| T.R | Title | User | Personal
Name | Date | Lines |
|---|
| 1189.1 | Watchman | MSCSSE::BERENS | Alan Berens | Thu Apr 27 1989 14:48 | 25 |
| re .0:
We have a Combi Watchman radar detector. I have been both pleased and
disappointed (a little) by it. It does indeed detect OPERATING radars
at some distance (several miles) and it does indeed provide sufficient
bearing accuracy to determine if the relative bearing is changing. My
disappointment is more related to the fact that, apparently, some large
vessels (freighters and fishing) do NOT operate their radars
continuously, at least along the NE coast between Cape Ann and Maine,
even at night. Either that or the Watchman doesn't detect some ship
radars (which, given the internal circuitry, I doubt). It is better than
no radar detector (especially in fog), but it is at best a collision
avoidance aid. It is not a replacement for a good visual lookout. On the
balance, I think it is a worthwhile investment for shorthanded sailing.
Single line mainsail reefing has some advantages -- speed and ease --
but beware of chafe. The reef line will be long enough that it will
stretch and contract considerably as the load changes. Chafe can be
rapid and severe. We had two reef lines almost chafe through in rough
seas. Replacing a reef line internal to the boom could be very difficult
in bad weather.
Were you able to insure the boat for the race? Two years ago we had much
trouble getting insurance for a fully crewed, cruising trip to Bermuda.
|
| 1189.2 | Single handed reefing, lazy jacks, insurance... | ASHBY::NELSEN | | Thu Apr 27 1989 16:39 | 36 |
| Re .1:
I just forwarded reply .1 to the owner and received back his comments
which I relate:
Re the single line reef, length and chafing: he too has been
concerned with this and is on the verge of deciding NOT to do it.
We've had little trouble reefing single handed at the mast in many
different conditions. He states..
Working behind the mast is, from the safety standpoint, not as good
as working from the cockpit but it presents acceptable risk.
He will also be installing lazy jacks to make it easier to manage the
sail both in reefing and in dropping it quickly.
Re your comment on many ships not using their radar, he responds,
The responder's comment about [ships'] radar operation is rather
disturbing, even though I was not counting on hearing ships
comming on the detecter. It also means that they do not have a
good way of seeing you other than visual. Assuming a 5 mile
horizon, this means no more than half hour sleep intervals, on the
average, for the first 100 miles or so. . . .
Re insurance: he doesn't think any carrier would insure for this
passage, so he's not going to attempt it. He does feel it is an
acceptable risk.
BTW, it is an Autohelm 2000 rather than 3000.
/Don
|
| 1189.3 | sleeping hazardous to your health? | MSCSSE::BERENS | Alan Berens | Thu Apr 27 1989 17:17 | 39 |
| re .2:
Well offshore, I would assume that ships would have their radar(s)
operating. Whether or not anyone is watching them is another question
entirely.
re sleeping: A 20 knot container ship travels 10 miles in half an hour.
We also saw some sportfishermen bashing along at high speed south of
Martha's Vineyard when we were heading toward Bermuda. I have become
much more concerned about collisions than I used to be (ignorance was
bliss, perhaps) because of an incident last year.
Last August I singlehanded nonstop from Marblehead to Rockland, ME,
about 130 miles. Staying awake was difficult. I decided that if I
couldn't see any lights (on a clear night) it was safe to sleep for ten
minutes at a time. Uh huh. I came on deck about 0300 after a ten minute
nap and was horrified to see against the stars, dead ahead, a large
commercial fishing vessel drifting with absolutely no lights. I was able
to change course and miss it (I might have missed it by a few feet even
if I hadn't changed course), but it was still very, very close. After I
resumed normal breathing, I blew my freon horn at the idiot. Somebody
promptly turned on a very bright anchor light that was visible for the
next 50 minutes. Telling myself that this was a one in a million bit of
bad luck doesn't help much. He wasn't using radar either, since my
Watchman radar detector remained silent the whole time. (After this
incident, staying awake was no problem.)
If I do any more singlehanding (and I may), I will attempt to sleep
during the day and stay awake all night, especially along the coast. But
I'm tending toward thinking that long, singlehanded coastal passages are
too unsafe. Singlehanding to Bermuda, once you're a hundred miles
offshore, probably is reasonably safe in so far as collisions are
concerned.
By the way, is there a backup to the Autohelm 2000? The reports in
Practical Sailor about autopilot failure are discouraging. Fear of
autopilot failure was a major reason we bought a windvane for our trip
to Bermuda.
|
| 1189.4 | | STEREO::HO | | Thu Apr 27 1989 18:57 | 14 |
|
I don't think reefing from the cockpit necessarily implies single
line reefing. Separate lines controlling the clew and tack can
both be lead back to the cockpit. This does, however, yield another
piece of spagetti for each reef point so equiped. If the autohelm
is doing its thing and jacklines are in place along the deck, it
shouldn't be all that more risky to go to the mast to to take in
the tack reef.
Will the lazy jacks be enough to keep the foot of the reefed sail
from flapping?
- gene
|
| 1189.5 | | ASHBY::NELSEN | | Thu Apr 27 1989 22:41 | 52 |
| re .3
I agree with you re coastal passages being the most unsafe. I found
them difficult with shipping channels and random fishing boats even
with a crew.
On avoiding collisions with ships.. you must operate under the
assumption that they are not seeing you. On one of the Bermuda
returns, we were approaching a nasty looking front which was spewing
lightning just at the spot we were headed for, while simultaneously on
the horizon a ship was coming down on us with a constant bearing. We
dowsed the jib, and then saw that the ship would pass in front of us.
I then got on the VHF and called him. The radio operator responding
was Japanese and spoke English so badly I couldn't understand him. I
told him our relative position anyway, and then signed off because the
front hit then with torrential rain, miraculously, no lightning, and
about 30 knot winds.
It was over in 10 minutes, and we went on with our business, when we
heard the freighter call us... the operator asked us where we were
because they were not able to find us. So much for their ability to
see you... I wouldn't be surprised if their bridge did see us, but
the radio operator just didn't communicate with them... We had a good
radar reflector up.
Re backup autopilots.. we also have a Tillerpilot 2500 (I think the
model is) that we used in the return from Bermuda two years ago. That
will be the backup. However, we are discussing taking yet another
since the two are 1-2 year old and have been heavily used. We did have
one fail once. This single item (along with the electrical system that
supports it) is the most critical item for singlehanding.
re .4 I agree, it doesn't have to be a single line type reef. I think
the spagghetti problem will be too large with four lines (two tack,
two clew), the main halyard, outhall (exists), cunningham, .... it goes
on including jib halyards and spinnaker as well all coming aft.
The flap of sail is not a problem if you reef sequentially since each
reef makes a flap of reasonable size. Often we just let the flap go;
occasionally we put a sail tie through a couple of the reef holes in
the main. The lazy jacks ought to help that.
Coming back to the autopilot.. I cannot emphasize how much we depend on
those things. Two years ago (on the return from Bermuda) I really
thumbed my nose at the elements with glee as four of us sat around the
autopilot eating a hot stew dinner while the Tillerpilot sailed the
boat with spinnaker at about 8.5 knots.
/Don
|
| 1189.6 | The radar has to be on!! | DNEAST::PEASE_DAVE | I said Id have to think about it | Fri Apr 28 1989 09:03 | 14 |
|
About Radar reflectors and fog. Last fall, I was on the second
of 2 sailboats running under power in the fog just east of Stonington Me.
The lobster boat came out of the fog on our starboard and went aft of the
first sailboat to miss it. Since we were on the blind side of his cabin,
we had to veer to miss him. We had a radar reflector up, but his radar
wasn't on!!
I came to the conclusion that the surest way to prevent collision
is to assume nothing. I will probably put radar on next spring, hoping
I can make it safely through this season.
Dave
|
| 1189.7 | | MSCSSE::BERENS | Alan Berens | Fri Apr 28 1989 10:31 | 21 |
| re .5:
re autopilots:
We considered a second autopilot instead of a windvane, but decided that
a windvane, even though considerably more expensive, would be more
reliable and most importantly free us from total dependence on the
electrical system for self-steering. In retrospect, I think we made a
wise choice. Returning from Bermuda we beat to weather in 25 to 35 knot
winds for three days without touching the tiller. The vane did all the
steering and we didn't even run the engine once during those days.
Admittedly, if you are racing, a windvane has the drawback of added
drag. Our Monitor does slow the boat just a little, but for cruising
this is not a concern (a 0.2 knot reduction in average speed would
increase our passage time to Bermuda by roughly 5 hours)
re ships:
I quite agree. The only safe thing to do is assume that you have not
been seen, either visually or on radar.
|
| 1189.8 | Update on Bermuda 1-2 Preparations | ASHBY::NELSEN | | Fri Jun 02 1989 13:58 | 43 |
| Here's an update on the Bermuda 1-2 Race and our preparations.
Our boat, mentioned previously, is MISTRAL and the skipper is Dimitri
Antoniadis. He did his solo qualifying sail in between some of those
lows and fogs three weeks ago to qualify (did 130 miles in 24 hours,
straight out toward east and back. Had to take a reef in 30 knot winds
for a while).
We added a staysail jib with additional clew tracks on the cabin top.
Our #3 jib was cut down to make that sail. Then last weekend, with the
good winds, we had a good trial of different sail and reef
combinations. We sailed Sunday and Monday, and on Sunday got some good
time with wind exceeding 30 knots. From this trial we got a list of
additional things to do, such as change to a wire halyard on the
staysail. The last thing that remains is to pass the final inspection
a couple of days before the start, down in Newport.
Some additional things we did: wired spreader light so that it can be
turned on from the cockpit. We'll have a spinnaker sock to make
short-handed setting feasible. Put grommets on No 2 roller jib luff
and will tie short loops through them (around forestay) so that the jib
can be dropped by single person at the halyard position without going
overboard.
All electronics works: SSB installed, with no interference to anything
else; weatherfax unit installed and seems to do good job.
There are 35 entrants, in boats ranging in length LOD from 22 ft to 49
feet ("LOD" -- does anyone know what LOD means? At any rate the length
corresponds to waterline length). Two of the entrants are women.
We'll take the boat to Newport this weekend, and the start down is the
following Saturday, June 10th.
I'll be flying down later for the return start in Bermuda on June 22nd.
That's where things stand. I'm getting quite excited about it.
/Don
|
| 1189.9 | | MSCSSE::BERENS | Alan Berens | Fri Jun 02 1989 14:16 | 3 |
| LOD = length on deck
|
| 1189.10 | Progress Report on Mistral.. | ASHBY::NELSEN | | Tue Jun 13 1989 22:40 | 56 |
| Here's an update of progress on the single-handed race. It started
last Saturday, at 2pm in utter calm. I understand Dimitri (on Mistral)
attempted to set his spinnaker, but the wind was too flukey and light.
Then he put up the #1 jib and, ultimately, made it out of Narraganset
Bay in third place. This could be significant if he got the
southwester among the first of the boats.
In a radiotelephone call Sunday night after about 30 hours, he reported
that all was well and that he had gone about 200 miles. Then in a
contact we just received a few minutes ago (Tuesday night), relayed to
us this evening I believe from another boat, he stated that he had only
150 miles to go and is expected in if he keeps up speed in one more
day. All is well, he reports.
This is quite exciting, because he will have beat (or at least come
close to) his 4 1/2 day time in the Bermuda Cruising race two years
ago, with crew of 5 or so, and last year's Newport-to-Bermuda, also
with full crew. He finished in something like almost six days in that
one.
In these circumstances it will be interesting to speculate how
important his getting that good start out of Narraganset Bay will have
been. It will have been a fast race for all. But we must wait for the
finish. It ain't over until...
Now I'm especially excited about the return. One of the competitions is
for the combined time for both the single and the two-peson legs. I'll
be flying down next Tuesday, the 20th, and the start back is on the
22nd.
Some of the stories I heard about the start: in the total lack of wind
at the start, a couple of boats went aground onto some rocks, and the
race committee allowed other boats nearby to run their engines to get
away from the area they were in. I understand that there was also a
collision in the start. Evidently none of this was serious enough to
affect any of the boats' doing the race.
One other thing Dimitri put on his boat is a spinnaker sock so that it
can be controlled single handedly. He tried it out Friday and it
seemed to work properly. But it doesn't sound as though he will have
had wind light enough for a single-handed use of the chute. In our
discussing this, in lieu of using a spinnaker net, we agreed that we
would always have a jib up when the spinnaker was flying to prevent
wraps. By my listening to weather off shore weather reports each day,
it seems he's been in southwesters from 10 to 25 most of the way, an
ideal wind condition for his sail combination, auto tiller, and boat.
It will be interesting to know if he found the weather fax system we
installed of benefit in his setting a course strategy.
I'll keep you posted.
/Don
|
| 1189.11 | Dimitri finished!! 4 days 4.5 hrs!! | ASHBY::NELSEN | | Wed Jun 14 1989 22:38 | 23 |
| He's finished!!!! He came in eighth overall, in an elapsed time
of four days, 4 1/2 hours. There were 28 starters, and since most of
those boats around him were larger than he, that will be a quite good
showing on corrected time.
His initial report was that the boat performed well, and under the
circumstances, he thought he slept more than he should have -- in that
he might have gotten more out of the boat otherwise.
The only problem was on entering St George's harbor after the finish,
the roller furler on the jib jammed and he had to drop the the jib
manually. He was more embarrassed than anything else about the lapse
in form, he said.
This is the fastest time of all his three Bermuda races (one cruising
2yrs ago, the regular Bda race last year, and this). I guess us of his
permanent crew have been shown to be indispensable!
More to follow tomorrow after I speak to him personally.
/Don
|
| 1189.12 | ...only a 1-minute difference! | ASHBY::NELSEN | | Mon Jun 19 1989 14:21 | 13 |
| Update on race: on corrected time he was 5th overall. Unfortunately
he was 4th in his class ONE MINUTE behind the third place finisher,
which I expect leaves him out of the prize category. That's an amazing
difference for a four-day race!
He's been continuing to lament that he slept too much...
I fly down tomorrow, and the race back for crew of two, starts
Thursday.
/Don
|
| 1189.13 | 2-Person leg completed.. | ROLL::NELSEN | | Thu Jun 29 1989 13:24 | 212 |
| <Note: this is a long note, which would probably best be
printed out. /DN>
What a race the return was. I can only describe it in superlatives.
First, I believe we won overall for the sum of both legs, on corrected
time. Final outcome will depend on how the stragglers we give time to
come in.
On the return leg (with crew of two) we finished fourth on elapsed time
behind Skipjack (Hank Halstead's), Freedom (Steve Pettingil's), and
Legend Securities (Jack Boyd). It is fairly definite that we won our
class, but not all the boats we are giving time to are in yet.
Highlights:
- of the six days it took, FIVE were beating into winds that varied
from NE to NW, intensity from zero to about 40 kn. They reached
gale force from N for several hours at the gulf stream.
- we had a significant, unpredicted storm as we were approaching and
passing through the gulf stream. The waves were the largest I've
seen, with many breaking and a few of the largest ones being close
to 20 ft high. We spent six hours or so going on staysail with
main furled, doing 4 kn, about 70-80 degrees off the wind. It was
incredible -- I always felt that we were under control, but my main
concern was as to whether the low would continue to intensify.
The barometer indicated that the low was continuing to decrease.
The main problem was not the wind, but the waves, which were huge.
I have a clear image of the largest one I saw: it was like a
mountain that took an endless time for us to sail up. Near the
top it started breaking. I jammed the helm to leeward, and we
were able to go head to wind into the foam and then fall off to
leeward on the other side. I don't think I'll ever forget that
image.
The large boats, Legend Securities and Freedom, took this all with
doubly/triply reefed mains and storm jibs or staysails. Their
comment was that the pounding was tremendous. The waves felt like
they had square backsides: if one didn't bear off sharply at the
top, you would crash with loud boom. Fortunately, we were able to
avoid the crash most of the time.
At this point, we were in an arm of the gulf stream that was
giving us 8 kn over the bottom toward the ENE, with winds from the
NNW. At the peak intensity we decided to tack to get out of the
stream and head in a direction (about 300 deg), away from the
center of the low. After a few hours on this course, we went
onto auto helm, had dinner (during which Dimitri ate two bowls of
spaghetti to my zero(!), we got out and raised the main and
continued with the race.
- Our weatherfax maps had only showed a shallow low with maximum
winds from the N between 5-15 kn. It wasn't until two days after
the storm passed that the we saw the high winds on the weathermap.
Evidently this low formed around Bermuda in the middle of several
broad highs that were dominating the weather situation. It was
totally unpredicted. Pettingil said that the conditions were
nearly as bad as the worst that he encountered going around the
Horn.
- Zafu, one of our boats, was dismasted during the storm. They did
well coming into about 10 hours after us, under power. At one
point their prop got fouled in a plastic bag which folded up their
folding prop. Bill Gilmore, owner, dove overboard and stripped
it off, and all was well.
- Freedom, of Steve Pettingil (he's now the holder of the around the
Horn speed record), hit a whale with significant damage to his
stern and rudder. The rudder post and tube was bent several
inches out of line, and a small hole was put into the hull.
Fortunately, the bilge pump could keep ahead of the water. This
guy's amazing: he's a boat builder by trade, and had practically
a complete shop on the boat, including vise, tap and die sets,
fiberglass/resing repair stuff, and the like. He installed a
large beam (which he just 'happened to have') across the transom
with 8 bolts, to which the rudder tube was clamped. There were
several other aluminum plates that he put in to do bracing. He
says he took four hours to do the repair, and still came in
second on elapsed time, behind Skipjack.
The severity of the collision was betold by the fact that sea was
red from the blood from the whale. His first response was, "don't
tell my wife... I'll have to think of some other reason for this."
His wife is evidently much involved in a save-the-whales committee
of some sort. When I looked at the boat, there was a Save The
Whales bumper sticker on the transom! There was no chance that it
could be kept secret, however, since the entire fleet knew about
it. He thinks the whale may have survived, as it slowly swam away.
- Unfortunately, it was in this same storm that one of the Marion
to Bermuda participants was killed, evidently when he was hit in
the head by his boom in an accidental jibe.
- Our last 24 hours or so was the only period we weren't either
beating or fetching close hauled. We put up our spinnaker and
had a very constant beam reach for almost 24 hours. This was
most grueling as we had to hand steer continuously, with the
boat rounding up and collapsing the chute if one's
attention wandered slightly. We took 1.5-2hr watches continuously
through the night.
- After having gone for about 12 hrs on this reach with 8-14 kn
winds across the deck, the spinnaker halyard parted due to chafe
at the mast head. With an almost graceful hissing sound the chute
flew off to leeward into the water. I put the boat on autohelm
such that the boat wouldn't run over the sail, and we pulled it
in (surprisingly) easily. Then we set the number one jib. We had
only one spinnaker halyard at the time, leaving a light weight
messenger string up the mast where the other one would be.
After discussion, we decided to reeve the other halyard as the
speed difference would calculate out over the last 100 miles
to be about an hour or so, which we felt would be significant.
So we put up the other halyard and had the chute flying again.
This time, we let out an inch or two of halyard every two hours
to prevent chafe. The mast head has a sharp edge on it which the
halyard must pass over when doing beam reaches. So on went
a tough night.
- We used a spinnaker sock, which is my first experience with the
device. It was truly helpful in controlling the chute with a
minimal amount of effort. When reset, the wind was 13 kn, and the
chute could have had several twists in it inside the sock, for all
we knew. It went up effortlessly. Taking it down was also
effortless: you pull the sock down over the chute, til you have a
long foot-diameter tube of sail from masthead to deck. Then you
lower it into the bag. What an invention!
- Fuel pump failure: on my arrival at the airport in Bermuda,
(during the week long break between the two legs of the race)
Dimitri was motoring the boat over to Castle Bay to pick me up at
the water's edge at the airport when the diesel engine (a Volvo,
two cylinder) went down to a random gurgling performance. He was
able to limp back to St George's harbor, and it was there that I
met him with the fuel lines and filters apart. He thought that
the filters might have been clogged with debris. We cleaned some
out, and found that we could not prime the lines by hand operating
the fuel pump lever (for that purpose). We found that the push
rod attached to the diaphram had broken: a pea-like washer
pressed around the end of the rod had come off. We ended up
peening it back with hammer and center punch, and it ended up
holding. I now know how the entire fuel system of a diesel engine
works upstream from the injectors!
At that time we said that our doing this repair essentially
constitued completion of the first leg of the return! The race
start was only a day and a half away, and without the engine we
would have been delayed. It could have been difficult to get a
replacement part flown in from the Volvo distributor in time.
- Other events: two whales (fin backs) came near the boat at one
point; once we were among about 50 porpoises. We crossed many
portugese men-o'-war that were on starboard tack.
- General modus operandi: watches were flexible ranging from one
hour to five, depending on conditions. We generally felt under
control, with reserve, at all times. As soon as a problem was
solved, the partner went below to sleep and marshal energy. Being
able to fully rely on the partner was critical, and made this mode
possible. We were almost always pushing the boat as hard as we
could, doing many sail changes through #1 light, 1 heavy, 3, and
staysail.
- the staysail cutter-rigged headstay combination we installed
worked wonderfully. All the highest wind sailing we did was with
the staysail. At peak winds, the staysail was the only sail used.
It was amazing that we could still make it to windward under
staysail only with furled main. I believe we got lift of the
furled main, which I had trimmed to a close hauled position.
- I did conditioning for a couple of months before the race. The
thing that helped the most, was excercise on a rowing machine.
This type of force and motion is exactly what we experienced
doing hand steering (with tiller) most of the way. I was
amazed that I had no muscle or joint problems with the kind of
sustained windward work we did.
- The level of seamanship, and comeraderie among the sailors was
the highest I've seen in any group I've been with. It was great
fun. We were almost in constant radio contact on VHF with
competitors (which is permitted and encouraged with the rules).
Much joking and, by the end of the race, I felt I had come to know
many of them well through that mode.
- The Greek tanker that went aground went aground right across our
finish line which was to have been between nun R2 and the Brenton
Tower. The line had to be changed to the other side of Brenton, to
a to be a bearing line. There was quite a lot of activity with a
CG ship, large helicopter, tanker barge offloading oil, and other
vessels. We theorized that the helicopter that continually
circled, appearing to be doing nothing useful, must have been
carrying some VIP (maybe Dan Quayle??).
- We had SSB contact daily with Race officials at a land station.
We received fleet messages which were then relayed by VHF to the
other boats. I also had a daily schedule with ham radio operator
who relayed status messages to our wives.
I guess that's it. I'm waiting in suspense to see if any dark
horses we give time to come in and beat us out. It's very difficult
to get back to work, facing several hundred mail messages and with
the entire third floor of the HLO2 office area still rocking.
/Don
|
| 1189.14 | Fatality during race? | WBC::RODENHISER | | Thu Jun 29 1989 14:55 | 13 |
| I saw a very brief story in the paper a few days ago that a physician
from Vancouver was killed (struck in head by boom) during the
"Newport-Bermuda" race. Not enough detail to determine if it was this
race, the other N-B race, or if they had their facts wrong and it was
the Marion-Bermuda race.
No other details except he was on a 44' boat and another crewmember,
also a physician, had contacted the CG and arranged for a helo evac.
Anyone heard more?
J_R
|
| 1189.15 | | ASHBY::NELSEN | | Thu Jun 29 1989 17:26 | 8 |
| This occurred on one of the Marion to Bermuda race boats, evidently in
the same storm that we went through. Since the waves were so huge, and
the wind directly from the north, it would be easy for this boat to
accidentally jibe. My understanding is that the boat had a short rig,
with a moderately low boom.
/Don
|
| 1189.16 | query | MSCSSE::BERENS | Alan Berens | Fri Jun 30 1989 09:49 | 15 |
| re .13:
Thanks for the report. A memorable passage, one that I'd rather read
about than experience!
A couple of questions: You apparently were well-prepared for the race.
What equipment, preparations, modifications, etc, were especially
helpful and/or worked well? What would you do differently next time?
Also, if you had a trysail, why didn't you use it? If you didn't have
one, do you now think you should have had one?
Alan
|
| 1189.17 | | ASHBY::NELSEN | | Fri Jun 30 1989 11:30 | 46 |
| re .16
We had a trysail. We felt that the staysail on its headstay that is
closer to the mast that the jib head stay allowed us to have
steerageway without too much leeward helm. It was amazing that the
furled main, held up by the topping lift, and then trimmed to leeward
also gave us drive and some weather component to the helm.
Between waves we were able to get back to about 4 kn, which then
allowed us to turn into the larger waves.
For that reason we didn't see a need to use it then,since we were still
able to make slight net way to windward.
I think the next steps we would have taken if the winds continued to
increase would have been to run downwind, and then to add the trysail.
The fact that we were racing had a strong influence on what we had
done.
If were just cruising we would have buttoned up sooner and would have
had little qualm about just putting it on autopilot and going below.
But being aggressive and keeping enough sail to move well was very
useful in steering to keep a good angle relative to the waves. I
didn't want to get broadside to one that was breaking.
A few of the boats did button up and go below. No one else that I
talked to used trysails. A couple of the boats used their third reef
capability (which we didn't have). That would have been a nice feature
to have had.
I think if had indications that it was going to get much worse, we
wouldn't have hesistated to take the next step of using the trysail,
but that indication was not there. An hour before peak, the barometer
was still falling slightly. At the peak, and after we tacked to go
away from the low center, the barameter was constant.
I'm going down to Newport Saturday for the awards ceremony, and there
we'll get to talk to many of the people who finished later, and who may
have had a different experience, better or worse, than we. I can add
that to another reply. Also, I'll go down our original list of things
we did and were prepared with and discuss pluses and minuses.
/Don
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| 1189.18 | More Comments on 1-2 Race | ROLL::NELSEN | | Fri Jul 07 1989 12:59 | 181 |
| From .16:
>A couple of questions: You apparently were well-prepared for the race.
>What equipment, preparations, modifications, etc, were especially
>helpful and/or worked well? What would you do differently next time?
I can't think of any significant thing we would have done differently.
But here are comments on several items:
1. The Staysail. THis was the best thing we did. A second headstay
was inserted about 4 ft aft of the headstay, attached to the mast
approximately at the spreader level. A high-cut jib was used, and
a separate pair of tracks/cars were put onto the cabin top.
This sail allowed us to do shorthanded sail changes without losing
speed, and was good to have in the storm as it balanced well with
the double-reefed main and also allowed us to still go to windward
on the furled main.
It was also useful for the singlehanded leg; it was used often
there.
2. Our Datamarine speed indicator was calibrated properly so that the
speeds matched the loran's indications. Being able to detect
differences in speed through the water and speed over the bottom as
small as 0.2 kn gave us some significant advantage in going
through the confused eddies in the gulf stream. I think we gained
as much as 50 miles on boats around us by paying attention to eddy
currents. If we saw ourselves in a current that was not on the
eddy chart, we would either tack to get out of it, or, if was with
us, would deliberately stay withit. Many of our competitors did
not, I am sure, use their Loran in that way. The gulf stream took
a southern U-shape (i.e., headed to SE first then turned CCW to
head to the NE). We entered it at the bottom of the U as the storm
was increasing, and had 8 kn over the bottom as we went NE. We
chickened out as we were headed toward the center of the storm low
in that direction, and tacked to stbd tack to get out of the
stream.
After a while, we found that we had crossed the U and had
re-entered the stream, this time in the unfavorable SE-going arm.
Fortunately we discovered this after about half an hour, and
immediately tacked to sail perpendicular to the stream and get out
of it.
One of our competitors did not discover their problem and went
around the U a second time!
3. We used a spinnaker sock. That was terrific, and enabled us to
set and take down the chute with only two of us with utter
peacefulness. When the halyard parted, we re-socked the chute by
walking the head to the bow of the boat and pulling the sock down
over the wet and twisted sail. It went up perfectly and easily.
I recommend this even for larger crewed boats.
4. We will change the way the spinnaker halyard leads off the mast
head as there is a built in chafe causing edge on the mast head.
Without that fix, with our second halyard (used after the 1st
parted), we let out a couple of inches of halyard every couple of
hours to prevent addtional chafe.
5. Beating for 4 1/2 days straight certainly found leaky areas in the
boat. Some of these we'll now fix. One problem area on these
Beneteaus is the Lazarettes: when heeled, the water can't drain,
and simply goes into the lazarette, and then into the bilge. We had
to run the bilge pump every hour or so at the peak of the storm.
6. The other area where we gained on the competition was when we were
becalmed. We went off watch system and both of us sailed the boat
intently going for every additional tenth knot we could. Margins
of a few hundred yards were multiplied into several miles after a
few small squals, which became a 25 mile lead over boats around us
when we got the new wind first. This is an area where small
distances differences are multiplied greatly, especially when you
are sailing into new winds.
7. THings we did not do: originally we thought of using boom
jacks and also of using a different reefing mechanism that would be
simpler for short handed sailing. Neither of these were done.
The reefing worked very well as it orignally was.
8. Re Autohelms: about 1/2 of our steering was by hand, not
because the autohelm could not do it well, but because we wanted to
better optimize pointing and speed in the race conditions. Since
we were each at the helm for extended periods, every half hour or
hour we would go on autohelm anyhow just for the rest. That would
provide an opportunity to retune the sail trim for max speed. When
on autohelm we generally pointed about 10 degrees lower.
There were times when the helmsman got tired and erratic, then the
autohelm was superior and would provide a rest.
The last night, on beam spinnaker reach with the chute on the edge
and the boat on edge of losing it, it was especially grueling on
the helmsman as he could only keep attention for about an hour or
so. So we had 1.5 or 2.0 hr watchs all night. We pushed because
we knew that was our last night and it would be OK for us to finish
the race at full exhaustion. (As it was, we weren't exhausted, at
least for all the champagne that flowed.)
Several of the competitors had lost all autohelm capability and had
to do the entire race by hand steering. They were much handicapped
and probably lost 100 miles or so to us only for that reason.
One of the single-handed skippers had to hand steer the entire 5
days down to Bermuda. He was practically halucinating, he said.
The technique used for single-handedly tacking the #1 jib:
- loosen both movable back stays
- make sure autohelm was left at middle setting (for tiller)
- commence tack, casting off jib sheet, partly bringing in new sheet
- when on course, quickly put on autohelm.
- then sheet in jib with both hands, and do up jackstays and main
traveller.
The autohelm was was invaluable here.
9. Re the Weatherfax: this worked well. Images were very clear
in the absence of man-made noise. These helped us choose our
strategy re how much we would reserve our strength, and which
direction we would go for the next wind system. 2 days from end,
we took westerly tack so we would get to the new SW wind sooner.
This paid off nicely. I expect the wefax was not needed for that
call, but that's how we decided on it. We used the Lewes (NJ),
Norfolk, and Boston stations.
10. Re communication ability: this race is interesting in that VHF
communication between competitors is encouraged, even to the point
of giving away information of a strategic nature. THat was useful.
We had SSB contact with the race committee station daily and
forwarded messages to the restof the fleet. Also had a daily ham
radio contact, who relayed messages to my wife who then sent E-mail
to my group at DEC, who were given daily reports on our progress.
That all worked well. All boats were required to have a hand held
VHF rig. When ZAFU was dismasted, they say they called me after I
had just finished talking to another boat in the storm.
Unfortunately, I vaguely remember hearing an unintelligible signal
that I thought was calling me, but I disregarded it because they
were too weak. If that was the distress call from Zafu, I feel
badly about that. One lesson is that handhelds with their rubber
duckie antennas don't get out nearly as well as an antenna on top
of the mast. Another lesson, corrolary to above, is that when you
are dismasted, you no longer have a high antenna!
The lesson is that I'll try to not dismiss anything like that as
being insignificant henceforth. Fortunately, Zafu made it in very
nicely. Bill and Hennie Gilmore are a very competent couple, who
together have crossed the atlantic 3 times. The 4th time, Bill did
single handedly.
Bill was very sad to cut away his mast and rigging, to see some
$20k worth of hardware simply sink out of sight. But because this
was at the peak of the storm, he did not even take time to remove
the sail, in order to prevent damage to the hull by the mast which
was flailing around. Another aside: his cheap spanish-purchased
hack saw blade broke in the middle of the cuttin operation. This
was almost a crisis until he rigged a makeshift hacksaw with the
pieces. But this took time, and gave him much concern.
An interesting aside: after they had gone under their power for a
day or so, they found their forward way stopped suddenly, and the
motor sound was somewhat different. Upon investigating and diving
overboard, he found that a plastic garbage bag had fouled the
folding prop and had neatly folded it up. Upon removal, all
was OK again.
That's all the followup I can think of. Overall, we ended up third
behind Hank Halsted's SKIPJACK, and Steve Pettingil's FREEDOM, and won
our class for the return and for the combined sum of both ways. Those
boats cost at least an order of magnitude more than ours, and the
sailors are in the professional class. So I feel we did our best, and
have few second thoughts on things we would have done differently. It
was great fun and there's a good chance we'll try again two years
hence.
Don
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