Riding out a storm, sealed up tight down below. Watch out for CO2.

[Don C L]

Hence the utility of the self sealing vents?
The longest I’ve been cooped up inside on a passage was, iirc, 5 days, mostly for non-stop spray coming over the boat. Down below was muggy and wet and we really wanted more ventilation. I broke out in an irritating salt water rash all over.
Perhaps I should rethink it, but my frame of reference is a hull with little or no negative numbers in my GZ curve so I imagine, perhaps unrealistically that, we’re it to happen to me, I would not stay inverted for even half a minute. I should keep in mind that if the rig and sails have survived they will offer a good deal of resistance to a recovery from being rolled. If you have seen those videos of Yachting Monthly inverting a more modern hull, it’s clear those may stay inverted for a while until motivated by another large wave.

[er9]

Originally Posted by Suijin

I take off my dorado scoops and put in the plates if I'm taking a long passage offshore. A 4" dorade can in theory let in 250 gallons/min. So if you roll and stay capsized, with two dorades, within two minutes you could be looking at 1000 gallons in the boat or 8000 pounds of water. Of course it's going to be a lot less than that, practically speaking, but they are holes in the boat.

Overly cautious? I'd rather minimize risk and leave one less thing to do if the weather turns bad, and just open some port lights/hatches occasionally for air circulation.

couldn't you just stretch a few layers of heavy duty Gore-Tex somewhere inside the dorado and clamp it in place somehow to let air in but not water?

[subie]

Wow! Scary thread. I am on the bottom rung of sailing experience and sail a small 25 footer solo ,doing small little trips here on the South African coast.
Fear and respect for the sea and its "moods" make me check,recheck and then
check again weather and sea state in the area I wish to sail to avoid hopefully ever to be caught out in anything remotely approaching the conditions described here. At 60 years old,overweight etc I can only marvel at the brave souls who sail the big seas. Love reading about their exploits.

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by er9

couldn't you just stretch a few layers of heavy duty Gore-Tex somewhere inside the dorado and clamp it in place somehow to let air in but not water?

This would not pass enough air to sustain a mouse!

Jim

[Paul L]

I must sail in a different reality. I can't seal up a boat tight enough not to find new water leaks in each storm, let alone tight enough to keep out air.

This CO2 is just going to make my fear list.

[jtsailjt]

I think that in the situation where the crew thinks conditions are so bad that closing themselves below is necessary that fatigue and stress are a much bigger threat to make them temporarily stupid than is CO2. I don’t question that excessive CO2 can also have a negative effect and I do think it’s a good idea to close off the dorade vents in bad weather offshore so after awhile CO2 levels will increase if the companionway is kept closed for a long time. But isn’t it pretty likely that even in the worst conditions someone is going to feel the need for a little fresh air or will be curious about conditions outside so will crack open the companionway for awhile to let in some air or to take a peek?

But if the companionway is left unattended and cracked open a bit to let in some fresh air, that introduces the risk of losing your hatch boards if the boat is rolled, so some means of keeping them in place even while the companionway is open is a good idea.

[Marc1]

Originally Posted by john61ct

This really makes me sad

Appealing to emotions is one way to circumvent the need for scientific proof.
It's a known strategy but it does not make up for the lack of evidence.

Science is not sad or happy. It is either true or false.
In my corner of the woods anyway.

[GordMay]

... The brain is merely a computer/huge integrated circuit ...

FWIW:
“The empty brain” ~ Robert Epstein
Your brain does not process information, retrieve knowledge or store memories. In short: your brain is not a computer...
... Our shoddy thinking about the brain has deep historical roots, but the invention of computers in the 1940s got us especially confused. For more than half a century now, psychologists, linguists, neuroscientists and other experts on human behaviour have been asserting that the human brain works like a computer ...
➥ https://aeon.co/essays/your-brain-do...not-a-computer

[Singularity]

Originally Posted by GordMay

FWIW:
“The empty brain” ~ Robert Epstein
Your brain does not process information, retrieve knowledge or store memories. In short: your brain is not a computer...
... Our shoddy thinking about the brain has deep historical roots, but the invention of computers in the 1940s got us especially confused. For more than half a century now, psychologists, linguists, neuroscientists and other experts on human behaviour have been asserting that the human brain works like a computer ...
➥ https://aeon.co/essays/your-brain-do...not-a-computer

Let me help review something. This is basic neuroscience and it doesn't need to get harder than this. Gord, you don't have to agree with it, but this template, if applied, explains most of human behavior that most find troubling. Note that a template is but an algorithm.

When someone says that they are smarter than the collective experts, then they are:
-onto a discovery and the erstwhile experts are wrong/dated
-inadequately educated to appreciate the subject matter (at least per societal norms)
-having some agenda (we'll call this food-on-the-table/survival behavior)
-mentally ill

Insofar as the entire piece is coherent and logically consistent, then mental illness can generally be excluded.

Insofar as the author makes no reference to how any cell works, but particularly neurons in this metaphor, or how any electrical devices work (electrical source/battery, conductor, resistor, logic gates, so on)...the only way to talk around something without talking about it is by the use of jargon.

When someone uses jargon but is not crazy, and the jargon has no practical utility for anyone else except the jargon users...then this is 'food on the table/survival' behavior. More generally, people who use jargon have, per the reference frame of others, developed their own system of understanding things and their own linguistics/language to describe their perspective that the jargon users. Flat-earth society people are not crazy, rather they have their own observation and collection of words placed together (jargon) to explain their position. This practice is generally understood to be rooted in evolutionary biology. You simply can't have 100% of a biologic group behaving precisely in the same manner if you want the group to survive. If 100% of people believed that the earth was round 100% of the time, then people would walk off cliffs and sooner or later the herd size would be depleted to extinction (notwithstanding the innate edge fear thing).

Up to basic education on the subject matter. Every living cell functions as a battery. This is introductory biology. In animals, the stuff in cells converts chemical energy into electrical energy (while continuing to convert some forms of chemical energy into other forms of chemical energy). For example, saltatory conduction either exists...or you're a flat earther. You don't have to believe in saltatory conduction, but if you didn't have it, you'd be dead. Anyhow, saltatory conduction is dependent on electrolyte concentrations that are dependent on biochemical reactions that create action potentials (~voltage) where the cells acts as a capacitor.

When an individual cell is, for example, over-worked...it sort of acts like a resistor if/when that cell is in a saltatory string (or analagous to a dying individual cell in a boat battery string). A cell is a cell. If/when there is alternative paths for conduction instead of through the overworked cell...depending on how the cells (the string) are organized, then the path of the saltatory string looks/operates/acts as a logic gate. This is precisely what happens when the doctor strikes your ~knee and your leg jumps.

Like the doc hitting the knee causing a reaction, it's no different than a photon striking the retina or a pressure change against the ear drum causing an electric potential to change causing down/upstream saltatory conduction running through pathways of, effectively, logic gaits that defines pattern recognition capability. Some circuits (knee reflex) are completely simple while others (understanding bond yields as related to the price of tea) are quite complex.

To say that the brain does not operate like an integrated circuit is to have, really, an alternative view (or little/no understanding) of basic brain structure, basic biology, and/or basic computer circuit structure. It probably would be helpful for those who do not believe in the above understanding of brain function to declare themselves as such as it'd make life a lot easier for those who do.


PS: This video explains how many/most of us likely process visual information. Just not everyone is aware how they do it, that they do it, or how others process information. The clip is horribly simplistic as most people say "she's not unique...I'm like that too." The difference between people is the speed at which this occurs and the linkages made when viewing something. This is the basis of IQ.
https://youtu.be/Ifsh6sojAvg?t=86

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by Marc1

...So not surprise that someone decides to publish a "scientific" paper stating that slightly higher concentrations of CO2 will make people dumb disregarding the obvious fact that low O2 is the culprit. The ample data available of submarines crew tolerating over 10,000 ppm is of course dutiful ignored....

How do you get low O2 on a boat without getting high CO2? In industry there are possibilities (an old rusty tank, other O2 absorbers), but on a boat?


Yes, there are many examples of functioning well with high CO2 and many good explanations. of alternative causes. They are probably mostly right.


We don't know how high the CO2 (or low the O2) was in the OP's experience. No instrumentation. No information. But in a real blow I don't think most boats can be made that airtight. Unless the stove is on, it would NOT take much ventilation to maintain air quality. Just smelly and damp, which can be demoralizing.



And yet, have we not all experienced some situation where "a breath of fresh air" cleared the head? But I doubt CO2 was the factor.



Interesting.

[boatman61]

Makes one wonder how Tony Bullimore survived for days in a half flooded inverted hull in the S Ocean with zero ventilation reading all this stuff..

[a64pilot]

If you want to know about CO2 poisoning, ask a rebreather diver.
CO2 monitors do exist, they don’t work very well and especially in humid environments, or rebreathers would monitor CO2, as its believed that many if not most rebreather fatalities are from CO2 “hits”.

Monitoring of O2 on the other hand is easy and inexpensive.

I don’t know about you guys, but in high winds especially, there is no way to seal my boat up to the point that it’s even a consideration.

People don’t suffocate in automobiles do they and the space inside of even a small boat is much larger.
Flow thru ventilation on a car only functions when there is power.

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

...People don’t suffocate in automobiles do they and the space inside of even a small boat is much larger.
Flow thru ventilation on a car only functions when there is power.

I vaguely recall steaming up a car a few times, doing dumb stuff..... Now I can blame it on CO2.

[Exile]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Makes one wonder how Tony Bullimore survived for days in a half flooded inverted hull in the S Ocean with zero ventilation reading all this stuff..

Good thing Tony wasn't reading all this stuff at the time or he may not have survived!

[Exile]

Originally Posted by thinwater

I vaguely recall steaming up a car a few times, doing dumb stuff..... Now I can blame it on CO2.

TMI, TMI, TMI . . .