storm tactic

[alex]

i didn't found any discussion here about the topic so i would like to place it here. I am sorry because this is a builders site not a sailing one. but i would like to ask the experienced wharram owners from this site about this subject.

 

I am planning the upgrading of my Tiki 38 to cruise around the world. Since its my first Wharram I would like to know what the storm tactics are and what the required or preferred equipment is.

 

i am planning in getting a storm jib (what cloth and size??) ,and  a sea anchor ( 6' or 8' from naval surplus only $35 ) with 300' long rode (maybe the anchoring rode?).

 

my other question is what your experience is facing heavy weather, a gale or even harder winds. anyone can tell me about the 'hove to' maneuver having 2 masts? It works great on sloop rigged mono hulls.

 

 

 

[luis]

Dear Dave,

Thanks for your post; as all yours, very useful.

Regarding:

"As Dragon was now doing 7kts under bare poles with the clouds showing more wind to come and the seas building, plan B was to use my spare anchor rode as a warp in a bight off the stern tube. This comprised 50m of nylon, 15m of 8mm chain. I added about 15m of line to the chain end and secured it all well to the stern tube and eased one end of the line into the water and payed it out.  Very easy to rig and deploy."

could you please clarify me the following:

a) what do you mean with "spare anchor rode as a warp in a bight off the stern tube"

b) i understood that you joined 50m of nylon rope, 15m of 8mm chain and 15 m of line..

b.1 what do you mean with "line"?

b.2 do you secured each of both ends of that nylon+chain+line, to a point near the stern tube ends?

b.3 if the latter was the case, the chain wasn't in the middle, didn'rt it?

b.4 or you simple fix the nylon end to the middle of the stern tube

b.5 or what you said is that you have a fixed rope to both ends of the stern tube, that let's say, is longer than the tube and when you deploy it forms an inverted "V" and in the vertex you join the 50m of nylon rope, 15m of 8mm chain and 15 m of line.

Thanks for your time.

All the best

Luis

[dave tomlinson]

sea anchor should be bigger more like 15 ft plus and good quality, they are the best way to ride out a storm but i doubt if a $35 one will be much use, a well set up parachute sea anchor is what you need, better than heaving to , boat faces the storm .

[Dave Vinnicombe]

Hi Luis

 

Sorry my explanation was not clearer!

 

To tow a warp in a bight is to take a long length of line in a "u" shape meaning that each end of the warp or line is tied to either side of the  stern of the boat and towed behind the boat to slow it down.

 

My spare anchor rode is 50m of 20mm line spliced onto 15m of chain. The end of the line is tied with a bowline to the stern tube as close to one hull as possible. I wanted the chain to be approximately in the middle of the "u" so that it weighted the line down and produced the greatest drag. To get the chain more or less in the middle, I had an old beam lashing line which was about 20m long (8mm thick) and I attached this to the end of the chain. The other end was tied to the opposite end of the stern tube. This meant that there was a long length of line/chain/line attached to each hull at the stern towed in a long bow behind the boat.

 

Even though the chain was not in the centre, it hung downward and provided an easy damper to the movement of the boat. So that if a particularly big wave came up the boat would surge a little more and then the weight and resistance of the line would slow here movement and the wave would pass by with no risk of the boat taking off on a surf.

 

The chain does not have to be exactly in the centre, but it does need to be given some depth to be effective. The fact that mine was not in the centre did not appear to make any difference to the heading of the boat. She seemed to take her heading from the breeze and was quite happy to run almost dead down wind. I used the wind vane to make sure that I was 90 degrees to the swells as there was a bit of a cross component to the waves vs the wind.

 

I hope this makes the arrangement a bit easier to understand. What it showed to me is that you dont have to have a very sophisticated arrangement, just whatever you have to hand to drag behind the boat to slow her down.

 

Some argue that a conventional drogue, unless weighted down, could get caught in the crest of a breaking wave and be 'thrown back at the boat' and so not provide any drag at a time when its needed most. The Jordan drogue overcame this by having a 100m of line or longer with small cloth drogue cones sewed into it at 400mm intervals. This was towed a long way behind the boat so that even with a big breaking wave, some part of the drogue line would be in the trough and therefore effective.

 

Regards,

Dave

luis said:

Dear Dave,

Thanks for your post; as all yours, very useful.

Regarding:

"As Dragon was now doing 7kts under bare poles with the clouds showing more wind to come and the seas building, plan B was to use my spare anchor rode as a warp in a bight off the stern tube. This comprised 50m of nylon, 15m of 8mm chain. I added about 15m of line to the chain end and secured it all well to the stern tube and eased one end of the line into the water and payed it out.  Very easy to rig and deploy."

could you please clarify me the following:

a) what do you mean with "spare anchor rode as a warp in a bight off the stern tube"

b) i understood that you joined 50m of nylon rope, 15m of 8mm chain and 15 m of line..

b.1 what do you mean with "line"?

b.2 do you secured each of both ends of that nylon+chain+line, to a point near the stern tube ends?

b.3 if the latter was the case, the chain wasn't in the middle, didn'rt it?

b.4 or you simple fix the nylon end to the middle of the stern tube

b.5 or what you said is that you have a fixed rope to both ends of the stern tube, that let's say, is longer than the tube and when you deploy it forms an inverted "V" and in the vertex you join the 50m of nylon rope, 15m of 8mm chain and 15 m of line.

Thanks for your time.

All the best

Luis

[luis]

Tks for the clarification, Dave (it's my fault not understanding your post, not yours..).

you say you tie the 20mm rope to the stern tube as much close to the hulls as possible.

is it necessary to fix the tube to the sterns in another way (to be more stronger) than with ropes according to wharram plans?

rds

luis

[Dave Vinnicombe]

Hi Luis

I worried a bit about this but in reality the the stern post to which the stern tube is lashed is very strong. It takes the rudder and skeg loads. It is very securely attached to the boat by the hull and deck panels. Mine was well tied in and the loads on the drogue are not great and as the boat surges, so the load increases, but there is no shock loading. I dont think you have to go to any special or extra lashings. This is why I prefer trailing a drogue from astern rather than a parachute from the bow where there could be pretty heavy loads.

 

Cheers,

Dave 

[Rory McDougall]

I think some very valid points are raised here in this discussion.

Different sizes of boats can require different storm tactics. I have towed a drogue on Cookie in 55kts of wind and have been in total control quartering the seas and with the windvane steering. However I do agree that the size of gear needed for a 21ft Tiki that weighs 500kg is vastly different than that for a 4 ton Tiki 38. I used 100meters of 14mm nylon line to a small windsock style drogue that can easily be hauled back in after a storm has passed.

However, the real burning debate is being caught in a tight situation where you don't have searoom to run before the storm and have to stop the boat and ride it out. With Cookie I feel confident to heave to under all reefs up to about 30-35kts of wind as long as the seas are not too steep. After that I would prefer to be on a sea anchor and have either the bows or sterns into the wind - doesnt matter which as long as you lash the tillers and rudders very securely.

I would urge all blue-water Wharram cat sailors to go to sea with some sort of equipment and plan for both towing a drogue or to stop the boat with a sea anchor. It is very cheap insurance to have when faced with the fury of a gale and no options to run for cover. Just take something along and have some sort of rehearsed plan to use it. When building why not add bigger sized cleats on bow and stern decks with huge backing pads?? Won't cost or take much more time, but will give much more peace of mind when the load is on the boat!

I personally use a 2 meter wide parachute for a sea anchor on Cookie and this is just the minimum size to bring her bows into the wind in a gale. It brings her sterns to the wind easier because of the skeg area at the stern. I would be happy with a bigger sized chute. It also goes through my mind of how best to handle all this gear if it was a 8-10 meter wide parachute on a 40ft cat!!!! Much bigger & heavier gear to handle safely in the growing storm!!

For bigger boats someone mentioned the Drag Device database which is a valuable read of real life case studies of different boats and what they successfully used to ride out storms. Definitely worth a read for any offshore sailor.

My advice is to have gear at hand to give you options. If you don't have anything aboard, you don't have many choices when the shit hits the fan!

Cheers, Rory

[paul anderson]

g,day rory

thankyou for the heads up,the need to have ''brakes '' is an important one ,my question to you is how did you attach them to to cookie as far  as strongpoints go.

cheers paul.

[Rory McDougall]

Hey Paul,

The drogue and sea anchor gets made off on the bow and stern cleats with a bridle to even the load and to adjust angle of pull if necessary. Stern cleats are approx. 6 inch alloy with hardwood backing pads. Bow cleats are approx. 8 inch alloy and bolted through top plank of fwd beam. After the rode has been cleated off, I always tie the bitter ends around the mast beam, as on Cookie this beam is cradled inside a trough and is never going anywhere - even if a deck cleat were ripped off!!

This pic shows the sea anchor bridle in action. The port bridle rope is loose on the net and ready to be tied back around the mast beam in case of cleat failure. I have had 1 meter crests on top of approx. 8-10 meter waves wash over Cookie whilst on the sea anchor. She has always felt very safe and secure in this survival position. I do believe she could take a lot rougher seas before I would get concerned about damage to Cookie from high dumping crests. In theory, that could possibly scale up to a Tiki 38 riding out 15 meter seas with 2 meter crests on a properly sized sea anchor??

I do still agree with Wharram that to run before big seas and under safe control of any type of drogue is best, so as to be moving with the impact from big crests. But if there isn't sea room, or if the storm is blowing you away from your destination, then in my opinion, a sea anchor bridled off the bows is best.

Hey - does anyone have access to a wave machine in a swimming pool? Maybe James Wharram could supply one of his Tiki models for wave tank testing!!??

Cheers, Rory

[paul anderson]

thanks mate.i have a plastic duck,er will that help ;)

[Robert Sheridan]

There is a fair bit written on the subject, Heavy Weather Sailing published by Adlard Coles covers a lot of it. We have a very small storm jib which we will rig on a lazy inner forestay and either sheet flat to keep the bows pointing down wind or use to beat, I am planning to supplement it with a trysail.  We have found that once we need to wind in more than half of the furling jib it is aerodynamically useless for going to windward.  We also carry a drogue and a home made parachute anchor which we have yet to use in anger.

[Capgeraldo]

Raindrop Navigation

 

Visualize you are in a cyclone, what should not happen because there are seasons for them, but there are also cyclones out of time (Indic Ocean). It is night and of cause raining. The sea drogue worked well until one rope broke due to it was maybe too weak or too worn out. You could do what JW suggest: go with the wind and waves. But how? You cant see more than one meter, cant see the waves, the needle of the compass is doing a hip hop.

Put on a headlamp, hold tight to the steering wheel and look into the direction you want to steer. The direction is shown to you by the raindrops which don’t fly vertically but horizontally exactly where all the waves will go. Easy navigation!

[Ann and Neville Clement]

This is a very good discussion topic.  We need more of these.

 

Peace suffered 2.5 days of Force 10 (55 knots and higher and waves 32 feet and higher as measured by a neaarby weather buoy) offshore between Madeira and Canaries in the autumn of 2002.  As Ruth Wharram suggested before we left Britain on our maiden voyage, we hove to under bare poles (no sails up at all) and Peace drifted sidewise with a bit of control of direction depending on rudder angle.  When we found the angle we liked, we lashed the tiller bar and settled down by the VHF so I could give our position and situation broadcast frequently and other boats in the area could avoid bumping into us.  As Ruth had predicted, we were frightened at first and then realized that Peace was safe and so were we and it was all quite simple.  We drifted at about 2 knots and it was really noisy and some waves broke right on top of the pod.  Nothing broke.  Nothing was disturbed down below.  It was simple to do.  But it is best to avoid such extreme weather!