Opua: oiled; launch date; GANNET in heavy weather
Opua: oiled; launch date; GANNET in heavy weather
A weak front has made today the first of solid low overcast since I arrived. We’ve even had a little wind, though not much more than ten knots.
While getting there would not be difficult, I don’t need anything ashore and have stayed on HAWKE and oiled the rest of her interior. I just finished the cabin sole, which I will try not to walk on for an hour or two.
THE HAWKE OF TUONELA now looks about as good as she is ever going to under my ownership.
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An email this morning from Skipper Bud’s confirms GANNET for launching on May 5. If Chicago has some decent weather in April she will be ready. If not, not. I will be very pleased if she floats May 5.
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Naturally I have been thinking about GANNET.
My preferred tactic in heavy weather--Force 10 and up--in boats such as EGREGIOUS, RESURGAM, and THE HAWKE OF TUONELA, all of which have been in Force 12 storms, has been, given sea room, to run off before the wind and waves under bare poles without towing a drogue.
Once on RESURGAM in a Force 10 storm approaching Durban, South Africa, I did deploy a para-anchor from the bow with unsatisfactory results.
CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE was in Force 10 twice. Once in a storm near Tahiti, and once in the Red Sea.
I was trying to get into Papeete and fought the Tahiti storm, sailing when I could, heaving to under mizzen alone when I couldn’t.
In the Red Sea, I hove to under mizzen and let the storm push me stern first at three knots in the direction I wanted to go.
I think GANNET is so light that she will go far too fast down wind in such conditions. Surfing under bare poles, while no doubt exciting, would probably end in disaster. As would being hove to in big breaking waves.
Two of you--thanks Tim and Roger--have written to me suggesting Jordan drogues. Although I have no experience with such drogues, I have read of them over the years, and I expect to buy one. More information is here.
One problem is that I’m going to have to beef up GANNET’s stern cleats so the drogue does not rip the boat apart. And a second, mentioned on the Jordan website, is retrieval.
On THE HAWKE OF TUONELA, I expect I could winch it in with her big #52 Andersen primaries. GANNET has only two tiny Barient winches. On the other hand, she is so light that once the extreme conditions have passed, she might not put much strain on the drogue and it might come in without too much difficulty--possibly pulling the boat back to the drogue, rather than the drogue up to the boat.
I’ll have to do more research and eventually tests.
You can sail a long way without seeing Force 10. I had only four or five hours of such wind on my entire fifth circumnavigation.
But you may recall that I don’t take uncalculated risks.
Thursday, February 2, 2012