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Catalina/Capri 25/250 Sailor's Forums

Catalina 25 Specific Forum

running downwind with high waves

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redeye
Master Marine Consultant

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3477 Posts

Response Posted - 08/14/2012 : 06:58:15

Warps... Sea anchor??

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John Russell
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
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Response Posted - 08/14/2012 : 07:23:39

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DaveR
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
2015 Posts

Response Posted - 08/14/2012 : 09:15:59

Just an excellent thread guys. I appreciate the folks that took the time to dissect the situation and thoroughly explain it, and the solutions to it. Well done and thanks for the education!

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Stinkpotter
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Djibouti
9087 Posts

Response Posted - 08/15/2012 : 06:55:15

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by redeye
 Warps... Sea anchor??<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">Good question. A sea anchor is really for use in the open ocean to hold your bow to the wind in a major storm. To do so, it has to be a pretty large "parachute" that doesn't make sense for a coastal cruiser.

A warp for a C-25 would probably be about a 100-200' line made to both stern cleats, and dragged astern in a long U to slow the boat from sliding down the faces of waves, and to stabilize her directionally. Some say to tie knots at intervals to increase the drag.

A drogue is a miniature version of a sea anchor--usually a cone made of heavy material, intended to be dragged off the stern in following seas. I had one on my C-25, but never used it. Long Island Sound can have nasty, big chop, but it's not like ocean waves, and my priority was avoiding big seas--not surfing them. Large following "chop" makes the boat squirrelly, but I'm not sure dragging something astern helps there as it does in long ocean waves.

Edited by - Stinkpotter on 08/15/2012 07:02:46

blanik
Navigator

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Canada
210 Posts

Response Posted - 08/15/2012 : 07:13:43

yes Stinkpotter i was thinking the same, a dragging device would not have been necessary in the situation i was, it was more a matter of finding the right angle and the right speed, the disturbing thing was the quick rolling of the boat as the waves passed beneath, it really felt like i was sailing a cork...

lots of great answers here, some of them contradictory, i'm still not sure what is the "usual" way of dealing with those so far the "square on the transom" approach is what worked best for me :-/

i found this quite interesting for running (on dinghies but still interesting)

http://www.roostersailing.com/articles/4TH%20DIM%20WEB%20ARTICLE.HTML

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Steve Milby
Past Commodore

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USA
5908 Posts

Response Posted - 08/15/2012 : 07:14:25

Drogues, warps and sea anchors are all designed to do primarily one thing - prevent your boat from getting it's beam to the waves. Drogues and warps keep the stern to the seas, and a sea anchor holds the bow to the seas. When either the bow or stern is pointed at the approaching waves, the waves impart less force on the boat than when it's beam is exposed to the waves. Additionally, drogues and warps slow the boat's speed through the water, making it less prone to pitchpoling and broaching. A sea anchor reduces the boat's speed even further.

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Steve Milby
Past Commodore

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5908 Posts

Response Posted - 08/15/2012 : 07:49:01

Blanik, each of us is telling you what, in our experience, has worked for us. Much of our seemingly contradictory advice can be explained by the fact that, when giving it, each of us is thinking in terms of a specific storm when we used those tactics successfully. One of us might be thinking about a storm with 30-35 kt winds, and another might be thinking about a storm with 50-55 kt winds. If one recommends continuing to sail in 35 kts winds, that doesn't necessarily contradict the other who recommends taking down all sails and motoring downwind in 55 kt winds. It takes considerable skill to continue sailing a small, pop-top coastal cruiser in 55 kt winds. The first instinct of most sailors in that situation is to get all the sails down. Once the sails are down, the boat is adrift, with no sure means of control. The only way you can restore control is to either raise your sails again or start the engine. If your boat is equipped with a storm trisail and storm jib, or their equivalent, then you can sail. If your boat is only equipped with a mainsail with a single reef and your smallest headsail is a 110%, like many of our members', then sailing in 55 kt winds is out of the question. In that case, running downwind under bare poles with the engine might be your only option. Different conditions call for different storm sailing tactics. There is no single tactic that you can use in any and all situations. You need to know as many different tactics as possible, because each tactic that you know represents an option that you have at hand for dealing with the storm. The more options you have, the safer you are. When you run out of options, you're in real trouble.

Edited by - Steve Milby on 08/15/2012 07:51:51

dlucier
Master Marine Consultant

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Virgin Islands (United Kingdom)
7583 Posts

Response Posted - 08/15/2012 : 08:56:57

Steve's right. Every situation is unique.

I once got caught in a wind storm while motoring sailing ten miles off shore when the wind instantly went from nothing to 50mph. Just before the nasty wind line in the water passed over me, I had quickly dropped and secured the main as I didn't know exactly what was about to hit. Being Lake Erie, the sea of glass turned to 7-8 footers in just a few minutes. I briefly tried running with the seas, but with the close periodicity of the waves, pitchpoling started to look like it was going to come into play. So using the outboard, I timed a 180 in a trough to get the bow pointed into the wind and waves. Although I was making negative headway, ie going backwards, I was able to steady the boat's ride, but every once in a while the wind would catch the bow and push it over requiring me to quickly do a 360 to get back to head to wind. Surprisingly, with all the bronco busting I did, the outboard coming out of the water was not an issue.

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Voyager
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USA
5418 Posts

Response Posted - 08/15/2012 : 22:28:28

Similar story for me, different outcome. I was lazily sailing last year about 6 miles out (south of port) In 80 degree temps when a "back door cold front" hit with a 15 degree temperature drop, 25 kt eaterlies with 35 kt gusts. The seas kicked up very quickly and I had to do a beam reach due north for over an hour to get back to port. Downwind was only water so that was not an option.
I had to shorten sail to prevent a knockdown and played the main and jib in gusts.
I got rocked and rolled by breaking seas hitting the starboard side most of the way back. I can't recall a chillier trip with 65 degree air temps, massive wind chill and being soaked to the bone.

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Steve Milby
Past Commodore

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Response Posted - 08/16/2012 : 06:00:28

Good point, Bruce. Sometimes Nature gives you two choices, neither of which is very appealing. You had the choice to either head back to your marina putting your beam to the seas and doing a lot of rocking and rolling, or to head far out to sea on a heading off the wind. You were there at the time, and thus you were the best judge of whether you would be able to nurse the boat through the beam seas, and you apparently made the right choice. Your alternative, to sail farther out to sea in a coastal cruiser in adverse conditions, when, for all you knew, the conditions could get even worse, wasn't a very attractive alternative. If the windspeed had been much higher, you might not have been able to sail beam to the bigger seas without broaching, so that would have dictated that you head off the wind and either reduce sails to a minimum or take them down and start the engine and run downwind. None of your choices were good, but ultimately, the goal is to keep the keel down and the inside of the boat dry, and, if the only way you can do that is to head farther offshore in bad weather, then that's what you have to do. In bad weather, your choices aren't always easy.

In your example, with 25 kt winds and 35 kt gusts, you probably had other alternatives. If you had sea room, you might have been able to simply take down all sails, lash the tiller and laid ahull. Heaving to would also have been a viable choice, and probably much more comfortable than lying ahull.

If you had a drogue or a sea anchor, you could have deployed them. You could have rigged a drogue from your anchor and boat cushions, but your boat cushions would have been ruined. If that's what it takes to survive, then it's worth it, but it wouldn't be high on anyone's list of choices.

But, you got back successfully and more quickly, and that's the best outcome, so that was the right choice in those circumstances.

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Voyager
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Response Posted - 08/16/2012 : 07:57:00

Steve,
Agreed. I had entertained the option of heading to windward on a close reach and have done that in the past in similar sea conditions. That would have put me in a position therefore to later run downwind to get back to port. Was not looking forward to that.
A second option would have been to continue on a close reach until I got to safe harbor perhaps 10 miles up the coast. NP, but it was late in the day and I was unprepared to overnight. I could have left the boat and called someone for a ride home and returned the next day.
The thing that helped was deciding to act quickly. At the first moment of the seachange, I sensed danger and immediately went into red alert mode. I grabbed my fleece, put on my pfd, stowed all projectiles below, shortened sail, furled the jib to a small fore triangle, put in the bottom crib board and booked out of there. The waves built quickly but for the first half hour things were still manageable. Got pretty scary in the second half hour with breakers crashing and water coming into the cockpit.
It could have been a lot worse had I not moved quickly.
Learned a lot about myself and Passage that day.

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