I found this by taking Cat Man Do's
advice and googled Ramtha
Catamaran. It was in a mailing list at:
http://lists.samurai.com/pipermail/p...il/001034.html
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Although this deals with sailing cats—not many had much sail up by the time it was over. It certainly deals with the ability of a group of at least three cats to survive a storm—but also has some lessons for monohulls! This relates to the Queens Birthday Day Storm in June 1994. Typically one
sails from
Auckland N.Z. North to
Fiji After the first week of April and before the end of June. This should avoid the Souther Cyclone season and the severe
winter Gales. In 1994 there were a series of mild lows which kept many mariners from leaving in April and May—none of these were severe—but folks were waiting for “Ideal weather”. However time crept up on them. The meteriological scenerio is well described in the web site of Steve Dashew at:
http://www.setsail.com/products/pdfs/qbs.pdf
The story unfolds as noted in the
archives of Lat 38, June 1999:
‘It’s unclear exactly how many
boats were caught in the core of the June ’94 storm, but nine
boats with a total of 24 crew issued maydays. One
boat and her three crew were never seen again. Seven other boats with 17 crew were eventually rescued. One boat rescinded her mayday and made it to port under her own
power. What should make the Queen’s Birthday Storm story so interesting to you, .... is that two of the nine boats that issued maydays were catamarans; one a homebuilt 39-footer, the other a
Catalac 41.
In addition, there was a third
catamaran, a 39-footer, on the periphery of the core. The following is a quick rundown of all nine boats, their crews, and what happened to each of them.” Also an analysis of the monohulls condensed: “
Five things stand out from the
experience of the seven monohulls:
1) Despite all efforts, it was virtually impossible to keep the boats from ending up beam-to the seas, which resulted in five of the boats being repeatedly knocked down or rolled.
2) Despite trailing drogues, two of the boats
pitch poled.
3) No matter if the seven monohulls
pitch poled or rolled, all of them
lost their masts.
4) As a result of the pitch poles, knockdowns, and rollovers, many of the crews suffered serious injuries.
5) Having a ship come alongside to effect a
rescue was extremely difficult and dangerous foreveryone involved.
6) Perhaps the most amazing thing is how well the seven boats held up to the unthinkably horrible conditions; had it not been for scuttling or collisions with rescuing ships, six of them would have continued to float.
The age-old admonition to never leave a boat until it’sunderwater would seem as true as ever.
Now for the catamarans:
“Ramtha, a 38-foot Roger Simpson designed modern-style catamaran from
Australia, with a husband and wife crew with five years of coastal cruising
experience and some
offshore experience: The crew had set a
drogue several days before the storm to fix her
steering, but had to cut it loose when they were unable to pull it back up. Ultimately, they found themselves in 70 knots of
wind and 40 foot seas, conditions so bad that the 4,000-ton ship Monowai, coming to their
rescue, rolled as much as 48º in each direction, injuring three of her crew. Despite four
reefs, Ramtha’s main blew to shreds and her
steering system became inoperable. With nothing but her twin engines available for maneuvering, being aboard her was like “going down a mountain in a wooden box” or being on a “roller coaster that never stopped.” The boat slid down waves forward, sideways, and backwards. Several times it seemed as though she might flip, but she never did. Ultimately, Monowai shot a line to Ramtha’s crew, but missed. While the line gun was being reloaded, Ramtha’s crew began to get strong second thoughts about leaving the boat, feeling he was doing fine on her own despite being crippled. Nonetheless, they attached their harnesses when the second line landed on their boat, and were dragged several hundred feet ÷ often underwater ÷ to and up the side of the ship. After abandoning the cat, the owners gave her up for
lost. A week or so later, they were stunned to learn that the boat had been found ÷ upright and in surprisingly good shape! After settling a
salvage claim with another yachtie, they eventually sailed her back to Oz where they began rebuilding the cruising kitty.
Heart Light, a 41-foot
Catalac U.S.-based catamaran with a crew of four; a husband and wife couple with 16,000 ocean miles, and two crew with no
offshore experience: Despite having 16,000 miles ocean experience, the
captain and wife claimed to have not steered the boat except near the
dock and to have never jibed between the States and
New Zealand. Heart Light was a heavy, solid
fiberglass, narrow catamaran. Nevertheless, she did reasonably well, surfing at between 6 and 13 knots while dragging a
drogue. When the
autopilot couldn’t handle it any longer, the
skipper finally learned how to steer, working desperately to prevent waves from slewing the stern in front of the bow. Eventually, both engines went down and linesfouled both rudders. They tied off the
helm to port and slid sideways down waves. Despite being “captapulted” through the air on many occasions and being knocked onto one
hull several other times, she endured. When the rescue ship arrived, her
captain noted that the boat “appeared
seaworthy and was riding comfortably in the improved
weather.” When the captain said he couldn’t tow the boat, Heart Light’s first mate, a New Age visionary, talked the ship’s captain into a weird agreement: they would only allow themselves to be rescued if he promised to ram Heart Light until she sank. The woman’s theory was that the sinking boat would be a lighthouse guiding the forces of good through seven layers of reality into our currently evil world. Something like that ÷ and yes, she wrote a book. The ship’s captain complied, and Heart Light sank after being rammed several times.
The third catamaran, a 40-footer, carried a deeply reefed main and furled
jib in slightly lighter conditions outside of the core. She experienced no serious problems.
There are several interesting things about the two catamarans in the core area of the storm:
1) Neither of them pitchpoled;
2) Neither of them flipped÷ although the crews thought they came close;
3) Neither of them were dismasted;
4) Both of them apparently would have survived ÷ by surfing forwards, sideways, and backwards ÷ had they just been left alone.
Does this mean that multihulls are actually safer in very severe
weather than monohulls? We ÷ who own both a
monohull and a catamaran ÷ certainly wouldn’t leap to that conclusion. After all, there were several other monohulls in the core area of the storm that didn’t even issue maydays and survived the storm with very little damage. And while it’s much too small asample on which to base any firm conclusions on, the performance of the catamarans in the storm nonetheless had some influence on our deciding to build a cat for our next charterboat.By the way, most of the factual information presented above comes from Rescue In The Pacific, a well-written and well-documented account of the Queen’s Birthday Storm by Tony Farrington. The book is still in print.
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