Do monohulls capsize??

[Lodesman]

Joli,

Kudos to you. The missing name is Excalibur. Don't remember where I got the pictures - picked them off the net some time ago for just such an occasion. I didn't even know it was Autissier's yacht - goes to show that losing a keel isn't necessary for a capsize.


Kevin

[Sailormann]

A monohull has about 1/3 the initial stability of a multihull. So self righting is a very important if not an absolutely critical attribute. It is not so important in a multihull due to the high initial stability positive floatation

...not only not important - it's not even an option..

Monohulls are safer than multihulls but have less room and don't sail off the wind as quickly.

They will self-right in most situations. If you have gear in your boat that weighs as much as or more than your keel (which is not too unusual), and if that gear gets loose in bad weather, the stability of your boat is no longer such a given. The same is true of multihulls.

[TheEngineer]

Mark: You are right! I did not mean to say that the Bermuda 40 is a beamy light displacement boat. It is not. The beam is 11'-9". The IOR range of positive stability is 116.5 degrees. By comparison, the range of positive stability of my Swan 40 is 131 degrees. Believe me, when you are out in the ocean, and it's blowing like stink and it's dark, the boat is hove to under a scrap of sail, and every once-in-a-while the boat is shoved sideways by a large wave, you are thankful for every degree of positive stability.

[Joli]

There was alot written about the Open 60's of that era. They were very quick, very wide, and tended to be as stable floating upside down as right side up. The new Open 60's have deck camber and a coachroof that will force them back to (greasy side down) in the event of a severe knockdown.

Originally Posted by Lodesman

Joli,

Kudos to you. The missing name is Excalibur. Don't remember where I got the pictures - picked them off the net some time ago for just such an occasion. I didn't even know it was Autissier's yacht - goes to show that losing a keel isn't necessary for a capsize.


Kevin

[cooper]

Yes ..and if they have a really bad stability curve or a poor keel attachment that breaks off , are over beamy they will stay that way with possible dire consequences....

..."cats are way harder to turn over ..if they do they dont turn back up. monos that are built like cats do the same thing".....full stop....

[Joli]

Self righting mono hulls are a fairly recent phenomena. Prior to the late 1800 ~ early 1900 monos also capsized and stayed over. Much like the ship in White Storm. The ability to carry ballast low was not easily achieved with building techniques and the materials available then were not strong enough to allow deep keels. Many sailing ships used centerboards with shallow draft or had movable ballast that moved when the boat was knocked down. Not good.

Today it is easy to build deep keel boats to proper scantlings with an AVS of 130.

[cooper]

Yep all true....they didnt think it was possible to sail solo around the world non stop either. The cg was more dictated by the need to carry cargo. The change was the ability to "afford to go cruising". Deep keels were (and still can be) an impediment. Without and engine a saw tooth shaped object that sticks down below your boat allowing you to slide on and over an underwater object and not move backwards was the height of stupidity. Like what is on my boat it is called a fin keel. Mariners of old going into uncharted waters would have slowly backed away from you and then run......
Getting ship wrecked on the other side of the world was far scarier than the less likely event of going turtle.

[Southern Star]

Sailorman, your blanket statement that 'monohulls are safer than multihulls...' really doesn't advance any discussion. That may be your opinion, but it is certainly not a truisim or statement of inarguable fact. Various insurance companies, who make their living on these issues, disagree. And quite apart from the total loss of the vessel (which must also include in the analysis the fact that most multis are able to sail safely in depths that could tear the bottom out of most monos), you must also consider the fact that the lack of heeling leads to a safer environment for sailing, meal preparation, maintenance etc.

Obviously, some monos are safer than some multis in some conditions; just as obviously, some multis are safer than some monos in some conditions.

Brad

[TheEngineer]

Friend of mine built a 45 ft trimaran all by himself and went sailing taking an assortment of girlfriends along. Wonderful boat: Fast under sail and power, heels very little and has lots of room. He has storage you wouldn't believe. He can carry a rowboat on deck and still has room to dance. But he gets screwed by the local marinas: Because of his beam he must pay double of what they'd charge for a monohull! Ouch! Another friend of mine took his tri to the South Pacific. One lovely day Taifun warnings went up. He was anchored in a lagoon. For added safety he wrapped the anchor chain around a corral head and shackled it. The storm came thru and his tri became airborne and then turned over. He and his girlfriend made it to shore, but the father of the girl refused to dive into the water to escape the submerged cabin. The tri subsequently disintegrated. The father was never found. Back in Seattle, years later, he built a heavy double ender, a monohull.

[Therapy]

I sailed a Cheoy Lee Offshore 32.
I was in the bilge early on and it is not "offshore" by any stretch.
The ballast was lead ingots.....unsecured except for the cabin sole.
In the unlikely event of knockdown over 90 deg. I don't think the boat would survive.

[Southern Star]

Does it seem to you as if a thread that was started with respect to certain monohulls capsizing and not righting themselves, has now turned into another 'monohulls are better than multis' threads? First, "monohulls are safer than multihulls".

Then, essentially 'homebuilt trip flips in Hurricane and causes loss of life, now the builder has seen the light and is replacing it with a heavy, double-ended monohull.' And the point is what, apart from another story without sufficient detail to lead to any valid, let alone any universally valid conclusions?

Yes, we all know that multi's can capsize (albeit much less often than monos) and then stay that way. I had thought that the purpose of this thread related to the fact that monos are generally more susceptible to capsize than multihulls, and that some, albeit not all, will not immediately right themselves and will either sink, or stay inverted and then sink.

I don't know a single multihuller who will deny that their babies can flip and stay that way; however, there do seem to be a fair number of monohullers who will deny that this could ever happen to their boats, regardless of the design of the hull, keel, deck or ballast installation. We can (yet again) debate all day whether monos are more likely to sink than cats are to capsize, but that misses the point of this thread.

Brad

[cal40john]

Originally Posted by Therapy

I sailed a Cheoy Lee Offshore 32.
I was in the bilge early on and it is not "offshore" by any stretch.
The ballast was lead ingots.....unsecured except for the cabin sole.
In the unlikely event of knockdown over 90 deg. I don't think the boat would survive.

Too many years ago now to remember what kind of boat it was, in Sail magazine there was an article about an offshore cruiser that sank in the Gulf of Mexico when a knockdown tumbled all the ingots out of the keel so the boat stayed on its side and didn't come back up. The offset companionway was on the low side compounding the problem.

John

[GordMay]

YES, Mono-hulls can capsize.
NO, capsized Mono-hulls do not normally remain inverted.

Out of laziness, I habitually sailed with my Mono-hull’s companionway either open, or closed but unsecured (until extreme conditions “scared” me into doing the right thing – securing my closed companionway).
In the vent of a capsize, I would have been at great risk of sinking.
Unless I lost my keel, I was not in much danger of remaining inverted.
I think that the risk of sinking a capsized Mono’ can be (mostly) attributed to “pilot error” (as described above, always excepting the unforgivable design/manufacturing defect that could cause a keel separation).

Does anything above speak authoritatively to the relative safety of Mono-hulls vs Multi-hulls?
I don’t think so.

[Alan Wheeler]

Does anything above speak authoritatively to the relative safety of Mono-hulls vs Multi-hulls?
I don’t think so.

I don't think so either. Someone else said, "I thought the point to this discussion...." but the point really is there is no point to this discussion, or any of the other similar discussions, other than to cause arguments. There are as many variables as there are boats, both multi and mono combined. The only true argument that could ever exist is if someone asks, is this 40ft A cat safer than this 40ft B mono. Then we are comparing apples to apples. Many of the discussions above are comparing apples to cabbage.

[bstreep]

As I read it, the ENTIRE point of this thread was a TEASER, to a discussion on the capsize & sinking of the Cynthia Wood.

I've been watching this thread all week, and I've completely ignored the posts that were about a mono/mulit debate. Having this debate is like talking Darwin to a bible thumper, or conservatism to a liberal, or both of those vice-versa. In the infamous words of my buddy Charles:

"I'd rather sit on a curb, wacking my toes with a ballpeen hammer".