressure wind and rain for 2 days at 4 hour intervals.

[picklesandjesse]

So much info here. But the world will still determine when you get hit. Just be ready for it. Sooner or later we all get tested and it is REAL when you are faced with you're demise. Luck will also count, as I'm sure most people here would know. Pleased to still be on the planet at 73.

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by newhaul

the second one shows as just under 800in as a screenshot picture.
This is another screenshot of a grib at 142kb internet based with pressure wind and rain for 2 days at 4 hour intervals.

Total 150% thread drift from the original debate but who cares....

The gribs you can get while attached to the internet are quite a different animal to those you get offshore....the same but different.

Some may have Iridium but most do not... esp them with $10,000 boats and tight budgets.

So the basic grib product is the same but people using sailmail can't afford in an 'airtime' sense to get 3 hourly over 3 or 4 days..... as stated the files are just too big.

First piccy.... in black so it shows up better here... I usually have it in colour.... 4 days at 24h intervals... file is 16KB... that is a big file even for a good HF connection

In that sort of area I think wefax is superior but even that will not show small wx events.... or even the development of nasty stuff... read the sailmail notes...

Second pic... smaller area ... 24,48,60,72h.... 8KB... even that takes time to suck out of the sky..

Both just surface wind and pressure....

In the first case - tropics - the best of the best is the NOAA sats....

In the latter - being a higher latitude - you get a better idea of what is going on but ignore the inshore stuff.... gribs fall to bits inshore ... at the time of that grib we were 60 miles west of the ship symbol ( bit of a software thing ) getting absolutely hammered in a very secure anchorage when the grib said 25kts ... wine bottle falling orf dinner table... terrible.... even there NOAA sats are still king...

[boatman61]

If ones spent enough time out there one can learn to live without gribs and weather forecasts.. the sea and sky give advance warning of big systems coming through..
I remember a crossing from Florida in Feb on a Lagoon that had everyone sitting ashore watching my progress trying to figure out how I was knowing when to swing S and then back N again..
No weather forecasts.. just reading the sea and sky.
Its a good skill to learn..

[malbert73]

Originally Posted by Tidjian

Great videos.

If that's what a sea squall is and those are the common weather patterns I'll see. Lasting an hour to a few hours or a day. That's not nearly as intimidating as what I was imagining. Here I'm picturing the wrath of God with 30 foot waves coming down on you. I'm guessing that's less of a squall and more of a tropical storm.

As for hurricanes I am going to try to plan my voyage as best I can dodging the seasons obviously. In the unfortunate situation one forms beneath me I guess it's heave to and hope it passes under me or above me. If I end up in one I guess I'll be mighty screwed and best do what I can until I can't any longer. Let's pray that doesn't happen.

I think after the length of discussion on here about boats, gear, equipment, mental and physical preparation. The boat at least will be as well prepared as I can make her. The rest will come down to a bit of luck. .

That is a typical inshore chesapeake squall. They are scary only due to lightning and very strong albeit short lived winds. Wave action on the chesapeake Bay can capsize smaller boats but is not like what you would see offshore with a depression or storm. So a neat video but not representative of offshore conditions. In even benign 20 knot conditions offshore waves are double or triple that size.

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by malbert73

Interesting! Curious- what about Robin Lee Graham made you get a Bristol 27? He had a Lapworth 24 and Luders 33- I guess your boat splits the difference?

Mike

I had (and still have) the National Geographic Magazines which featured Robin (and Patti) and showed all the pictures. (I used to look at them all the time after work when stuck in Tennessee, 800 miles from the nearest big water) I think the first one came out in 1965 and the last 1970 or so

Plus I read the book (s) The second one after he returned was really good. he was sort of lost back in society. He'd never driven a car etc.

Later when I moved from Tennessee to Pensacola, FL lots of the sailors had old full keel boats at our dock (my apartment on the water had a dock)

I selected that apartment because I had two Hobie 16's at the time and wanted to keep them setup. I could do that at this apartment. (it didn't have a seawall at the time) I had them tied down just above high water. This in the mid '90's.

Anyway 16 years later after racing beach cats and a few years hard cycling that job ended and I got one up here.

So after a couple years I thought I'd try to see if I could adjust to slow monohull sailing/cruising. (since I had always had some sort of boat when living near the Chesapeake) I started researching and ended up on CF and the Atom Voyages Websites among others

So I was at visiting home across the bay from here which is quite rural but has a couple small boatyards near where the crab houses used to be and stumbled across what I thought was possibly a Pearson Triton. It didn't have a for sale sign on it or anything but I liked it

So I bought it a month later for 2K from the son of the PO.....who was living in California

Think of one of those old oxidized boats you see in boatyards that appear to have been there 10-15 years. That is what it looked like. It had been there 5 years.

Point is I wasn't exactly looking at any particular boat and almost bought a Catalina 30 but ended up with this Bristol

I knew it was recommended on several websites as something that could be prepped for offshore use.

So I bought it as an education for my next one should I enjoy it.......

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by malbert73

That is a typical inshore chesapeake squall. They are scary only due to lightning and very strong albeit short lived winds. Wave action on the chesapeake Bay can capsize smaller boats but is not like what you would see offshore with a depression or storm. So a neat video but not representative of offshore conditions. In even benign 20 knot conditions offshore waves are double or triple that size.

Yeah, its the lightning that freaks you out.

The waves were normal for that type squall near shore but if you are offshore the spacing of the waves is much greater and easier to ride in 20 knot winds especially off the wind

Here especially down near Norfolk/Va Beach with a NE Wind the waves can be very closely spaced, steep, breaking, and 5'-8' which is why I said your Grampian 23 could get swamped in a bay

Down here you get the wind and waves right off the Atlantic with a NE Wind and due to the shallow water the waves get close and steep and start to break

I was coming in (crossing the open bay to Little Creek) this past summer from Kiptopeke and the wind was maybe 22-25 knots NE, the waves here and there were 6' plus and breaking so I came across the lower open portion of the bay running downwind with if I remember correctly full mainsail and 120 jib for the speed and power to push thru waves if I crashed into a swell from behind

Of course the boat wanted to round up and I had to fight it. The wind increased after I got maybe 8-10 miles from land to the North. point is the waves still came close to breaking over the stern and my boat has a stern .....that lifts quite high due to hull shape

Also, the thing about the squalls is, you never know how strong they are going to be when offshore. In the bay visibility can be a problem with the shipping traffic and obstacles. Between squalls on the return:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ku8iWRjqWQs

[double u]

3 keelshapes pitted against each other (german though...)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtsr6_GYV1w

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by malbert73

That is a typical inshore chesapeake squall. They are scary only due to lightning and very strong albeit short lived winds. Wave action on the chesapeake Bay can capsize smaller boats but is not like what you would see offshore with a depression or storm. So a neat video but not representative of offshore conditions. In even benign 20 knot conditions offshore waves are double or triple that size.

Yes -- it will be good for the OP to know that land weather and weather offshore are totally different animals with very little in common.

Land and coastal weather has all kinds of thermal effects mixed into to it. Lots of short and violent weather events. Sea breeze, land breeze, katabatic winds, afternoon t-storms, inversions, etc., etc., etc.

Weather at sea is different. Leaving aside tropical rotating storms (eek), what we have out there is mostly longer term frontal events, plus occasionally squalls.

Squalls happen at the edge of fronts, and they don't last long. They don't in themselves create a serious a sea state so except for smaller boats or maybe performance catamarans, they are not so dangerous. What we really care about are big frontal systems which contain a lot of energy and which extend over a large area at sea -- this is what gets the sea up and creates dangers for us. A dangerous sea state offshore requires, speaking roughly, something like F8 or maybe F9 or more, blowing for something like 24 hours or more. That's what it takes to create breaking seas. We don't really care about how high they are, until they start breaking. Nor do we really care how much wind there is, as long as the boat is reasonably strong and we are reasonably skilled -- until the wind is strong enough for long enough to create breaking seas.

[Tidjian]

Ah okay i gotcha. That makes sense.

I was fortunate I guess, or unfortunate, to have never seen weather my two trips on the coast. Minus a little temperamental wind it was an enjoyable journey. Now I wish I had got to see more with an experienced skipper at hand to see how he would have handled it. But something's tells me we would have just pulled into port and waited it out.

Those videos you're showing aren't unlike what we get here on the lakes. I've seen the lakes get a lot worse. One time I was ferrying on lake Erie from a small island there coming back to the mainland. I'm not sure why the captain even decided to go out because it was obvious weather was coming in. The storm was pretty bad to say the least and for a large car carrying ferry I swore at the time we weren't going to make it. Waves were breaking that were as high as the boat. We did make it back but it was a damn foolish decision in my opinion to push through that. Waters in Erie can be a hundred feet deep or suddenly come to a sand bar where you could go stand. That's about my first hand storm experience.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by Tidjian

Ah okay i gotcha. That makes sense.
Waters in Erie can be a hundred feet deep or suddenly come to a sand bar where you could go stand. That's about my first hand storm experience.

Sounds like the North Sea between the UK and Europe

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by malbert73

Interesting! Curious- what about Robin Lee Graham made you get a Bristol 27? He had a Lapworth 24 and Luders 33- I guess your boat splits the difference?

Mike

Thinking about this some more, maybe it's just the romantic idea of sailing 3/4 the way around the world on a boat not quite 24' long

Also:

His boats were both full keel.

His budget was very tight

He used a sextant, etc for navigation

No fridge

Maybe a VHF

Homemade wind vane

Main engine was a Johnson outboard

He broke one mast in a storm and the replacement mast looked to be 4'-5' too long for his old mainsail (or maybe he just had a reef or two in for that photo)

After a year or so he started chasing Patti around the world. (they rented a small Honda Motorcycle and explored South Africa and I believe both were in their late teens at the time

Because of all this and the fact that it's perfect for the bay and the type cruising I'm doing now, I don't seem to be able to sell my boat for a larger, faster, better performing one

When I do post it on say Craigslist and someone calls to see it, I start telling them everything I can think of that's wrong with it and other things they might not like about it!

Mr. OP might also like to know that those old Lapworth 24's are trailerable and at least one has rounded Cape Horn! Not recommended though. That dude Frank G was known to be "out there" a ways in his thinking. See link.

http://www.solopublications.com/sailglad.htm

http://articles.latimes.com/2003/may...al/me-voyage10