Small Boat Storm Tactics

[Zen]

Sure, I can check into something, if they are aproachable.

[CharlieJ]

From what I've read, the storm parachute anchor for a 25- 30 foot boat should be 10 to 12 feet in diameter.

Have to dig back through to find the place I read that though.

Anyone else have info on this?

[CapnK]

CJ - That's - IIRC - the size the Pardeys used to recommend. In their book (the copy I have), they say they revised their figures a little, and actually went down a few feet - to an 8 footer - for boats our size.

Craig - those orange chutes look like they would work, if they are even a bit smaller than 8'. WHich is perfect for what I have wondered - 2 *smaller* chutes would seem to be a compromise between a big chute and a series drogue. ;D They could be run in series, or - using 2 bridles - kind of side-by side, to make a big slick. There would be more gear to handle, and more chafe likely, but the gear would be easier to recover. Might be an idea worth trying.

I've also wondered if you could rig something that looked like a series drogue-type arrangement to lie line-abreast, somewhat - curved a bit. The cones would need to be loose from the line at their back end. Perhaps a device like that would offer low shock loads, while producing a nice wide slick. It's effects may not be strong enough deep enough to trip and tumble large waves though...

Perro - I'd like to see a closer picture of those boards - Sounds like a neat idea!

Zen - you lucky old dog you!!! :D Be careful, or you'll be staggering into the Pardeys tent with an armful of books-to-be-autographed from your fellow sailFar members! lol

[David_Old_Jersey]

Perro - I'd like to see a closer picture of those boards - Sounds like a neat idea!

I keep meaning to take a Digital Camera down to the Boat to take a few pics of various things, but keep forgetting!...........when I eventually manage this I will snap a few of the washboard set up. It's amazingly simple.

[Frank]

 Zen...GO FOR IT !!....the Pardey's ARE EXTREMELY approachable!! Just have a list of questions and they WILL give you whatever time they have,depending on their next appointment. I met them at Miami in 03 and they truely ARE 'just regular boat nuts'...if ya didn't know what they have done....you sure wouldn't meeting them....zero ego!!

[Auspicious]

Anyone on here actually currently carry a trysail?  If so, how do you rig it (same track as main, parallel track, gated main track, sheet to boom end or quarters, etc)?

I have a very deep third reef in my main instead of a trysail. The downside is that I still have the boom to deal with, but since I have a solid vang I would have to manage that anyway. I built a preventer and boom bridle and between those and the mainsheet (boom-end sheeting) I'm not awfully concerned about being able to control the boom in bad weather.

[Fortis]

The above pretty much exactly describes my approach as well. I do own a bright orange tri-sail...but the one afternoon we spent doing storm readiness drills in something like 10 knots of wind and a fairly calm sea...the tri sail changeover proved by far the most time consuming, hazardous and honestly most unpleasent part of the job. You get that with a full battened main sail.

I will trust to the deep thrid reef point and to swapping the mainsheet back out to the traveller behind the steering box for boom end steering (the everyday traveller lives on the bridge deck and goes to mid boom.)

I cannot add a second track specifically for the tri sail to the mast as the mast on our boat is quite narrow and shaped, nor is any kind of sleeve an option as we have a baby-stay.


Alex.

[Ol' Coot]

Ol' Coot-

because of how the JSD is designed, boarding waves are not really an issue.  If you read the user testimonials, you'll see that being pooped isn't really an issue, since the boat is making some forward progress...

Waves are strange animals...  In the open ocean a 20 ft non-breaking wave moves to leeward at approximately 20 knots, but the water molecules that comprise that wave move hardly at all.  The water moves in an eliptical pattern going up and down but the actual water molecules displace very slowly from their original location.   A theroeticall cup of water may be only a few miles to leeward of where it started after a 24 hour gale.

Moving the boat under sail or power in thes conditions implies one of two strategies.

Your primary objective is to (1) climb the face of a wave (no mean feat) and make it through the crest before riding down the back while going to windward, or (2) keep from surfing down the face of a wave to leeward and slamming into the back of the next, (hopefully) without broaching.

Sliding slowly to leeward in these conditions with a stearn deployed drogue sounds pretty inviting, and is probably(sp?) safe under a lot of conditions. 

The problem arises when conditions change and either an increase in the wind causes the waves to beging to break, or two waves coincide and form the "freak wave (exceptional height but same frequency/length)".  When the height-to-frequency of the wave becomes too steep, the breaking water cascading down the face is moving at 20+ knots and your boat is rerstrained by the drogue to about 1.5 knots.

My 33 ft boat has only 3.5 ft of freeboard at the transom, and unless the reserve  buoyancy causes the stearn to rise really fast, there's going to be a sh*t load of water coming across the deck at 18+ knots headed for the wash boards.  The kinetic energy stored in that wave could easily drive through the wash boards or peel the hatch cover forward and totall off of the boat in the blink of an eye.  All the theory and testimonials might disappear in one nausiating (lethal?) moment. 

Something in my gut keeps telling me that having the water crash from stem-to-strearn is going to be a lot less destructive.  The shape of boat was designed to deflect the the force of that wave rather that to stand against it . 

Just my $.02...  I'm not a trained engineer or marine architect.  Your confidence in advertisements may be different than mine.


Kevin

[AdriftAtSea]

Ol' Coot-

I'm not basing my choice of using a JSD on advertisements.  I am basing on the first hand experience of several sailors I know who have had the bad luck to need to use one.  I am also basing it on the conversations I've had with Don Jordan personally.  I have also read the research that the USCG and Jordan did regarding the drogue...

Yes, a freak rogue wave has the ability to destroy any boat, regardless of the equipment used or its size.  However, that rogue wave doesn't care about anything at all, and it doesn't matter what I do to prepare for it... so I am trying to prepare for the things I can do something about.  A JSD seems to be the best solution IMHO for dealing with heavy weather.  This is based on the design of my boat, and what I have learned from other sailors, my own research and speaking with Don Jordan. 

A JSD is designed to be used once conditions deteriorate past where moving under sail and/or power has become too hazardous.

I think part of the problem is that you are confusing a JSD with a sea anchor.  A JSD allows the boat to move quite a bit more than does a big parachute type sea drogue/anchor.  It also creates much less of a shock load when it is deployed.  It isn't designed to slow a boat to a stand still, as a big parachute sea anchor will, but to keep it aligned to the waves and slow, relative to the waves.

[Captain Smollett]

I think at this point in the discussion it merits pointing out that the storm tactic book that sparked this whole discussion was deailing with extreme conditions with BREAKING WAVES.  The Storm Tactics Handbook is not dealing with conditions of 20 footers in gales of 30-40 kts.  It is deailing with FAR WORSE scenarios.

In breaking waves, holding the boat stern-to is a BAD IDEA.  Period.  Tried and tested.

In breaking waves, holding the boat bow-to is a BAD IDEA.  Period.  Tried and tested.

In breaking waves, creating a "slick" is probably the best known technique for protecting the boat.  Technically this 'slick" is  known as a Von Korman Vortex Street; this is a region in the fluid where high tubulence is set-up.  Turbulence in a fluid bleeds kinetic energy, which is precisely what is needed to stop those breaking seas.  Other methods of 'calming' the waters, as reported by Hiscock and known to be used back in the old whaler days, is to pump oil overboard.

Don Jordan mentions on his website that he thinks this 'calming' effect is a myth.  I suggest that he go back to Fluid Dynamics 101, maybe re-derive those Navier-Stokes equations and re-apply the kappa-epsilon turbulence model and do some CFD.  Shoot, I've got an Athlon64 cluster here with TEAM installed and running he can use to model breaking seas in the area of high turbulence we call a 'slick.'  Or, he can just write to Astrid Barros of the University Federal de Rio De Janeiro, or Sergio Hamilton Spharer of UC Berkeley, both pre-eminent scientists in the field who STUDY such effects in fluids (and how they effect yatch safety) to ask their opinion.

No doubt the JSD is a GREAT product for a stern-to drag device.  Yes, it is even recommended by the US Coast Guard for that application.  But the debatable question is how effective is this tactic in BREAKING SEAS?

Best bet of course is to AVOID such conditions as much as possible.  But, I'm still trying to get my mind around someone calling riding out an 80+ kt storm in a 24 ft boat "comfortable."

[Captain Smollett]

Dan,

Since you've talked to him and have a rapport with Don Jordan, why don't you invite him to sit in on one of our Tuesday night chats?  It would be great to ask him some questions and give him the chance to "fill us in" on the series drogue.

He could also join just for some sailor talk.

Just a thought...

[CapnK]

What might be smart (for those who plan to travel where conditions frequently require the use of hard-core storm tactics):

Get and carry both - neither takes that much space to store. Test 'em *before* you need 'em. See what the characteristics are, good and the bad, in somewhat less extreme conditions than survival. In particular, note how they affect the surface of the ocean, because it's the water, not the wind, that'll get ya.

There may well (and probably will) be times when one outshines the other.

I can easily imagine a circumstance where slowing the boat a bit might come in handy, and a JSD would no doubt work better for that (especially if you could easily add/remove cones as needed).

Yet having seen the effects of turbulence on how/when waves break, my gut feeling is that, when the time comes when all that's left to do is go below and wait/hope/pray for conditions to improve, that the chute deployed a la Pardey makes a lot more sense.

I would much rather the bow deal with waves than the stern - as Ol' Coot noted, that's how boats are designed.

There may even be room for compromise not only in this discussion, but also *in the design of the tool*. Why not a cross-breed?

Several small chutes, instead of one large, on a rode. They could either be streamed straight (lessening the drag/slick effect for running), or warped 'tween bow and stern, chutes in a more or less line-abreast formation (for heaving-to).

"Drawbacks": In the JDS config, they would create more of a shock load perhaps, and in the 'chute mode, they would not affect the water as deeply as one larger 'chute, which may or may not affect how effective the slick is.

Something worth testing, perhaps. I'd imagine that Jordan has tested cone size to determine which was best, but *only for running*, as that is what his piece of gear is designed for. That being his focus, there may not have been any testing to determining efficacy while hove-to.

Just a thought. :)

[AdriftAtSea]

Capn Smollett-

I'll see if I can dig up Jordan's phone number, and if I can find it, I'll ask him about dropping in.  I haven't spoken with him in a couple of years. 

[s/v Faith]

Pretty good link (PDF Document) on Prepairing for a storm.

Quantum Sails Storm prep with 'Capt. Jack'.

[maxiSwede]

Interesting thread, I keep finding more and more fine reading here.

I carry a trysail on my current boat. It has a dedicated parallell track at the mast, is sheeted to the quarter and thus the boom is supposed to be safely lashed to a boom gallows(correct expression?). The idea is to keep the trysail, tacked to it´s mast track and stowed in it´s bag and lashed at the foot of the mast during passages. I have not yet tried it- and hope I won´t have to, but it definitely fells like the right way to go.

As for Jordan series drogue versus Pardey bridle chute; they both have their pro´s and con´s I guess. -disclaimer : I have absolutely zero practical experience with any of them. My boat heaves to very nicely and that is enough storm tactic for whatever heavy weather (up to 60 knots)one may find in my home waters. Dangerous breaking seas need ocean-type fetch to build up I assume.

Anyway: I have lots of respect to the Pardeys and their skill and experience; but I can´t really visualize myself going up on foredeck in a breaking-waves condition to set up a chute, chafe protection gear over the bow, and then the bridle. Just think of the first part there. Grabbing the bag with the chute and crawl over the deck to the bow with it...

OTOH; the JSD is easily deployed from the safe and comfortable cockpit. The bridle fastened to the stern cleats or some other pre-made fastenings, and the rear end of the line, with the weight, is more or less tossed overboard. - Sounds WAY easier, doesn´t it?

The drawback of the latter method would obviously be to expose the companionway and the cockpit to the possibilities of those tons of water. However from the testimonials at Jordans web-site, this doesn´t seem to be much of an issue.

I find it almost impossible to decide which on e of the two I should eventually choose.  ???

BTW -- what does IIRC mean? --- sure beats this pagan from the land of the Vikings  ;)

[CharlieJ]

IIRC- if I recall correctly.

By the way- you could also deploy the chute from the cockpit- you'd just need to have the line led outside of everything up to the bow.

Personally I think the very best tactic is to be someplace else during storm season.
;D

[AdriftAtSea]

While avoidance is the best policy...once you're out there...it isn't always feasible...

[maxiSwede]

Thanks for the explanation Charlie.

And I do agree with you re. being at the wrong place at the right time.

But nevertheless, it seems like most blue water passages just could encounter a blow

About deploying the chute... yeah I guess you´re right. Weird that the Pardeys don´t mention that... IIRC,, it´s been a few years since I read it.
BTW I read on their web-site that they are currently working on a new edition of Storm Tactics Book.

[CharlieJ]

Of course you can encounter bad weather including gales most any time, even during the summers along a coast. Usually they are fast moving and of short duration though

But the really BAD stuff has seasons- Survival storms such as hurricanes happen at specific times in different spots around the world.

I have no problem with riding out a gale or such- but during hurricane seaon, if you are cruising, you should be elsewhere.

F'r example- August and Sept are NOT the prime times to go to the Bahamas and on down the islands.

;D

[David_Old_Jersey]

Perro - I'd like to see a closer picture of those boards - Sounds like a neat idea!

I keep meaning to take a Digital Camera down to the Boat to take a few pics of various things, but keep forgetting!...........when I eventually manage this I will snap a few of the washboard set up. It's amazingly simple.

It took me a while  ;D

But self stowing washboards now posted on Youtube!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6USBW0EEw-o