In a previous chapter I wrote about our deployment system for our Don Jordan's Series Drogue. In this chapter I’m going to look at how we are going to get the drogue back aboard after the storm.
Jordan Series Drogue Retrieval System
by John Harries
Reading Time: 6 minutes
Next: Jordan Series Drogue Retrieval—An Alternative From Hal Roth
Previous: Alternatives to Chainplates For Drogue Attachment…Or Not
- Introduction—We Need A System
- Goals For A Heavy Weather System
- Rogue Waves Are Not Bad Luck
- Just Get a Series Drogue Designed By Don Jordan…Dammit!
- Jordan Series Drogue Attachments And Launch System
- Alternatives to Chainplates For Drogue Attachment…Or Not
- Jordan Series Drogue Retrieval System
- Jordan Series Drogue Retrieval—An Alternative From Hal Roth
- Series Drogue Durability Problems
- Battle Testing a Jordan-Designed Series Drogue—Round 1
- Battle Testing a Jordan-Designed Series Drogue—Round 2
- Real Life Storm Survival Story
- Series Drogues: Learning From Tony Gooch
- Series Drogues: Learning From Randall Reeves
- Retrieval of Dyneema (Spectra) Series Drogues Solved
- Heaving-To
- When Heaving-To Is Dangerous
- Stopping Wave Strikes While Heaved-To
- Determining When Heaving-To Is Dangerous
- Transitioning From Heaved-to To a Series Drogue
- Storm Strategy—Fore-Reaching
- Surviving A Lee Shore
- Storm Survival Secret Weapon: Your Engine
- Storm Survival FAQ
- Companionway Integrity In A Storm
- Q&A: Safety of Large Pilothouse Windows
- Summary And Conclusions For Heavy Weather Book
I believe I have the answer to your problem of trying to retrieve any drogue in heavy seas. Let’s say you put out a 300 foot Jordan Series Drogue, do so with a 350 x 1/2 inch line attached to the distal end of the drogue and cleated to your vessel. This will give you a line attached to the distal end of your drogue which has 50 feet of slack. When the storm has passed, just uncleat the 350 x 1/2 inch line, attach it to a winch, and reel it in very quickly and easily. This will work because the half inch line attached to the distal end of the drogue will turn the end of the drogue towards your boat, causing the parachutes to collapse as they turn towards you, greatly decreasing the resistance of pulling in the drogue. Plus it gives you a safety line on the drogue in case the rode holding it breaks during the storm, so you don’t lose the drogue.
Thanks for the suggestion and thought that you put into it. But Jordan himself cautions against using a trip line (what you are proposing) for retrieving the drogue due to the chance that it will wrap around the drogue during heavy weather and collapse the cones, thereby diminishing the drogue’s effectiveness. Our own and others’ experience in heavy weather indicates that the chances of the trip line staying clear of the drogue are slim to none.
I’ve also thought about having a trip line on a Jordan Drogue (140 cones). Then I read your post about the risk of that line tangling up and collapsing the cones. What would you think of using 1/2″ polypropylene (breaking strength 3900 lbs) as the trip line? Since polypropylene floats, there may be less chance of the trip line fouling the drogue that would be weighted down by 30 lbs of chain on the distal end.
That might work, but I’m guessing not. At some time in the storm the drogue will get pulled to the surface or part of it get rolled in a wave crest and then there is, I think, potential for a tangle.
For me, a trip line is just one more thing to go wrong, either by tangling with the drogue or by snagging on something during deployment. And polypro would be worse in this last regard since it tends to be hard and to kink.
The bottom line for me in all gear design is keeping things simple and minimizing downside risk. A trip line fails both those tests since it increases the chances of a SNAFU on deployment and adds a risk that the drogue could be rendered less effective through tangling just when you need it most.
I’ve been wanting to read and comment on the threads you have on the jordan’s and today just pulled the trigger and signed up for a new subscription.. My idea on the retrieval was not a trip line but in a way yes. 150′ of say 1/4″ dyneema attached to the distal end attached to a float with enough bouyancy to stay at the surface and handle the weight of the anchor and chain after the blow. retrieval would be without the water weight imo.. or am i missing something?
Hi Ed,
That’s an interesting idea, and I don’t think it would adversely affect the operation of the drogue, although I can’t be sure.
That said, the big problem is going to be in picking up the buoy. I say this based on experience: Phyllis collects old fishing buoys that have broken loose. And occasionally over the years we have tried to pick one up that we have seen floating free (usually with a trailing line). If it’s flat calm, we can often pull this off, but if the waves are any more than about 1 meter, it’s very difficult, and at 2 meters, both impossible and dangerous in the attempt. So I think I can say with a fair degree of certainty that the pickup would be impossible in the left over sea after a storm.
I deployed my series drogue in a storm SW of Cape Farewell and when the wind was down to 30 knots or so I steeled myself (I was singlehanded) for the retrieval; prepared food and drink in the cockpit and started hauling the thing in. But it wasn’t as bad or hard as I expected: after half an hour I had all 119 cones in. The method was simple: using a helper line to get the junction point of the bridle past the main winch, I just winched in the drogue, cones and all, without any jamming on the drum; the cones entered and left the drum with very little snagging. No trip line needed.
By the way, I used spectra line throughout, saves a lot of bulk and weight and doesn’t seem to have any disadvantages.
My plan is to deploy the JSD via my stern anchor roller and retrieve it with the stern windlass. It will be interesting to see how that works out. Obviously it will require tailing but I am hoping the heavy line and cones will pass effortlessly around the warping head and on to the deck.
One question remains: should the JSD be deployed tail first or the reverse? I suspect tail first would be a very fast deployment and less so by starting with the cones nearer the boat.
Deployment was tail first. One has to take care to not foul the windvane gear.
I don’t understand why people don’t consider a line all the way to the end of the deployed drogue . If you release the stern connections the surely the load on the collapsed cones would make retrieval much easier? Is there a problem with this solution?
Hi Conor,
See my answer to Carl, above. In addition, see this chapter.
Very cool. Do you have any experience with the deployment? I would assume that to some degree, the converse of your retrieval would be true. once a bit of the drogues had been deployed the pull would be immense so carefully feeding the series drogue out would well… go out the window. I guess you can just heave the thing over board but I assume that would be risky if you wanted to prevent tangles. Also, if a chain weight is included… thanks very much in advance for any info.
Hi Chris,
This is but one chapter in an entire Online Book that covers everything from deployment to heaving-to, and a lot more beside.
Have you tried to add a retrieval line to the end of the chain? I thought a floating line fifty feet longer than the drogue would keep them apart. I know it would be a disaster if the tangled but would they, one weighted and one floating?
Hi Andrew,
There are many more problems with trip lines than just tangling. The biggest issue comes in deployment. See this chapter.
How do you retrieve series jordan drogue?
Hi John & Phillis
I appreciate your resurrecting this thread. I also did a similar experiment to the one you did, John, and found that deploying the Jordan Series Drogue is relatively simple but it is not easy, when single – handed, to get back on board (even with electric cockpit winches – which I have). I was wondering what you thought of starting the diesel and CAREFULLY backing as one cranked away on the cockpit winches to bring aboard the helper lines, then the bridle, etc. etc. BTW my boat has a prop cage (for Maine lobster pots) – perhaps this may help keeping other lines out of the prop as well.
Best regards, Pat Kelly CYGNUS
Hi Pat,
Yes, I think that retrieval of a JSD when single handed would be a real challenge and I really haven’t come up with a simple solution. When Phyllis and I did our testing, detailed in this post, it took two of us, one to run the drill motor and one to tail the line carefully so that the cones did not foul. Maybe a foot switch for the winch would help?
Backing down would be one solution, particularly with your cage, but I would still worry about fouling the prop, particularly single hand where it would be difficult to tend the winch and manage the engine.
I suggest backing down with BOW (reconnect JSD on bow side first)
We have deployed our JSD several times during a high latitude southern circumnavigation on our 12 m steel centreboard with an aft cockpit and discovered a number of issues with deployment and retrieval. We set up an aft anchor roller aligned to one of the primary cockpit winches for deployment and retrieval.
When deploying we found it best to feed it out from the forward end and put the chain last. There is a significant possibility that the bridle can catch on the self steering paddle and we found we needed to change the unit so the paddle would fold up and not protrude too low.
Much to our surprise retrieval was much easier than we anticipated as once conditions have moderated the boat will surge tightening the drogue then slacken off so the line can be readily pulled in for 1-2 meters. We pass the line around one of the cockpit winches using it as a belay but don’t wind it in using the winch as we found that the cones catch under the adjacent turns of line and tear. I might add that we are a couple of seniors and not immensely strong.
Overall our experience with the JSD has been very positive although you must anticipate being pooped and need strong companionway structures, care that the self steering system cannot be fouled and an engine exhaust system that will prevent the motor flooding. We also had to abandon automatic inflating lifejackets as several times they were triggered by boarding seas when we were working in the cockpit. Our previous experience with a sea anchor and a Pardey bridle emphasised just how difficult it is to retrieve a parachute sea anchor and we had to utilise the motor and a powered anchor winch and wait until the conditions were much more settled than with a JSD.
Hi Ted,
Wow, it sounds like you have some significant experience with the JSD and very heavy weather generally. Thank you very much for sharing it. Hugely useful to all.
Hi Ted,
To clarify (and sorry for being slow), are you saying the surge and attendant slackening of the JSD line in southern ocean swell conditions is enough to allow it to be pulled in by hand around your sheet winch (despite not being physically strong)? If so how much chain are you using on the end, and do you have an anchor or other weight in addition? From John’s chapters I have been expecting constant heavy load in retrieval mode, so this is valuable info.
Thanks
Rob
Rob, I had the same experience as Ted using a Galerider. When the wind is dying & the seas remain big, it is easy to pull in 10-15 feet at a time. The time to do this is when boat is on the backside of waves, and the drogue line goes slack.
I did not have weight on the Galerider (have attached some chain since, to keep it from surfacing, pulling out of wave faces & blowing past the boat).
Weight will slow retrieval. But for me there the time to get in any drogue is on the backside of big seas.
PS, great post, Ted, many thanks.
Hi Nick and John – thanks for the further clarification,
In summary if the wind drops quickly after the storm, the left over sea will allow some freedom to use the back-edge of the wave to hand the JSD to avoid cone damage. If the wind is still blowing, or the boat is big enough (we are 14.5m), then we still need a winch involved, and any damage to the cones around the winch is an acceptable price to pay vs the risk of lost fingers, or further time lost.
cheers,
Rob
Hi Rob,
As far as shredding cones go, Phyllis and I did quite a bit of testing and did not find this to be a problem. However we have quite large winches (Lewmar 65). I suspect that shredding will be more of a problem with smaller diameter winches.
Hi Rob,
Several people have reported the same ability to retrieve a JDS in this way and with the recommended weight. There are however a couple of things to know. First in every case that I know of the surge method of retrieval has been used on smaller boats. Second, said method requires waiting until the wind has dropped a lot, as I say in the post above, not always an ideal limitation.
For these two reasons I still like have our more automated retrieval option available.
Hi Ted
Good Info about your use of the JSD. We have a WindPilot Pacific and I have been wondering how to avoid the Problem of fouling the paddle. It is possible to fold the paddle up out of the water, but the boat shouldn’t be doing more than 1 or 2 knots, not likely when it is necessary to deploy the drogue. Although the recommendation from Don Jordan was to deploy the Anchor first, you are the second Person to have recommended the forward end first. I can see that your method of deployment allows one to check that the bridle is free and clear of the self steering before the drogue deployment is no longer controllable. What self steering System do you have, and how do you fold up the paddle? Also, what do you do with the Tiller/wheel, lash or Bungee amidships?
Yours aye
Bill
Hi Rob and Bill,
apologies for the delayed reply as we were offshore.
Regarding retrieval we have indeed found the surge and slackening in the swells sufficient to pull in 1/2-1 meters. We are both in our late 60s so definitely not as strong as younger sailors. Our drogue has 140 cones and typically takes about an hour to retrieve and we usually wait until the wind has dropped below 25 knots.
We have found a weight of about 25kgs best, too light and the boat is able to accelerate too much before the drogue straightens out and decelerates the boat.
In our opinion damaging cones is best avoided as you may well have to re-deploy the drogue. Initially we had only 110 cones and it did not hold the boat speed down enough.
Our self steering is a Fleming servo unit and it is difficult to swing the paddle up. We tried shortening the bridle lengths but it still got hooked up so we just accept that it has to be lifted.
Once the drogue is deployed we fix the tiller with bungees. On an earlier occasion we lashed with rope and twisted the tiller made from 8mm stainless plate.
Comments on the previous chapter questioned the value of being able to shorten or lengthen one bridle. We tried this but concluded that equal bridle lengths were most effective at aligning the boat to the waves and reducing chance of broaching in the troughs.
Previously we used a para-anchor with a Pardey bridle but found it infinitely more difficult to retrieve and manage compared to the JSD.
Basically the JSD is a wonderful addition to heavy weather management and we think Don Jordan made a profound contribution to voyaging safety.
Hi Ted,
Thanks very much for more priceless realworld information.
I wonder if anyone has tried a tripline to the end chain of the JSD for easier retrieval.
I know it is deprecated as the tripline is said to interfere with the cones and possibly have them collapse, so I thought that adding some small lead ballast within the first and last third of the line length to the otherwise free floating tripline could make her stay away from the cones, floating in something like a bow below. Any ideas to that?
Hi Ermest,
Hi Ernest,
Yes, trip lines have been tried repeatedly by Tony Gooch and his advice, based on that, is to stay away from them. Not only is the fouling problem ever preset, he found that dealing with two lines running out fast on deployment, instead of just one, was dangerous.
As to weighting the trip line, I don’t think that would make any difference, other than to make the runout more difficult, because in lulls it is not unusual for the drogue itself to hang almost straight down from the stern.
We have a chapter on retrieval above and you will also find a lot of discussion about trip lines in this thread. (I moved your comment).
John
I ordered JSD and Dave is suggesing all Dyneema. Would you recommend – will the rolling hitch hold?
Thks
Alex
Hi Alexander,
No it won’t. See this video:https://www.morganscloud.com/2019/06/08/a-chat-with-randall-reeves/
I also have an article all written that we will be publishing in five days that delves further into the issue.
I look forward to the article. If it is not too much of a spoiler – is the answer downgrade to double braid polyester rode?;) Thks, Alex
Hi Alex,
I guess that would be an option, but not my preferred one.
OK so I will wait for the article before amending the order:)
Great, I will publish it next, three-four days from now.
Re: retrieving the drogue…. ‘attainable adventure cruising’ … as we age we must all face the fact that we are not 20 something years old anymore.
We have recently (5 years ago) purchased an Andersen electric motor for our Andresen winch that is tasked to our halyards. It has made a huge difference when sailing shorthanded… We will soon do the same for our primaries. Understanding exactly the consequences of the loads that can be exerted if a mistake gets made is certainly at the front of our minds always. So far (knock on wood… 5 years on.. getting older) it has worked really very well! The energy required cranking is not nearly what it used to be.
Get an electric winch… Andersen makes nice winches that can be modified to electric (compact motor or regular).
With LFP batteries for house, it is nothing to crank until one is down to 20% SOC with voltages at 13.1 all the time….
I realise this is expensive.. but I sold the old winches to someone who wanted them (recycled)…. the new winch, with the electric upgrade, is a long term (as one ages) sustainable/attainable alternative. It is also (the entire system) more Kind to the planet….. Cheers.
Hi Devon,
Steve Dashew experimented with retrieving a JSD with an electric winch and found that the winch overheated very quickly. The problem seems to be that these winches are not designed for continues operation at high loads. Point being, it may work fine, but don’t assume it will until you have tested it, say by motoring against the JSD while grinding it in with an electric winch.
That is interesting information. Thanks for that… Did Steve write this up? I would be very interested in finding out what kind of motor was driving the winch? If the batteries driving it were fully charged?
Andersen’s compact motor is what they call a ‘planetary’ gear drive and according to them very efficient…. less amps… less heat
With the comment about overheating, it could be that the heavy drain on the batteries caused volts to go down and the amps up…. heat….
I’m not an engineer, just experience with boat gear over the years….
Thanks for the info … I’ll have to try it out.
PS… the LFP batteries supplying the house … then the winches (and everything else), if built from the cells on up, will save big over years of use… much improved over LA…. because they do not need to be replaced for 5000 cycles + if managed properly. Marine How To… Rod Collins, has over 1000 pack cycles since 2009 on this tech. 3 years + of heavy use and just 328 cycles on our pack.
Kind to the environment vs the replacement of LA after a much less useful lifespan.
Hi Devon (and others),
As long as one follows Rod’s guidelines to the letter, I agree that LFP, DIY, can be a good option. That said most yachties don’t, or can’t, as he points out.
More here: https://www.morganscloud.com/2018/05/05/battery-options-part-1-lithium/
Regarding the 28v Milwaukee RA drill:
After a year away from our boat, I checked the state of charge of the two 28v batteries — and both were completely dead, and the charger’s alternately blinking lights indicated they are unrecoverable. They’d been stowed fully charged. So…include regular checkups/charging to assure they will be ready when needed for your JSD.
Jim Rosbe
Uncommon Loon
Maroy, Norway
Hi Jim,
I’m guessing that the batteries in question were the older ones. The new ones are lithium and seem to do better.
That said, thanks for the warning, checking the batteries should definitely be on a before sea check list for those who plan to rely on them.
Hi John
I’ve made my cones and I plan on using dyneema lines including for the bridle. My question is will a normal rolling hitch grip to the dyneema for retrieval or is the dyneema too slippery for the retrieval line to grip to?
Kind Regards Ian
Hi Ian,
Short answer no. Long answer: https://www.morganscloud.com/2019/07/19/retrieval-problems-with-unsheathed-dyneema-spectra-series-drogues/
Good news: I will be publishing a solution to the problem in the next couple of weeks.
Thanks. I wait with bated breath
John – Can you clarify this statement on your retrieval method? I think this is what is preventing me from fully understanding what you mean. It seems like winching in on the retrieval line will cause the bridle to slacken, but you seem to be saying the opposite. I don’t understand the “preventing further travel” statement, either.
“Take the retrieval line to our largest cockpit sheet winch and grind it in until the bridles come tight, preventing further travel.”
Thanks!
Hi Ken,
The bridles are still attached to the boat aft, and our boat is centre cockpit so the bridles come tight before the main line can reach the primary winch in the cockpit. One could solve this problem by disconnecting the bridles from chain plates, but I don’t like that because it involves leaning out over the water using tools when the weather is still bad.
The point being that the bridles are (if memory serves) about 15 feet, but the distance to the winch from the chain plates is closer to 20.
So the answer is to use nipper lines as shown to get the main line to to the winch, bit by bit, without disconnecting the bridles.
Now let’s take a step back. The key to getting all this straight is not in trying to slavishly copy what I or Trevor did, but rather go out in smooth water (at first) and figure it out on your boat while motoring ahead slowly. The point being that every boat and situation is different so only experimentation will yield a good solution for you and your boat.
The key to whether or not you use our system or Trevor’s is whether or not you want to use it single handed. If so, ours won’t work because it requires someone tailing the winch to strip the cones while the other uses the drill motor.
It sounds like we should invest in some sort of added hand power device such as an E-Winch or a power tool. I am interested in the high speed of the Milwaukee relative to what one could do by hand. At 400rpm I assume it is running on the lowest gear on your 3-speed Lewmar and that speed is still OK for the winch?
Hi Peter,
I don’t really know. The only time I have ever used the Milwaukee on a winch was in our JSD retrieval testing and, if memory serves, we used the lower speed. I’m pretty sure the high speed would stall due to the load.
Yes. I figured that the Milwaukee’s high speed (1000 rpm) would be way too fast. I was concerned that even the low speed (400 rpm) might be too fast for the winch. For grins I just tried to crank as fast as I could, and the best I could do was 81 rotations in 30sec (and I was spent). While I suppose a winch doesn’t care how fast it’s spinning, I would guess that 400rpm well past its intended operational speed, so potential damage to the bearings was my concern. I guess I should make sure to lubricate my winches often…
Hi Peter,
I think the problem will be self limiting in that I’m pretty sure the Milwaukee will not reach even 200 rpm under load. Also, it has a variable speed trigger. Given that, I would not worry about it.
Ah. Now that makes sense. Thx
– Peter
Hi Peter and John, My quick reaction is that I don’t see any reason to worry about 400rpm input speed on a winch. In rotating assemblies at reasonable speeds, most components are torque sensitive which is independent of speed and not power sensitive which includes speed. When dealing with an assembly like this, I would look at the following items: 1) Bearings. Believe it or not, many bearings have higher load capacity when moving rather than when still. This is because they rely on a thin film of oil or grease and by moving, you replenish this rather than sitting there squeezing it out. On large bearings spinning fast, it gets a bit complicated due to stuff like balance and windage trying to blow the oil out of the bearing. Regardless, the 400rpm is not a lot for bearings this size. 2) Gears. Lubricated gear assemblies work on the same basic principles as many bearings. Again, these speeds are relatively low for these sized gears. 3) Inertia. This can mean a whole bunch of stuff. If you have an assembly which has an angular acceleration, inertia can start to play an important part in your loads. Also, you can get stress in parts and expansion when spinning big assemblies fast, for example when you overspeed some motors, you can actually have physical contact due to expansion of rotating elements. The parts here are simply not that big and they are not spinning that fast. 4) Balance. This really falls under inertia but is kind of a subject in itself. Unlike most other inertia subjects that are designed in, balancing is typically planned for in the design and then executed as a manufacturing step. Just like getting your wheels and tires on your car balanced, large rotational inertia high speed assemblies require balancing. Again, the parts in a winch don’t have that much inertia and they are not spinning that fast. The only thing that I can think of off the top of my head that could be speed sensitive is the pawls. Since they have mass, they return at a given acceleration and therefore speed for a given spring. If you go really fast, the pawls may not completely land before getting onto the next tooth but I don’t see this as being an issue if done for a few minutes in the entire life when retrieving a JSD. I don’t know whether the winch companies only do life calculations by analysis or whether they also do some form of reliability testing but it may well be that they have never tested at higher than human input speeds. This is a long way of saying that without actually sitting down and doing the analysis, my gut reaction based on designing a lot of rotating assemblies is that it is not an issue to do 400rpm on a winch. Of course, if you hear something bad or get a lot of vibration, slow down. If I were planning to significantly increase torque on… Read more »
Thanks for the in depth explanation Eric. However my main problem was unfamiliarity with the Milwaukee. The variable speed trigger that John mentioned would be the key. It’s slowing down under load could increase the chance to burnout the motor, but I’ve had seen my (cheaper) Ryobi slow down a lot drilling with a hole saw and it has survived. I do take breaks, but I think one would be doing the same winching in the JSD as it’s a lot easier on the back side of waves.
-Peter
Hi, I’m new to both sailing and this website, and sorry if this have been covered or I didn’t understand it correctly, but would a pulley system work to retrieve the drogue? I’m a mountaineer and use pulley-purchase systems often in rescue and load hauling situations, and it seems fairly intuitive to me that a “simple” pulley system would reduce the force required to get it in, with a limited amount of complexity. Or is it a bad idea?
On a separate note, is this always deployed from the stern?
Hi Arne,
Welcome here.
Sure you could use a block and tackle, but given the loads in play here it would need a lot of parts. And once you get over about 6:1 tackles, a winch is more efficient, although sometimes used with a tackle of 2 or 3 to one. This is why boats over about 35 feet all have mainsheet winches, and boats under that tend to have mainsheet tackles.
And yes, always off the stern. Don Jordan explains the science behind that here: https://www.jordanseriesdrogue.com
But the short answer is that a boat will lie much more quietly with less yawing stern to the wind than bow to.
Hey, thank you for a swift and good reply! 🙂