OMG ! Clawing Off a Lee Shore in a Gale !

[minaret]

She's a beaut. I've always been a sucker for Bingham's designs, my Anastasia 36' sold me on his work forever. An amazing boat, which is also often strangely misunderstood, just like the Flicka. Perhaps Hogan or other Flicka owners here remember the thread started on the Flicka forum about my boat? There was much drooling among Flicka owners over her, and her new owner actually came from that site. Although, obviously from my choice of new boat, Hogan and I don't agree on everything by any means. For instance I think sex tourism is reprehensible, but then I'm a happily married man with kids. And I love my huge ridiculously powerful engine with massive tankage.

[Rakuflames]

Originally Posted by kaimusailing

A gale is what you claw off a lee shore in.

You are soooooo bad!

[Ex-Calif]

Originally Posted by Hogan

They have an exceptionally strong mast and rigging. I climbed mine yesterday for the first time, and the difference between it and the mast and rigging of a Catalina 22 I recently acsended....is stunning - and a Catalina 22 is a "bigger" boat.

All this sailing (1,000 plus hours?) and never been up the mast?

Go up the mast during the survey or at least have the surveyor or someone take detailed photos of the shrouds and masthead. All those Force 10s and 12s off Santa Monica and no idea of the rigging condition. Not groovy...

Originally Posted by Hogan

SURFING - multiple head injuries....

This explains soooo mch...

Just kidding Hoagie...

Great post...

BTW - "pops" wants $150k from the coast guard? Those Flickas are way outta my price range...

[kaimusailing]

Ahoy Hogan,
Yes, I was wondering how that boat looked so squatty. Down by the stern. If you had a CG crew aboard, how many could get below aft, not many, huh? But flooding would not affect just the stern. Maybe just a burst engine hose under the cockpit. Broken through hull. I notice maybe a solar panel wing over the stern.
It troubles me to see something that obviously doesn't gybe with the skipper's account. A boat that looks down by the stern. Sea conditions that obvously are not gale. His account is that he was forced to abandon and the CG refused to allow him back on his boat because of conditions. If your boat is in trouble due to some damage or faulty gear that could sink it, the CG might take you off and of course not put you back on it. If it's possible to rectify the problem, they will try to accommodate. It looks to me that he had an obvious problem with the stern going down like that. There is no wave action to account for pitching and no visible wind calamity. He sent an emergency message, they contacted the CG, the CG came out and took him off and wouldn't put him back on. The boat was never seen again.
The reference in his posting was "twenty somethings", refering to the CG men. They are highly trained and day to day see just about everything, especially around the border areas. Still, he lost everything in that boat. Sea Tow or TowBoat/US would have brought him in, if he was a member. It would have been worth it.
The CG should, for further clarification, state why the boat was unseaworthy. Maybe it will come out if there is a lawsuit. I remember some reports of gung-ho Marine Police getting into trouble by running down innocent boaters. Maybe that was in San Diego. It was such a nice place for catamarans a few weeks ago.
Anyway, we have Hogan about the Flicka, we have a Flicka declared unseaworthy offshore, and we have and irate sailor who lost everything. What we need is a posting by a Flicka sailor who's made some offshore passages, and I know many would like to hear about that.

[Ex-Calif]

Originally Posted by kaimusailing

<snip>

The boat was never seen again.
<snip>

The CG should, for further clarification, state why the boat was unseaworthy. Maybe it will come out if there is a lawsuit. I remember some reports of gung-ho Marine Police getting into trouble by running down innocent boaters. Maybe that was in San Diego. It was such a nice place for catamarans a few weeks ago.

No they shouldn't and for Pete's sake if this gets to court - grrrrrrrr.....

- that guy called someone
- someone called the coast guard
- the coast guard showed up
- no one disputes there was bad weather and more bad weather was coming
- that boat is down at the stern for some damn reason. The coast guard are not mechanics sent to fix and assess your boat so you can continue your around the world jaunt
- they took him off the boat
- the boat disappeared within 24 hours!

Now, what if they came they saw, they let him stay. The family would be soon fabulously wealthy. Did I mention the boat was never seen again?

You neighbor calls the fire department because smoke is wallowing out of your house. The fire department doesn't ask too many questions before they ventilate your roof and start pouring water in do they? They don't need to guess if you have just burnt some toast, they are profesisonals for crying out loud.

Pain and suffering. He claims that his eyesight was further diminished because he couldn't go back and get his glaucoma medicine. Wait, they allowed him to haul three bags of crap and he didn't bring his meds? What did he bring? A bag of porn and two bags of "medicinal" weed?

The guy made what 50 miles - he ain't actually Josh Slocum now is he? Jeez, guys. Lets call a dumbass a dumbass for once and move on"

Oh, well. I'm going sailing...

[Hogan]

Bristol Channel Cutter?

Gorgeous to my eyes.

- don't worry about me and my preparations: I've been at this, essentially full time, for 2-1/2 years. I sail her at LEAST weekly, usually for 8 or 12 hours at a stretch, and I keep a log book - though I confess I'm not as meticulous about the day sailing log as I am about the "new" coastal passages and anchoring out trips - but my chartplotter records the miles.

I intend to practice with my storm jib and trysl - just like Ive done with reefing until I can set both blindfolded (it takes me 30 seconds or so to reef now, and perhaps 2 minutes to strike and secure a large sail, bend on a smaller one above it, swap the halyard and sheets, hoist the new sail, and sheet it home - because I've litterally done both hundreds of times).

I'll set and retrieve that seiries drouge half a dozen times as well before I depart, and I find it unfathomable that some sailors purchase such equipment but never practice with it -

Like my buddy in the Contessa 26 in that gale with his storm jib and inner-forestay -

We motorsailed out of MDR into the waves and wind, and when he hoisted the sail, guess what?

RIGHT: He couldn't sheet it home because he'd never bothered to hoist and check it out at the dock, or in the harbor for that matter!

He waited for a gale (hey, haters: what do two red flags, one above the other flying from the MDR USCG headquarters yardarm mean?) and he got really angry and started yelling at me and stuff, which I thought was funny, because when you yell at me, I just slow down and smile.

And that's not the only thing that went wrong, let me tell you, and the more things went wrong, the louder he screamed at me, and the louder he screamed, the more careful, slow, and deliberate my actions became.

Finally, he took the helm and prepared to gybe us so we could get back into the harbor, and when the headsail came around, it's sheet, being both uncleated and without a stopper knot, ran right out through the starbord block (this was his roller furling headsail, which BTW had fouled on his innerforestay halyard, and intially refused to unfurl after he figured out that the storm jib was useless if you can't properly sheet it)

NICE!

Now his 110 is threatening to wrap around it's foil and tear itself to pieces. So guess who gets the helm again while the skipper goes forward, wearing his Jesus sandals no less ( maybe they will help him walk on water when he's swept off the bow?) and attends to the bullwhip sheet as I head up again and try to keep his headsail from wrapping and hopelessly fouling his furling gear, as he leans bodily over the lifelines, grabs the sheet, and tries to pass it to me, screaming obscenities about my mother the whole time!

You can imagine how fast I'm moving at this point.

"Look, bro - I'm helming. Before I can grab the sheet, I need to put her under autopilot (thank god that was working) or we'll broach, and while I'm perfectly capable of sailing this boat back into the harbor alone, I really don't feel like issuing a mayday call when you go over - I hate interviews with authorities, and I'm not certain I can identify your body after the shrimp eat your face"

and now, he's screaming so loud I can't hear the gale, and his face is redder than a right-return bouy, and I'm laughing my ass off at him as I activate his tiller pilot, and go forward, grab the sheet, and reeve it through it's block.

But this still isn't fast enough for him, and now he's screaming louder than the jets taking off over us from LAX, because I'm taking the time to tie a stopper knot in the sheet.

"WHAT THE $&$$&&$&& ARE YOU DOING MY SAIL'S GONNA TEAR!!!!!"

"well...... I'm tying a stopper knot so it doesn't happen again you dip-****"

"WELL HURRY UP!!!!!"

....and as darkness gathered, I asked him if he had running lights.

"OF COURSE I HAVE RUNNING LIGHTS"

"Ok - just checking"

...and he goes below and flips the switch for his tri-color, and....

Nothing.

"Uh, dude - do you have deck lights?"

"NO!"

"what about back-up battery powered lights?"

"NO!"

"well, then you better steer clear of the Sherrif boat when get back in the harbor"

And when we get back to the dock, I make the following suggestion to my freind:

"Dude - here's what went wrong: (long list of failures, including him losing his sunglasses overboard while wrestling with the storm jib on the foredeck) you should write it all down, then prioritize and start working on the most serious things first."

"THAT'S NOT HOW I DO THINGS!"

And he goes on to explain how he has to install a new sink before he does anything else on his boat.

Come to think of of it, his Yanmar 1gm almost WAS the only thing that kept us off the beach - had that roller furling headsail wrapped.....

Now, if any of you think I'm making this up, go to my Youtube channel and look up "Contessa Gale Sailing" and you'll see a little bit of our adventure.

...And for those of you wondering why on earth I'd go sailing with a guy like him under such conditions, it's because I'd decided NOT to go out that day, but he had made up his mind TO go out, solo.

And this guy is freind of mine.

He's also a sailor, and there was no way I was going to let him go out there alone, which he would have, because he thinks his boat is invincible, and because he has a huge set of balls, which I deeply respect in anybody, even hot tempered, I'll prepared idiots like him.

I am thinking twice about cruising in company with him though.

;-)

[Hogan]

About Pops Boat:

The bilge of a Flicka is mostly in the hollowed out rear portion of the keel, under the cockpit.

He didn't have an inboard, but there is one major flaw in the way Binham designed the boat and Pacific Seacraft constructed it:

The cockpit drains.

The cockpit is huge relative to the size of the boat, so to provide adequit drainage, Bingham speced two 1-1/2" drains.

Problem 1) Said drains are just above the waterline at anchor, and one submerges on either tack, with both submerging and tending to back-up into the cockpit when you exceed hull speed (the boat starts squatting, and I had 3 or 4 inches of water sloshing up against the bridge deck when surfing big waves off the wind at 8 knots.

Which was mildly alarming, but a lot of fun too.

2) These drains do not have seacocks on them: Should a hose fail you are in trouble.

3) If a hose or fitting fails ( the scuppers are at the front of the cockpit, 6 feet from the stern) it is difficult to reach if the breach is forward, almost impossible to reach if it's aft, because PSC didn't install an access hatch (or seacocks) back there.

4)Last but not least, for all the overbuilding and stout hardware, PSC skimped for some reason on the drain fittings. These are plain old PVC, along with the hoses.

After my 2nd solo trip to Catalina last summer, just as I pulled into my slip, my nieghbor, who also sails a Flicka came running up to me, breathless:

DUDE - MY BOAT ALMOST SANK LAST WEEK!!!!

Now, I'd just completed a nerve wracking coastal passage accross a channel that's full of ships, nearly a mile deep, and that claims boats and lives every single year.

What do you think the LAST thing I wanted to hear was?

Right - that a sister-ship had almost sunk while I was out cruising.

"WTF!!!!!!?????"

"My son went below and said "dad, there's water on the floor""

One of his cockpit drain fittings had cracked, and it's hose popped off, and was leaking water into the cabin!

Now my dockmate is no idiot.

He attended Exeter prep-school, Harvard undergrad, and Cornell Med school. He's a psychiatrist (MD) (he doesn't think I'm especially crazy either, BTW) and a liscensed airplane pilot.

So he popped one of his scupper plugs (that's how we keep the water out of the cockpit in calm conditions) into it, and sailed home.

Then he spent the next two months replacing everything with bronze, except the hose, which at my suggestion he replaced with Nigel Calders "marine rated fabric reinforced SAEJ2006, which BTW is not sold at the Local West Marine - he had to get his from San Pedro.

Calder BTW is an absolutely brilliant technical writer - the best I've ever read, and as a former Architect and Architecture professor, I've read hundreds.

Calder makes an outstanding point when he writes:

"Remember that anything attached to a through hull is an extension of the hull; it's integrity should be as close as possible to that of the hull."

Well, nobodies perflect I slupose:

PSC screwed the pooch here, they screwed it hard, and didn't have the common courtesy to give my poor dog a reach-aroud.

Litterally - you can't even reach the cockpit through- hulls from the outside by reaching over the stern.

So after watching poor Dr. Mueller spend his entire summer sweating like a pig wedged under the cockpit sole wrestling with replacing those through hulls, I went to West Marine, bought a Bomar 8x12 marleon access hatch, traced it's outline with a magic marker at the rear of the cockpit, right over those goddamed through hulls, and cut me an 8x12 access hole, so I can at least GET TO THE SONS OF BITCHES if they let go.

Then, I installed a Rule 2000 electric bilge pump with it's own automatic switch ( I drilled a hole right through the bottom of my boat like an idiot doing this BTW, trapping myself in the bilge with my finger over the hole, until I figured out how to plug it, while laughing my ass off at myself for being such an idiot that I'd holed my boat trying to install something to keep it from sinking!

(don't worry - it was a small hole, and I fixed it with expoxy covered by 1/2" of new fiberglass, lol)

...and I gave that pump it's own through hull just below the toe rail, along with a check valve (soon to be replaced with a vented loop) seperate from my manual bilge pump, and I backed up that pump with a screeching highwater alarm that activates BEFORE the bilge pump, so I'll know if there's a problem.

Oh, and when I haul the boat in a few weeks prior to departure, the plasic is coming out, and bronze is going in, including flanged servicable bronze seacocks, check valves, and the aforementioned SAE2006 fabric reinforced hose - on the sink drain too.

Like I said - the boat has limits, and the seafloor is littered with "unsinkable" ships.

I'm gonna guess Sue-'em Blind McGeezer never bothered to crawl under his cockpit to have a look at those drains.

If you ask me, he shoulda seen trouble coming.

;-)

[Ex-Calif]

Originally Posted by Hogan

.

Then, I installed a Rule 2000 electric bilge pump with it's own automatic switch ( I drilled a hole right through the bottom of my boat like an idiot doing this BTW, trapping myself in the bilge with my finger over the hole, until I figured out how to plug it, while laughing my ass off at myself for being such an idiot that I'd holed my boat trying to install something to keep it from sinking!

(don't worry - it was a small hole, and I fixed it with expoxy covered by 1/2" of new fiberglass, lol)



;-)

Ouch. Too funny. Thanks for sharing. I've looked at your vids and read the description of your drains above. They sound similar to the maxi and similar to many 25 footers. On mine 1 inch drains connect to hoses that connect to seacocks that connect to through hulls at the stern of the boat under the water line. Seacocks easily accessible in the aft locker. See pic

Your cockpit looks and is similar size to mine. The biggest issue with the drains is they block up and I have to periodically clean them out.

However at bath time I have filled the cockpit with 8 inches of water or so needing only a suitable pump to make a jacuzzi. The boat settled not one inch. Point being pops boat didn't just have a little undrained water in the cockpit.

Your theory about the drains and cockpit getting below the water line allowing the boat to continue to ship water sounds plausible and scary!

However - to modify my drains I would not consider adding the complexity of a bilge pump, manual or electric. If you are driving around in "force 10s" the last thing you need on your plate is to manually pump the cockpit out if you get pooped or an elecical failure if this is an electric pump.

My drains woefully inadequate. They are rain drains. But even if I got pooped I am sure the drains would not be below waterline. To improve them would start with figuring out how to make nice 2 x 4 inch square holes, then figure out how to get the water overboard without having to pump it.

Just my 2 cents. The cockpit should self drain from full to empty in seconds. There is probably a formula or standard for it. And if true that getting pooped can result in the drains going below sea level and creating a hazard they definitely need to be redesigned.

Oh - another electron escape. I have had a lot of water in my boat - 4 inches in the salon. Don't ask me how. Anyway, she sat level in the water. If your boat settles at the stern when she ships water that really makes pump placement awkward. Eventually all water in my boat wants to get to the mast.

[Ex-Calif]

Originally Posted by Hogan

Now his 110 is threatening to wrap around it's foil and tear itself to pieces. So guess who gets the helm again while the skipper goes forward, wearing his Jesus sandals no less ( maybe they will help him walk on water when he's swept off the bow?) and attends to the bullwhip sheet as I head up again and try to keep his headsail from wrapping and hopelessly fouling his furling gear, as he leans bodily over the lifelines, grabs the sheet, and tries to pass it to me, screaming obscenities about my mother the whole time!

;-)

There's a vid on your site of you and a guy in his boat, him helming. You are going pretty fast on a reach. He seems to want to slow down and you are saying something like, "just head on in towards the rocks." Or something like that. At the end I realize you are entering the breakwater at MDR from the north as I was wondering why you'd advise heading for some rocks - LOL

You guys seem to sail well together. He seems to have an attitude of inexperience, a little nervous and maybe some healthy respect for sailing. He certainly didn't seem overly experienced though.

I didn't hear any screaming or panicking. Admittedly I may not have watched the Contessa Gale video all the way through. Primarily cuz I haven't really found any gale videos on your page.

The high speed trip to Catalina was nicely done.

[minaret]

Originally Posted by Ex-Calif

Just my 2 cents. The cockpit should self drain from full to empty in seconds. There is probably a formula or standard for it. And if true that getting pooped can result in the drains going below sea level and creating a hazard they definitely need to be redesigned.

There is a standard, and you shouldn't bother to look at unless you want to realize just how inadequate cockpit drains in the vast majority of boats are. I did the math on my last boat, which had a much smaller cockpit footwell than you guys are looking it, and to make the cockpit drain fully in the recommended minimum amount of time required two 3" cockpit drains, for the top end of the scale required four 3" drains! Ever seen a 3" drain in a production boat? They usually use 1 1/2" or even 1", so that would be four 1 1/2" to get to the minimum for that very small footwell. Getting a filled cockpit to drain in "seconds" just doesn't occur in most boat designs. In fact most cockpit drain setups I've seen would take more like several minutes to drain after being completely filled, some much longer. Try filling your cockpit and time it's drain time. Then do the math based off your present drain volume. You will probably be surprised and depressed. Oh, and don't forget that the simple solution for cockpit drains which go under the waterline is the crossover technique. Just run the hose for the starboard drain to the port thru-hull and vice-versa. This doesn't always work if the footwell is too deep to let the pipes drain properly, but usually you can find a way to make it work.

[Cormorant]

Don't forget that cross-sectional area of a hole increases with the square of the radius (pi X r^2).

3.14 X 1.5^2 = 7.065 square inches
3.14 X 3^2 = 28.26 square inches

Those 3" drains let out 4X as much water as a single 1.5"! So you would need eight 1.5-inchers to equal two 3"-inchers.

[Hogan]

Thanks for the compliment on the Catalina Video - which one did you watch - "first crossing" or "exodus"?

Exodus was shot last summer, "First" was shot two years ago, and I'd figured out a lot more by last summer - like to pole that 140 out to leward while reaching, and getting the boat to sustain 6 knots in just over 10 knots of breeze while dragging my kayak - and that was under autopilot - she hit 7 knots a couple of times as the breeze filled in, and was doing 6.5 steady when I hand steered, kept the helm dead neutral and grooving, and played the quartering waves properly.

That was fun.

Note the white water rafting footage off Catalina's West end. My annemometer recorded 25 knot gusts, and I was broad reaching at 5 knots, so that's 30 knots true right? Approaching gale force - but the seas dont look too bad, right? Choppy, some white-caps, but not bad....

That's because its a local effect of the island's high mountains which compress the westerlies around the tip of the island, creating strong winds over a small area as you approach the island - but because the fetch is limited, you get the short, steep chop you see in the video. The prevailing winds 10 miles off were blowing about 15 knots as the inversion layer lifted and the marine layer burned off, just like they do all summer in southern california waters.

Note also that I dont have the f-ing mainsl up. I am motorsailing here with my 110 up and broad reaching for Emerald Cove however.

For some reason I havent quite figured out yet, giving her a little push from behind stabilizes her dramatically under such conditions - a little push, like 1/3 throttle on a 6hp outboard - I suspect its becuase it keeps her driving just a little longer after a good surf down a wave.

The engine is not essential here, but makes the ride much more comfortable - and that IMO is the proper role of the contraption - convience and comfort - not save-your-ass-in-a-gale safety.

Prudent seamanship should keep you out of gales inshore, and storm sails are for offshore work, or getting caught with your pants down inshore.

As far as the Contessa and my buddy, look carefully at the video:

1) Is he not wearing Jesus sandals on deck?

2) Does he not look perplexexed as he tries to unfurl his headsl?

There was a lot of spray flying, and I have a rather expensive camera, so the upwind footage is brief. I am also attempting to simultaneously helm.

In a gale, like it or not.

You try helming a small, low, wet boat upwind with fouled sails in a gale with a perplexed, ill prepared, hot tempered, skipper yelling at you everytime you take a wave over the bow wetting his Jesus sandals (contessas have very little freeboard, flat sheer, little reserve boyancy, and thus, the bow likes to submerge ocassionally.) While trying to film his antics and ranting.

The reaching footage is telling.

My buddy decided he wanted his whole 110 up in the gale with just 1 reef in the main (just like Kirchbaum's boat had when it sailed skipperless up on Venice right in front of "On the Waterfront" beer garden where I used to get drunk and pick-up tourist chicks which was folkboat based also)

Now, we are entering MDR from the north, and the wind is from the West, putting us on a beam reach, seas on the beam, and jacking up over the shoal waters at the harbor mouth.

And because numb-nutts has WAY TOO MUCH SAIL UP for the conditions, the boat has monsterous weather helm, and keeps trying to round-up and broach.

Look again at the video - Skipper Bonehead has the tiller yanked at a 45 degree angle to weather - and that tiller is 6 feet long. He's out of helming options if a gust hits him.

In the video I'm telling him to ease the main or he'll round-up INTO THE ROCKS, which again, I think is kinda funny - becuase its not MY boat, and anyway, I have my PLB And HHVHF in my foulies, but those rocks are covered with bird and sea lion crap, and again, I dont like talking to authorities or identifying corpses.

My buddy is fond of telling me how he "Has 10 years of experience in that boat" btw. His idea of a good sail is to forget to bring a snack, head 1/2 mile off the breakwater, heave-to, brew some tea, drink it, get hungry, and sail back, which takes all of about 1-1/2 hours.

The day in the video he hoists his full main in the harbor - again, with a gale blowing, and when I suggest he reef it down before we head out, he says "I've never reefed it" - So guess who has to reef his sail for him?

And when I go to tension the foot with the reefing line, it stretches like a rubber band - because rather than using some decent low-stretch dacron for the his slab reefing system, he sourced the cheapest Home Depot nylon he could find.

"WTF did you get this line?"

"Home Depot - it was cheap!"

This is how the day began.

The first time I sailed with him, his packing gland or prop shaft was leaking so badly the only thing keeping it afloat was the electric bilge pump, wich was running more or less constantly - and You already know the state of the boat's electrical system.

He sailed his boat up to Santa Cruz Island like this, and anchored out and played around in "windy lane" with it in this condition too!

Balls, not brains....and he and I argue abouth this sometimes, and we are still freinds.

I've attached photos of Nomad's transom, the PVC cockpit scupper, access hatch (yes, The Bomar OEM gasketing is bogus, and it leaks slightly into the bilge - its on the list) the original drain hoses (yes - TOTALLY BOGUS! - they dont even cross under the cockpit, and are installed bar-tight, meaning one good wack....and they are unsupported for thier entire length, terminating at yet another piece of crappy PVC lawn irrigation plumbing, a schedule 80 elbow

Which is NOT shown, because I didnt feel like draging the deflated dink out from under the cockpit this morning just so the haters could ridicule my poor, sweet little girl's scars from her neglect at the hands of an otherwise kind, attentive and loving father.

We all have some childhood traumas to work through I suppose.

So I'm betting one or more of "Mr. SueThe Pants Off The Guys Guys Who Rescued My Ass From My Own Stupidity"s cockpit drain hoses let go as he was running before the tempest - with his mainsl up - like an idiot.

He probably dog-eared (how exactly does one dog-ear a book on tape anyway?) St. Charlie's book, "Kawabunga's South Seas Adventure" instead of figuring out how to properly sail his Flicka - because Charlie keeps his mainsl up and strikes his jib when running before gale after gale in his lame, jingoistic, bible bouncing account of his stunt voyage / cruise circumnavigation of most of the Pacific Ocean north and south of 40 degrees, 1/2 of it with his poor wife, aboard his little ship.

...and somehow, Kawabungua takes care of Charlie and his wife, despite his cluelessness, and they survive thier voyage, though if you want to get talked OUT of taking a Flicka on such a voyage (it was his first - and last from what I gather- offshore cruise aboard that boat) read his account.

- his engine fails again after he fixes it in Tahiti, again near the ITCZ, at almost the exact same lattitude, where it first chocked to death.

- he burns up both electric tiller pilots, one a present from a fellow cruiser who felt sorry for him after he melted down his first one. Say Charlie, you think maybe you had a fault in Kawabunga's wiring somewhere?

- and (get this) he even managed to bugger his Monitor Windvane!

Monitor Windvanes are supposed to be as bulletproof as, well, a Flicka. Windvanes while useless under power, would have definately helped spell him at the helm in the non-stop reinforeced tradewind conditions he and his poor wife had to beat into sailing from Palmira to Hawaai, becuase (get this) he ruined the instructions, and besides, he claims he didnt understand how it worked, and doesnt understand how to read mechanical "schematics" (its not a "schematic" its an "exploded isometric" drawing, and good ones are easy to read if you have at least the IQ of a slow chimp)

A fellow cruiser in Hawaii took a quick look at his steering gear, fiddled with something or other (Charlie calls it a "thingamabob or watchmacallit" in his book) and immediately got his winvane working again.

This is all in his book.

I think everyone contemplating taking a Flicka or other small boat cruising should buy it too, because its a great example of how NOT to sail a small boat, as well as a guide to Dewell's poor writing skills and lunatic fringe right wing talk show political fanaticism (He devotes an entire chapter to bashing the French Polenesian people for protesting France's detonation of a nuclear bomb on (well, under anyway) one of the Eastern Touamotu atolls they claim as thier "territory" - Uh, look Frenchy, youre nation is on the other side of the planet, and you took those atolls by force from thier native inhabitants so you could exploit thier natural resources via the Copra plantations that still grid those atolls. The roads you built killed dozens of reefs by cutting off tidal flows too.

(Go on Google earth if you doubt this)

You wanna play with underground nuclear blasts Frenchy?

Paris has an extensive network of catacombs, why not do your testing there and see how the Parisians react?

Charlie then goes on to call the Tahitians a bunch of lazy drunkards on welfare...He's a class act - very religous too - and he makes no secret of this, thanking and praising his particular flavor of God throughout the tome.

But I digress yet again.

As far as my mast inspection, I've been keeping an eye on it with my 10x stabilized binos since I bought the boat. All the standing rigging was replaced with new 316 (swaged terminals unfortunately) in 1999, and the boat saw little use before I purchased and began refitting her.

I went up the stick solo, with the ATN mastclimber I just bought, mainly to sort out how to use that scary thing more or less safely, with a hospital 300 yards away (no kidding) rather than out at sea in a gale - no wait I mean in force 3-

The mast and its hardware are fine, and since climbing it is a PITA, I'm gonna sieze rings on the lower cap shouds for gying the mast so I can use my boom as a gin pole and lower it (its tabernacled, another advant....oh, nevermind .... to replace my tricolor and run the masthead VHF cable INSIDE the mast rather than winding it around the backstay (!) like some previous owner had done.

I'll also be installing a masthound for the new stormsl halyard. Halyard and its tail will be stowed and belayed at the shrouds, where I'm planning to add a shearpole and eventually, Lord Nelsons so me and my crew can climb to the spreaders for entering tricky lagoons, and finding nude beaches.

The stormsl will be set flying, and I'll be tacking it down with a pelican hook, hoisting it well above deck, then tensioning the luff with a screwdriver or marline spike through its turnbuckle. Then, I'll evaluate the sheeting for fairness and angle, and will probably install a new set of tracks along the inner cabin top so I can adjust the sheet leads and thus the twist of my new 9oz tripple stiched storm orange dacron 30 square foot headsl - yes, its just 30 square feet or a little over 5'x5' square, or the size of a child's bedsheet, (yet another advantantage of a small.... eh, forget it)

If I get this right, I'll be able to shape the sail with the sheet leads and tack hook, and I special ordered over head leech cords for both stormsls so I can adjust them at the TACK while I keep a death grip with my hands, feet, thighs, and teeth on the innerforstay, rather than while catelevering myself over the lifelines like an idiot and snatching furiously at the leech cord on my working jib then cleating it in that silly plastic cleat the its going to slip out of anyway the next time I come about.

Then I'll do everything possible to avoid ever having to fly those storm sails in anger.

Everything.

I'm trying to avoid "Adventures" not court them.

=P

[limejucer]

Broad reaching at 5 Kn your aninometer reads 25knts is not 30kn true infact is less than 25kn true and with gusts suggests sub 20kn ave to me.

[Hogan]

Uh, no, downwind your velocity is added to the apparent wind speed to get the true wind speed, and assuming a 135 degree true wind, the aparently wind will more likely be at around 150 or greater, meaning, yea, I get to add my SOG to the apparent, niether of which are ever constant, so it's all an average.

BTW "Sustained" means a 10 minute average. Sailors are concerned (or should be) with peak wind speeds.

Perhaps this is the source of the "Exaggeration" charges against me here:

Disregarding the photo and film "shrinkage factor" for wind and waves, the Beaufort scale is based on sustained winds over open water with fully developed seas.

My footage is shot inshore, in semi-sheltered waters with fetches generally under 100 miles, and often as low as 10 or 12 miles, depending on wind and swell direction.

Furthermore, most, as noted, were shot off of mountainous headlands - Point Dume and the Santa Monica Mountains (3000 feet high max) and Catalina Island (same) not offshore.

Winds from such land effects are usually of short durration, and always of limited fetch, resulting in steep, short period waves rather than big rolling greybeards.

Anyway, I plugged my cockpit drains and flooded it with about a foot of water, and the results were not encoraging:

it took 2.5 minutes to completely drain, with just 1/3 of the cockpit volume (to the combings) filled.

This gives me pause:

I'm already planning to build a lazzatete aft under the tiller for stowage. Now I'm considering a locker forward as well, raising the sill hieght and further reducing cockpit volume.

My ace in the hole however is that even with footwell completely full, Nomad's stern was only down about 2", so even if filled level to the combings (very unlikely, but you never know - she should only be down 6" or so.

For Sue-Happy-my-boat's-worth-$150k (what a joke!) Flicka to be down what looked like 2 feet or more at the stern, he must have been holed and 1/2 the boat full of water, or that CG Launch was parked on his stern.

And I'd remind you again -

Read the article: The CG says they were at the very limit of safe operation of that RIB (then look at the RIB in The Satori vid)

Yet conditions look quite tame don't they?

The USCG claims no locator beacon was placed aboard the Flicka because it was deemed to dangerous to return - though if it were THAT dangerous, one has to ask why thier were 8 guys in the RIB to rescue one old, blind, retarded guy....

Seems a pilot, a look-out, and a rescue swimmer could have subdued him and his sinking boat fairly easily, but hey, I wasn't there, and maybe he was making terrorist threats or something...

=)

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by Hogan

BTW "Sustained" means a 10 minute average. Sailors are concerned (or should be) with peak wind speeds.

No, in the US it is a 1-minute average which results in the same wind being reported 14% harder in the US than elsewhere. It gets supersized in the US so to say

ciao!
Nick.