Stopping Wave Strikes While Heaved-To

As we discussed in this post, heaving-to is only safe as long as the boat does not forereach out from behind her own slick. It is the slick that causes waves to break before they reach the boat. In this post we looked at some alternatives to stop the wave strikes we were experiencing while heaved-to in a gale but that we rejected because they did not meet our goals for a heavy weather strategy. In this post we will look at what we eventually did, how it worked and how it has become an integral part of our heavy weather strategy—I know, some of you thought I would never get to the payoff.

Having watched Morgan’s Cloud‘s behaviour for a while after the wave strike, I realized that all we needed to do to solve the problem was to slow her down just a bit and keep her bow just a bit up to windward. Large measures like our huge sea anchor really weren’t called for. However, the staysail was already rolled right in and the triple reefed mainsail centered, so we had done all we could with the rig to keep her bow up to the wind. (Learn about our heave-to method here.)

What we needed to do was to add some drag and give the bow a bit of a tug to weather to keep it from falling off the wind. While still heaved-to, I shackled 250 feet of 7/8” nylon line to our Galerider drogue and then struggled forward dragging the substantial weight of gear behind me. After passing the bitter end through our well-rounded bow fairlead, I cleated it off and then slid the Galerider down the windward side of the hull some 10’ aft of the bow (I did not want the drogue blowing off to leeward where the boat could reach over it) and into the water. This was surprisingly easy to do with the wind holding the drogue against the hull. Once the drogue was immersed, the boat slowly forereached away from it while I paid out the line. There was none of the high loads or fast run out of the line that you get with a drogue deployment over the stern when running off.

As soon as all the line paid out, the result was immediate and miraculous. The boat slowed to a virtual standstill from the 1 to 2 knots she had been making and the bow no longer fell off to leeward when a gust hit after a lull. We lay heaved-to like this for 18 hours very comfortably with no further wave strikes.

The great thing about this drogue technique is that, unlike with sea anchors, the loads were very low. The rode was quite often slack and I would estimate the highest load as lower than what you would get on an anchor rode in a 15 knot breeze. In fact, the gear could have been much lighter than I actually used, or what would be required for a sea anchor on a boat our size. (Morgan’s Cloud displaces 26 tons.)

In the morning I was occasionally able to see the drogue in a wave face to windward. Despite it only being set on 250 feet of line, the Galerider showed no signs of pulling out of a wave face or being tumbled. Again, I think the secret here is that the low loads on the drogue allowed it to sink well into the water thereby reducing this danger. Originally I said that if I did it again I would use 500 feet of line, but having thought about it some more, and in light of the above, I think I would be happy with 300 feet.

When the wind started to ease, we easily recovered the drogue, using the anchor windlass. Even though it was still blowing near gale, I would estimate that the load on the windlass was less than that when pulling up our anchor and chain on a calm day, because the boat was still heaved-to and we were not trying to sail away from the drogue.

It is important to understand that although the goal and result of this use of the Galerider are the same as Lin and Larry Pardey’s technique of setting a sea anchor on a bridle while heaved-to, the positioning and deployment of the drag device is very different. In our case the drogue ended up to windward and slightly aft of the boat with the rode making an angle of about 130 degrees to the bow and there was only one line to rig, instead of two.

Please read the following; it’s important.

There are a couple of cautions with this technique:

• It specifically violates the Galerider’s instructions in which the manufacturer says that it should never be deployed from the bow of a boat.
• If the boat should tack through the eye of the wind with the Galerider deployed in this way, I think there is a chance that the boat could sail over the rode and perhaps the drogue. In a gale at sea, this could definitely ruin your whole day. Morgan’s Cloud showed no signs of tacking. In fact, I would be hard put to see how she could have tacked since the drag of the drogue was stopping her getting up enough speed to get her bow through the eye of the wind, nor was the drogue exerting enough pull to drag her bow through the wind—sort of a self limiting system. But if you have any fears that your boat might tack while set up like this, I would strongly suggest you use Lin and Larry’s technique instead. Finally, if you limp into a harbour I’m anchored in with hundreds of feet of line and a Galerider wrapped around your rudder and prop, I will not be taking the blame for it or diving in the water to cut it off!

Since that day in early 2000 we have not had occasion to use this technique again, but it is really comforting to have it in our back pocket. By using the Galerider in this way, I’m confident that we can stay heaved-to safely in sustained strong gale or even storm force winds.

But what happens if it blows even harder and the waves get truly mountainous and breaking? What would we do then if heaving-to, even with the drogue, stops working? That will be the subject of the next post in the series.