Catamaran Capsizes

[catty]

Any more info on this one? 9m cat flip in Pacific yesterday.

Catamaran retrouvé, mais naufragé en perdition | La Dépêche de Tahiti


What can we as multihullers do to minimize what is becoming a very regular occurance?

Surely tougher regulations aren't far off.

[atoll]

possibly it is due to more vessels being steered by powerful auto pilots,making them more prone to acceleration and pitchpoling,in conditions when they should be either hand steering or hove too?

[Factor]

I suspect you need to take a course in Statistics 101 catty. How many have flipped over what time period as a against how many are inexistence etc.

As for regulations - given that each of the few has occurred in different jurisdictions I dont see any one rushing to regulate.

Demonstrably we need to regulate boat pontoons and riverwalks first in this part of the world, or are you not in Brisbane?

[sww914]

Clearly

Umm,
Well,

Nothing is clear yet.

Multihulls can flip and monohulls can sink.

OK, that's clear.

The ocean can be dangerous, well, that's not new info.
A careless mariner can cause himself some big problems, that's not new.

So I guess I don't want to condemn an entire class of boats that have proven themselves to be safe almost all of the time. That's true of both classes of boats.

[David M]

If it is indeed happening more frequently, perhaps the cause of the increase in frequency is that there are more catamarans?

[Wand]

Originally Posted by catty

Any more info on this one? 9m cat flip in Pacific yesterday. What can we as multihullers do to minimize what is becoming a very regular occurance? Surely tougher regulations aren't far off.

Isn't is just a case of having the right rag up for the conditions? I don't know how any regulation is going to influence a skipper's decision-making in that regard. Did you have anything in particular in mind?

[maxingout]

It all comes down to how you sail your catamaran.

If you sail it like a bat out of hell, you may actually be able to flip it over.

If you let your autopilot steer when you should be steering by hand, you may flip it over.

If you sail in severe conditions when you should be towing a drogue or lying to a parachute, you may flip it over.

During our circumnavigation, there was never even one nanosecond when I worried about our cruising catamaran flipping over. We sailed in a conservative manner logging our 150 miles of no bruising cruising each day.

When I do an inquest of flipped catamarans, the majority of the cases that I know about fall under the heading "pilot error."

Every knot of speed that you sail, and every square foot of canvas that you have up increases the amount of kinetic energy that the catamaran must safely dissipate. If you control the energy, no problem. If the energy takes control of the boat, you are in trouble.

I don't see any mystery. I don't fear capsize because of the way I sail. That's why I only average 150 miles a day offshore. It's simply too much work and too much risk to sail closer to the edge. No rocket science here. It's all physics and a committment to sail in a way that makes capsize highly unlikely.

[meyermm]

"I suspect you need to take a course in Statistics 101 catty. How many have flipped over what time period as a against how many are inexistence etc. " Factors point is a very good one and can be applied to a number of other subjects recently

[TaoJones]

This thread is headed nowhere good, and I doubt it will ever amount to anything worthwhile, so there's really no reason to continue, is there? Several posts containing off topic personal comments have been deleted, and the thread is now closed.

TaoJones