At The Risk of Starting WWlll

[tomfl]

Originally Posted by belizesailor

Yes, bad decision making not bad boat. " Reef early, Reef deep".

Even with everything led to the cockpit, situatuons may arise where you need to go forward. This can be done safely with jack lines/harness/etc. However, its not likely the main would have come down off the wind. Would likey have had to head up or heave to in order to reef.

Heaving to is a necessary skill for all sailors. I will frequently sail out to the grass line at the edge of the Gulf Stream and heave to in order to fish. When I catch a fish trolling on a passage I heave to in order to boat the fish, kill it, bleed it, and then clean up the mess before I proceed. When I am unlucky enough to get a crab/lobster pot caught on the rudder I heave to to clear the mess.

I am sure others have many other examples of heaving to under what I will call normal sailing trips in fair weather. The more times one has done what should be simple sailing tasks the easier it is to do them under less than ideal conditions.

In this case I am not sure it would be necessary to heave to, simply start the motors, head up, and unsecure the main halyard. The main sail on most cats comes down like a guillotine.

[chubby]

well.

all i know is catamarans are awfully difficult to right if u lift a keel and get yourself turtled.
they just tend to flip over in angry seas..which is why u need to reef whenever there is wind.

which btw explains why monohulls are much more seaworthy and multihulls tend to attract the more reckless&uncivilized crowds

[salticrak]

Wharram cat hove to in a gale.

Kattu hove to in a gale - YouTube

[ArtM]

Originally Posted by chubby

well.

all i know is catamarans are awfully difficult to right if u lift a keel and get yourself turtled.
they just tend to flip over in angry seas..which is why u need to reef whenever there is wind.

which btw explains why monohulls are much more seaworthy and multihulls tend to attract the more reckless&uncivilized crowds

I know you think this is funny but it's not. This is less than half true and you know it.

If you do not know it, please refrain from introducing such nonsense with the phrase "All I know is...".

[colemj]

We can reef going downwind. I think it is important that all boats can do so. For us, we head DDW, center the boom or pull it in enough so that the sail isn't against the rigging and let down a small amount of halyard, pull in the reef line which pulls the sail down - repeat until the full reef is in.

If the wind is abeam, we reef by heading up slightly so that the sail will luff when out on the beam (~60-70* apparent for our rigging) and do the same.

The key is to not drop the halyard down to the full reef point, but to do the halyard/reef line combo in smaller stages. Then, the sail never balloons out or jams the slides.

Mark

[colemj]

Originally Posted by ArtM

I know you think this is funny but it's not. This is less than half true and you know it.

If you do not know it, please refrain from introducing such nonsense with the phrase "All I know is...".

He owns a catamaran - I think his joke didn't translate well…

This site really does need a tongue-in-cheek emoticon.

Mark

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by BWB75

Gahh autopsying the event. Okay. We left in perfect weather. I said reef. The book said we didn't need to reef until the wind hit 20 or 25. I was out-voted. So, no reef and me unhappy. Halfway across the water was 8 or 12 thousand feet deep and nothing but fetch until Grand Canary.

After a time, right around when we lost sight of land, the wind picked up to 20-25 (ish - this was years ago) and the waves got rather big and rather steep. We could not reef because the instructor said it was too dangerous to go forward of the cabin. This boat required people at the mast in order to reef. (I will never go out in a boat like that again, I don't care if it's a gold plated Hinckley. If it cannot reef from the cockpit it is unfit for open water IMO.)

We let the sails out, but the wind kept building. We were hitting 12 to 15 knots of boat speed, now. The waves were taller than the cabin. The bows were plunging. The helmsman's entire job was to steer down the waves, which were quartering from the port rear, to avoid pitchpoling the boat. Not much flexibility in direction under the circumstances. A turn into the wind could flip the boat. A turn downwind could pitchpole.

I was consistently convinced that we were going to flip to leeeward because the waves would break under the windward hull and slam the leeeward while the windward came completely out of the water. Then we would surf down the wave and bury the bows in the trough. Water was cascading over the cabin top.

All this was only mildly upsetting until one of the breakers blew the window on the inside of the lee hull. The screws in the plastic frame gave out against the waves and the window popped open. I was standing in the main salon when I saw the door to one of the cabins float by.

Bad place for a window, I thought.

So, that hull flooded. Not great. Now we could barely steer at all and the leeward hull kept getting lower and the windward kept coming higher out of the water at the wave peaks. I was richly irritated at the unreefed sails, by now.

So was the boat, as some of the slugs holding the sail to the mast started to pop out.

It was at this point we noticed that the bilge pump didn't work. The manual backup was inadequate.

A couple of hours and a pretty efficient bucket-line later, everything was fine. We dried the linens in fine the Caribbean sun and and all went ashore for drinks.

This was years ago, and although we are not experienced sailors like many on this forum, we were raw beginners back then. Overall it was probably good for us to experience this, deal with the crisis, and come away with a healthy respect for the ocean.

This all happened in a short time window during what overall was an absolutely amazing charter. The trip was still one of the best times we've ever had.

So what we have is a poor example of multihull construction, sailed by a bunch of novices, skippered by a cretin, left under full sail in strong winds and big seas, with windows caving in, the lee hull flooding, wind so strong the mainsail is coming apart, and yet STILL it doesn't capsize!

Kind of kills all the "multi's capsize all the time" claims, doesn't it.

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by colemj

We can reef going downwind. I think it is important that all boats can do so. For us, we head DDW, center the boom or pull it in enough so that the sail isn't against the rigging and let down a small amount of halyard, pull in the reef line which pulls the sail down - repeat until the full reef is in.

If the wind is abeam, we reef by heading up slightly so that the sail will luff when out on the beam (~60-70* apparent for our rigging) and do the same.

The key is to not drop the halyard down to the full reef point, but to do the halyard/reef line combo in smaller stages. Then, the sail never balloons out or jams the slides.

Mark

Yes. I find it easier to reef my fully battened, large roach main DDW than the floppy old thing I used to have on my mono. It's just a matter of knowing how.

[chubby]

Originally Posted by colemj

We can reef going downwind. I think it is important that all boats can do so. For us, we head DDW, center the boom or pull it in enough so that the sail isn't against the rigging and let down a small amount of halyard, pull in the reef line which pulls the sail down - repeat until the full reef is in.

If the wind is abeam, we reef by heading up slightly so that the sail will luff when out on the beam (~60-70* apparent for our rigging) and do the same.

The key is to not drop the halyard down to the full reef point, but to do the halyard/reef line combo in smaller stages. Then, the sail never balloons out or jams the slides.

Mark

that's a great skill(reefing going downwind)...and while it took me a few tries i was able get to the point of feeling confident i could go from 0 to 3 reefs quickly without needing to turn into the wind and potentially lying beam-on to breaking waves.

gregor trajan's book (catamarans- the complete guide for sailors) goes into downwind reefing quite a bit (and is a great overall book for multihull seamanship in general, imo)

[ArtM]

Originally Posted by colemj

He owns a catamaran - I think his joke didn't translate well…

This site really does need a tongue-in-cheek emoticon.

Mark

Hmm, well sorry then. Maybe an avatar like yours would have helped convey it!

[Curmudgeon]

I can reef my monohull going downwind too, and I don't have a boom furler or an electric winch.

It's all sailing, right? Each configuration has its joys and challenges.

[chubby]

Originally Posted by ArtM

I know you think this is funny but it's not. This is less than half true and you know it.

If you do not know it, please refrain from introducing such nonsense with the phrase "All I know is...".

do you even sail, bro?


i was kidding...
but any boat of any size can get capsized if the wind and/or waze are great enough.
i think it is necessary to accept the fact nothing on the sea is going to be invincible.
and...
if you capsize a cat there is no self righting. cats have high inverted stability.. you stay capsized (which is the primary negative of a catamarans imho)
the positive is pretty darn difficult to flip a sufficiently sized catamaran outside sheer negligence

[ArtM]

Originally Posted by chubby

f you capsize a cat there is no self righting. cats have high inverted stability.. you stay capsized (which is the primary negative of a catamarans imho)
the positive is pretty darn difficult to flip a sufficiently sized catamaran outside sheer negligence

I'll make the argument that the likelihood of capsizing a cruising cat is about the same as capsizing a 60' monohull and not self-righting.

If that happens in a monohull, no amount of yanking on the keel is going to right it and, further, it's going to sink much faster than common cruising cats would, so I don't think there is any gain on the mono side of that argument.

This is saying that a mono is better because it is more likely to execute an unplanned barrel roll than a catamaran - a great argument for adrenaline junkies, I guess

[SVNeko]

Originally Posted by colemj

We can reef going downwind. I think it is important that all boats can do so. For us, we head DDW, center the boom or pull it in enough so that the sail isn't against the rigging and let down a small amount of halyard, pull in the reef line which pulls the sail down - repeat until the full reef is in.

If the wind is abeam, we reef by heading up slightly so that the sail will luff when out on the beam (~60-70* apparent for our rigging) and do the same.

The key is to not drop the halyard down to the full reef point, but to do the halyard/reef line combo in smaller stages. Then, the sail never balloons out or jams the slides.

Mark

Righto. We also find that sheeting in the headsail a bit takes a bit of pressure off the main making it easier to reef. For those claiming modern cats can't capsize, I wouldn't be so absolute about it. Its clearly within the realm of real risks.

[smj]

[QUOTE=chubby;1575263]well.

all i know is catamarans are awfully difficult to right if u lift a keel and get yourself turtled.
they just tend to flip over in angry seas..which is why u need to reef whenever there is wind.

which btw explains why monohulls are much more seaworthy and multihulls tend to attract the more reckless&uncivilized crowds

[IMG]http://www.tintdude.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/default/drevil.gif[/


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