Drogues or sea anchor or neither

[rabbi]

Originally Posted by thinwater

Yes, tension in rodes varies when moving through big waves. This is obvious. Keeping the slack out, that is an interesting challenge.

This is the one thing where the JSD excells: its not one drogue (or two in tandem) but actually 150 drogues acting in different sections of the wave pattern. And some of the cones may not even be active at all as the tail may be almost vertical, so some reserve breaking power for wave strikes.


However the JSD is tiresome to make even if you buy the 150+ cones, and hard to retrieve since it doesn't go through a selftailing winch. Also bulky and potentially unreliable to deploy unless one buys / makes the special storage & deployment bag.


Maybe a marriage of both concepts woul do. A series drogue not made of 150 tiny cones and 200m of line but say 6 or maybe 10 larger cones / drogues spread over a similarly long line.

Much easier to make and retrieve. But will it work similarly? I guess so but hard to know unless someone does tests.

[Fi2010]

Many devices can create drag. How well such items perform in varied weather conditions is a different story. Fiorentino has learned from sea trials how metal anchors and warps frequently lack enough holding power to successfully slow a boat. Boat design does play a role. For instance, a full keel sailboat might track well with a makeshift device, whereupon a fin keel vessel tends to jog around too much. Multihulls with their fast speed usually require extra components. There’s also the option of forereaching with sail balance assuming your boat design permits such a tactic.


Captain Teresa Carey chose a conservative approach and decided to learn more about para-anchors and storm drogues. Teresa and her husband Ben are the blue water cruisers who produced the award winning sailing documentary One Simple Question. Teresa and Ben decided to contact us to learn more. We produced a new video together showing how the Para-Anchor, Series and Shark Drogue operate differently:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fxHuo4kmAQ

[rabbi]

Originally Posted by Fiorentino

Many devices can create drag. How well such items perform in varied weather conditions is a different story. Fiorentino has learned from sea trials how metal anchors and warps frequently lack enough holding power to successfully slow a boat. Boat design does play a role. For instance, a full keel sailboat might track well with a makeshift device, whereupon a fin keel vessel tends to jog around too much. Multihulls with their fast speed usually require extra components. There’s also the option of forereaching with sail balance assuming your boat design permits such a tactic.

Captain Teresa Carey chose a conservative approach and decided to learn more about para-anchors and storm drogues. Teresa and her husband Ben are the blue water cruisers who produced the award winning sailing documentary One Simple Question. Teresa and Ben decided to contact us to learn more. We produced a new video together showing how the Para-Anchor, Series and Shark Drogue operate differently.

I read through the thread you mentioned above, I watched the video you just linked, I watched another one where you compare the Shark with several other drogues, and I read a few comments on youtube and your responses.

My key takeaway is that the JSD is your main competitor. Otherwise you wouldn't try so hard to make it look bad.



Like comparing a Shark rated for a 25to boat to a JSD rated for a 5to boat, where the JSD was fouled because you just tossed it overboard instead of deploying it properly, entangling it in a way that the first section (or 1/4 -1/3 of the total cones) wasn't in effect at all as one can see upon retrieval of the JSD.
Hint for your next "test" of a JSD: read the notes on jordanseriesdrogue.com about deployment or get the deployment bag available at oceanbrake.
Or if you really insist on tossing something overboard get a large IKEA bag, put the chain and the JSD into it. Toss the complete bag overboard for emergency deployment.


To your credit: you admit that the badly entangled 5to JSD has significantly higher breaking force than your 25to Shark.



Or take the video you just linked. You let a nice looking lady make the naive mistake of running the JSD through the self-tailing upon retrieval, and let herself figure out that its easier without the selftailing (which is obvious and which you knew from the beginning but didn't care to tell her).




Price wise I understand why the JSD is an expensive piece of kit. Too many cones, long lines, lots of work, bulky shipping.

The Shark is a single relatively simple device. It may be high quality materials and craftmanship but still pricing is ridiculous, and additional lines are required (OK, most have them onboard but still).



I read your comments that the CG report was basically written by Jordan and full of commercial interest and hidden agendas, even though the JSD is not patented (or is it?) and one can buy the JSD from manufacturers other than ACE (and cheaper, too!).
Acording to your YT comments your own technical reports and comparisons are of course completely neutral and not biased.
What a joke.


And that is just about your marketing & pricing. I'm not talking about your product, which might be good.

[Fi2010]

Rabbi,


Your comments seem unnecessarily hostile and carefully chosen to discredit Fiorentino. Fiorentino makes every effort to produce honest research and the video speaks for itself. It's honest and in no way makes one piece of equipment stand out over any other.


http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/misc.php?do=sknetwork&page=rules

[rabbi]

Originally Posted by Fiorentino

Rabbi,


Your comments seem unnecessarily hostile and carefully chosen to discredit Fiorentino. Fiorentino makes every effort to produce honest research and the video speaks for itself. It's honest and in no way makes one piece of equipment stand out over any other.


http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/misc.php?do=sknetwork&page=rules

Carefully chosen to discredit Fioretino? Certainly not. I have no reason to discredit Fiorentino. I don't know them, don't know you, and I wasn't aware of the Shark drogue until you jumped in here.

My above post was just what I felt like after watching most of your videos, reading all your responses on CF and your replies to Youtube comments. All your snarky comments about Jordan, the CG report, JSD in general, the subtle comments about other drogues, and finally your post #70 where you tried to silence thinwater.



Maybe I should add: IMO no single drogue can be relied upon in survival conditions as it can be pulled out the face of a following wave. That said the Shark appears to be the best thought out single drogue I have seen so far.
Which doesn't change a thing about my previous post.

[Fi2010]

Originally Posted by thinwater

Slow down. Nothing ill was intended, I do not believe I disparaged Fiorentino, and for those of you reading this, I did not intend to disparage Fiorentino. If I was impolite, I apologize. Public exchange of information is healthy. Fiorentio's products are well-designed and rugged.

----

I did not imply that the Shark "tail" was universally a mistake. That is something you inferred. I said that it was not long enough, by itself, for rigging a second drogue. Any additional testing you did with longer secondary rodes was not published to my knowledge. The use of the existing "tail" for a mushroom anchor it is brilliant and very effective. It is just too short, by itself, for a tandem drogue. That was your conclusion also.


Regarding "risk," we will have to disagree.

Regarding intermediate tension and real world effects, that is very interesting and it would be helpful to all if you published your data and your interpretation.

I tested at both 1/3 and full scale, at full load. There were no differences not in agreement with scale factors. Different, but scaling is pretty well understood. Yes, tension in rodes varies when moving through big waves. This is obvious. Keeping the slack out, that is an interesting challenge.

I did not imply that anyone should rig Shark drogues in any specific manner. The first thing I said was that the "approach was not specific to to any one drogue type." I do not agree that I gave incorrect rigging information. In fact, I gave very few details.

Drew,


If you’re going to claim Fiorentino rigged its equipment wrong we’re going to set the record straight.

The Shark Drogue Tail is designed to be 10 feet long to keep the mushroom anchor near the canopy. This helps increase drag. It’s also a great length for coiling the Tail inside its Para-Ring hardware.

For tandem use, you could shackle various rode lengths to the Drogue Tail. This is how we tested the Shark Drogue during our sea trials. Fiorentino’s test results concluded a mushroom anchor was all the Shark required. Attaching a second drogue was unnecessary.

One challenge with tandem drogue deployment in rough seas is speed. Be careful when deploying the first drogue, because seconds later it might be time to deploy the second drogue. If you toss both drogues in the water at the same time you can risk tangles. As stated in our prior post, maintaining even loading between both drogues is another challenge.

Even if tandem drogues were easy to handle, does it justify the expense of purchasing two drogues? What about the cost of splicing rodes and chain together? There are plenty of testimonials proving the reliability of single canopy drogues.

Publishing more data is a good idea. First, we have to make sure we’re not violating ITAR regulations. This sometimes becomes an issue since Fiorentino is a sub-contractor for the aerospace industry. Meanwhile, our Constant Rode Tension Program is well published in our manuals, technical reports, and videos. Constant Rode Tension is applicable to multiple canopy drogue deployment. All the information is on our website and videos can be found on YouTube.

Model testing, whether built to scale or not, makes it difficult to acquire reliable data. Model testing does aide in building proto-type equipment. Proto-type equipment should be tested in the field to ensure the equipment and/or a process is safe for public use.

[Fi2010]

Rabbi,


Please adhere to the rules of this forum.

• Personal attacks on others will not be tolerated. Challenge others' points of view and opinions, but do so respectfully and thoughtfully. Excessive sarcasm, belligerence, insults, profanity, anger, offensive comments about race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and national origin, are not acceptable.
• Do not post libelous remarks or directly misleading information.
• Stay on topic by keeping discussions relevant and on track.

[HR42]

Originally Posted by Fiorentino

Rabbi,


Please adhere to the rules of this forum.

• Personal attacks on others will not be tolerated. Challenge others' points of view and opinions, but do so respectfully and thoughtfully. Excessive sarcasm, belligerence, insults, profanity, anger, offensive comments about race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and national origin, are not acceptable.
• Do not post libelous remarks or directly misleading information.
• Stay on topic by keeping discussions relevant and on track.

Really can’t see how rabbi has breached any of the rules you mention, I’ve been following this thread and think his points valid and not sensational. Jumping on people like this is a form of aggression in itself and dare say a moderator might take a look at you before others.

[rabbi]

Originally Posted by Fiorentino

Rabbi,


Please adhere to the rules of this forum.

• Personal attacks on others will not be tolerated. Challenge others' points of view and opinions, but do so respectfully and thoughtfully. Excessive sarcasm, belligerence, insults, profanity, anger, offensive comments about race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and national origin, are not acceptable.
• Do not post libelous remarks or directly misleading information.
• Stay on topic by keeping discussions relevant and on track.

Feel free to report my posts. I just re-read it and can't see any violation. Except maybe sarcasm about your totally unbiased technical reports and comparisons.

I'm not religious about the JSD (in fact I don't even carry one). As said it was the culmination of all your posts on CF, your videos and YT comments which triggered my post above. I'm ready to go through these again to back my post with numerous detailed references about you dismissing JSDs and other drogues if you like.
However you won't make much better impression afterwards.



If you prefer to stay on topic:
in your video below you compare a Shark rated for 25to and a JSD for 5to, plus a couple of other drogues. The JSD was severly fouled after incorrect deployment (by the Shark inventor himself I reckon). The extend of the tangle can be seen starting @14:32 : the first section is tangeld in a way that the cones of this section are reversed and not engaged at all, which reduces the number of active cones by at least a quarter.

Why not use similar drogue sizing for a comparison?
Why not re-test a properly deployed JSD after you realized you messed it up?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4l3CbgUCU8

[mikereed100]

I'm not sure why people are retrieving a JSD using a winch. Maybe this is boat-dependent, but we found it very easy to simply lead the drogue to the bow and bring it in by hand over the main crossbeam while motoring slowly into the wind. If you must use a winch, there are good instructions or doing so using a "helper line" on the ACE sailmaker's website. Jordan Series Drogue - Launching and Retrieval

Deployment is even easier. You rig the bridles before leaving port, flake it into a bag and simply drop the chain overboard when the time comes.

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by mikereed100

I'm not sure why people are retrieving a JSD using a winch. Maybe this is boat-dependent, but we found it very easy to simply lead the drogue to the bow and bring it in by hand over the main crossbeam while motoring slowly into the wind. If you must use a winch, there are good instructions or doing so using a "helper line" on the ACE sailmaker's website. Jordan Series Drogue - Launching and Retrieval

Deployment is even easier. You rig the bridles before leaving port, flake it into a bag and simply drop the chain overboard when the time comes.

I wonder about that. First, you are not recovering in wild conditions. Second, I tested many drogues, many times, and in a good blow, and you could always at least take most of the pressure off with the engine. You just need to be VERY careful not to get anything under the boat, particularly at the stern, where it can get into the rudders. That's not fun. But I did most of my testing solo, so I know it is possible with careful planning. In fact, because I was solo, I had to reduce the physical effort, since I was doing one after the other.



The complicating factor is that you are sometimes recovering in a big swell, but with little wind. In this case, the line really wants to go slack in the lulls and then pull very hard on the wave slope. In that case, it is often possible to recover by hand but with a single turn on the winch, to hold what you've got during the surges. This is more the case with single element drogues.


I never had to just throw a drogue in the water. I was always able to ease it over the side at the rail (that is why you wear a tether and harness--so you can use two hands). I always used the recommend weight and I always arranged the rode to snake out smoothly. I NEVER had a tangle with any drogue type.


The Gale Rider deserves a special note. Where other drogues function in some sense as a ball or wedge, displacing water (over simplification, but follow me), the Gale Ride functions as a strainer. Thus, it is more stable near the surface and the drag is much more steady. It is also far less prone to skipping, since it is a net. It is also the most stable, by far, when used at short scope for emergency steering, for this reason. It is also generally more stable at higher speeds, though ANY single element drogue will pull out of waves in specific conditions (steep waves, speed over 6 knots). The manufacture does not suggest chain, however it helped in every test and most users have reported adding some chain. The down side is that it is physically much larger for a given drag and the SS cable in the mouth has failed a few times, though this does not have much effect on function (I broke one on purpose for testing). This failure is quite rare and takes much use. I'm not saying whether it is better overall--that depends to a large extent on the purpose--just describing how it is different. It is optimized speed control and steering (gale riding) but not for a survival storm, IMO.

[Rustytony]

Bay sailer only here.... so no experience in oceans. One day...

The YouTube’s I’ve seen of a cat with warp out in a loop still seem to have the cat flying. It looks to be only pulling a knot or less off the speed.

But I could be very wrong about that. Can anyone say what kind of reduction a looped line can achieve in boat speed? Thanks for any info.

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by Rustytony

Bay sailer only here.... so no experience in oceans. One day...

The YouTube’s I’ve seen of a cat with warp out in a loop still seem to have the cat flying. It looks to be only pulling a knot or less off the speed.

But I could be very wrong about that. Can anyone say what kind of reduction a looped line can achieve in boat speed? Thanks for any info.

It depends on the amount of line and how it is weighted, but fundamentally you are correct; warps towed in a loop only slow the boat a little bit. This can be useful to calm the ride in a big breeze and make steering easier, but the force is going to be many times less than a single element drogue and an order of magnitude less than a JSD.



A different purpose.

[Rustytony]

Originally Posted by thinwater

It depends on the amount of line and how it is weighted, but fundamentally you are correct; warps towed in a loop only slow the boat a little bit. This can be useful to calm the ride in a big breeze and make steering easier, but the force is going to be many times less than a single element drogue and an order of magnitude less than a JSD.



A different purpose.

Thanks very much for that. If you have time... do you know how it affects the sea?

I’ve seen it mentioned before... does it calm the surface or something? I can’t really imagine how that can happen though.

[p435]

Originally Posted by Rustytony

.... Can anyone say what kind of reduction a looped line can achieve in boat speed? ....

I will make some test but only next year. If there is interest I will publish my data here.