Why I Like Multihulls (Well, One Reason)

[Canibul]

kinda like your first solo in a Cessna 152. you've studied it. You understand it. You've trained for it....

comes a time to put that to use. To be able to do exactly this is why you trained for it in the first place. The hardware is not the weak link.

[Jmolan]

"Good judgement is based on experience, which is based on bad judgement."

[cat man do]

Originally Posted by sneuman

Hey, the bottom line is that the guy clearly nearly lost it.

You dont know that as a fact

The boat came down a wave, slewed a bit and was corrected

Did they have the helm hard over and were they panicked? (signs they may have nearly lost it)

Or did they just give it a bit of a tweak on the helm? (signs they were simply adjusting and in control)

Most well balanced and designed multis are very responsive to small adjustment to the helm especially at speed.

Perhaps you have some additional information that will shed some light on why you suggest they "clearly lost it"?

[imagine2frolic]

Even if he did clearly lose it. He recovered quite well. My question is if he just steered her out of it, used the motors, or both?........i2f

[clockwork orange]

I would guess he just steered out of it, he had plenty of speed from surfing to have good control, i dont think the engines were doing much at this point and i cant imagine him taking his hands off the wheel and dicking with the throttles during this rather intense 20 secs.
Steve.

[sneuman]

Originally Posted by cat man do

You dont know that as a fact

The boat came down a wave, slewed a bit and was corrected

Did they have the helm hard over and were they panicked? (signs they may have nearly lost it)

Or did they just give it a bit of a tweak on the helm? (signs they were simply adjusting and in control)

Most well balanced and designed multis are very responsive to small adjustment to the helm especially at speed.

Perhaps you have some additional information that will shed some light on why you suggest they "clearly lost it"?

This is necessarily subjective, but to me he came dangerously close to a broach about 50 seconds in. Had the wave been breaking, I doubt he would have managed so well.

Maybe his expertise made the difference and maybe not. But that's a separate issue from his decision to attempt the least seamanly option on his list. There were other options and he knowingly chose the most dangerous one.

It's all Monday morning QB, so take it with a grain of salt, but under the circumstances, I don't see any reason to be effusive about the "seamanship."

[Canibul]

Yep, 'effusive' would border overly charitable where 'adequate' would suffice.

Now, if he were to do it again, for the second and subsequent bar crossings do you think he would have learned a bit about the initial approach angle and improve with practice, or do you think these will always have somewhat of a wiggly moment associated with them?

Will he get better at it?

[jzk]

What if you trailed a drogue?

Personally, I think that cat can take a lot more than most realize. Even if it went sideways, I bet it wouldn't flip - or would be very difficult to flip. (Not that I would want to actually take that bet with my own boat).

[rabbit]

All in all, I think he had a pair of brass ones!

[Canibul]

Something else I thought of that I like about cats is that you get backup for a few things, like engines and rudders. You can lose one and not be totally out of business.

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by sneuman

This is necessarily subjective, but to me he came dangerously close to a broach about 50 seconds in. Had the wave been breaking, I doubt he would have managed so well.

Maybe his expertise made the difference and maybe not. But that's a separate issue from his decision to attempt the least seamanly option on his list. There were other options and he knowingly chose the most dangerous one.

It's all Monday morning QB, so take it with a grain of salt, but under the circumstances, I don't see any reason to be effusive about the "seamanship."

But really we don't know if he was close to broaching or not. For all we know he didn't even need to correct the steering.

I wouldn't have made the choice he made. But the boat did handle it very well.

[Canibul]

It's kinda nice to know for a fact that you CAN do it, if you ever have to .

kinda like my one parachute jump...

[Extemporaneous]

Originally Posted by Extemporaneous

And so ......
If one could rationalize a good enough reason to have to (this would be where the rationalization comes in) try this in a Mono, what would be the best approach?
Would it be to have some jib out to try to keep the bow out front?
Would you try to tow a drogue of some sort and hope it doesn't get caught on something?
With the sails down and the engine running and ready to gun it to maintain steerage?
Or some combination of the above?
Or .... something else?
Remember, you've already made the decision (for what ever good reason) to do it, so what's your best chance to make it?
If you were desperate enough, do you think so long as you weren't too far off in alignment that you could bring the boat in backward dragging a sea anchor and still be able to influence the boat in the right direction?

What do you think?
I'd be interested in hearing some experienced thoughts.

Extemp.

No suggestions/experience in a Mono?

Extemp.

[TrevC]

The mini-interview with him was interesting. I don't believe he gave the impression of a skipper that was confident with his decisions. He seemed fairly frazzled, and perhaps even surprised the boat did so well.

[Eleven]

I've surfed and slewed. Rudders bite well at speed. There was no problem steering when surfing, but I was slewing around a bit before we surfed.
BUT I wouldn't want performance wave piercing bows. If they dug in then stability might be in jeopardy, and a roll or pitch pole becomes possible.
We should assume this skipper has surfed often on the open sea and new his boat well.
Wouldn't want to do it on a mono though. Do they all broach, or is that a function of sharp bows?