Member Steve asked an interesting question (edited for brevity).
My question is simple: Why would you ever consider stopping being hove to?
In a John Kretschmer book he was discussing this very point and said, “when heaving to is no longer an option” (loosely remembered). When is that? He did not elaborate at all.
The Pardey’s bridle system, they claim, provides sufficient drag to create a sufficient slick to provide sufficient stoppage of most (all?) breaking waves.
Even Hal Roth in his book, Handling Storms, also completely omits any comment on why someone would stop being hove to.
When the seas get big enough? When the breaking waves become more often? When the slick isn’t enough?
That’s a really good question. The problem is that I don’t know the answer, at least not for sure, and further no one does, as you have discovered in your research.
There are four fundamental problems here that make it impossible to answer your question definitively:
Good write up and videos on JSD deployment in the Southern Ocean: http://freemansailing.com/2017/04/drogue-deployment-in-southern-ocean-gale/
Hi Gerben,
Yes, very good information and well worth putting 20 minutes aside for. Of course, as we now know when he did not deploy in time it ended badly, which is probably the most important lesson from Shane’s excellent site.
Not for multihulls. This is a general statement, based on only a few boats–I’m sure there are exceptions–so just consider the concepts.
The problem is three fold. First, a partial knock-down or severe heel, not uncommon when hove to in strong weather, is a capsize in a multihull. Second, the way cats avoid capsize when angling into the wind is by feathering, something you cannot do when hove to. Finally, most multihulls have a terrible, quick motion with the waves on the beam, even in moderate conditions. It’s just horrible when they are steep, impossible to stand and hard to hold on. But turn the stern to the waves and a glass of water will rest calmly on the salon table. It’s weird.
As a result, as soon as it is no longer safe to slowly jog into the wind under deep reefs, it’s time to deploy a drogue or sea anchor. Because they are lighter and ride very well to these, it should be an easy decision. The light weight and wide beam also makes them easier to deploy and recover. Thus, the transition should be accomplished well before it gets scary wild. Because you will due this in moderate storms, it doesn’t always need to be a JSD, but as John and many others have pointed out, it may be difficult to change tactics later, so be very mindful.
At least that has been my experience. No ballast = modified rules.
Hi Drew,
I can certainly see what you are saying in connection with heaving-to and mulit-hulls.
So I guess we are really on the same page: when in doubt deploy a JSD, multi or mono.
To John, yes.
To RDE, below, exactly. Some of those scare me a little, but that’s true in all categories of boats. Not all boats should cross oceans, and that does NOT make them bad boats, so long as the skipper understands the design. They may be the very best tool for the job. I had a Stiletto 27 (27 x 13 x 1300 pounds) that was the ultimate day sailor in many ways; very fast, take it to the beach, but ride out a squall if need be. Not a sea boat by any stretch… but I’m thinking about getting one again some day.
My point is that the lack of ballast suggests different tactics. A multihull needs to use light weight and beam as an asset, not apologize for it, and the way to do that is by handling waves differently. Don’t try to do what the boat does not do well, but take advantage of what it does do well. This is seamanship. My last boat was 85% of the length, but only 15% of the weight and required quite different tactics. And yet, they are probably more similar to each other than to monohulls. A different way of thinking.
Hi Drew,
I couldn’t agree more. No point at all in having an offshore boat if one does not intend to go offshore. Here’s just one example of a boat that has some very cool features just because she is an inshore boat. https://www.morganscloud.com/2016/05/18/offshore-motorboats-and-an-ideal-geezer-boat/
The worry comes for me when the marketing guys get involved and start making claims that the boat in question does not support.
Hi Drew,
As you mentioned, not all multihulls are created equal.
There is the generic condomaran:
Heavy, with performance potential about the same as a monohull of the same length. Fixed long keels, low deck clearance, with sliding patio doors slightly above Home Depot grade to separate the cockpit from the boat interior.
Vs. a catamaran designed for ocean voyaging:
Overall beam at least 50% of the length. Narrow hull beam and entry angle to moderate pitching. Retractable daggerboards to enable the boat to adapt to beam-on waves rather than tripping on the keels, High bridge deck clearance. Stronger windows, and a watertight door system that will withstand a boarding sea.
Kind of like comparing a Boreal to a Beneteau Sense 50. And the tactics for surviving a storm will be as different as that of the boat designs.
Hi Richard,
Makes sense. I think maybe the best storm survival tactic for the former type is stay in sheltered coastal waters.
A personal (non) favorite of mine is the Gemini Legacy:
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MGqD0Ov8hX4/UFzO0svo-aI/AAAAAAAAAcg/A0JxGVnjMi8/s640/DSCN0749.JPG
No bridge deck clearance (this is a demo boat with empty tanks, no gear, and no dingy on the davits), only 2′ transom, and no door sill. It has only one winch and and 7 jammers feeding it. The designer told me it was for a “different kind of sailor.” Oh dear.
It has replaced the Gemini 105Mc, which was a good coastal boat, given the value design compromises. The Legacy is a dock queen.
Happy to say my really bad storm experience is limited, but the one time it did happen, while in an alloy monohull, the breakers came in from very different angles, no horizon and ofcourse that makes any survival tactic a bit of a challenge, but agree that a drogue is the best tactic to talk about it later.
Best to stay will clear of it, if possible, but forecasting weather is still a mystery, with too many variables that still is not understood, making it impossible to predict longer-term.
Rene
Hi Rene,
The interesting thing is that although many of us (including me) think that we have seen large waves coming from different angles, the science does not support that and so it’s probably one of those dangerous illusions that I talk about in the post. For more on this check out Don Jordan’s writing on the subject that I link to above.
My comment applies to moderate or heavy displacement monohulls – I have no experience with multihulls or light displacement monohulls in heavy weather.
I believe the protection afforded by the slick in the yacht’s lee while hove-to may be an illusion. The slick does exist and smooths the sea to a remarkable extent, but probably does little to moderate the rare large breaking waves that do the damage.
The effect of the slick is an illusion of scale. If the size of the breaking tops of the waves are about one metre (which is considerable), the slick apparently halves their height. In fact what it really does is reduce the height of all seas by half a metre. It certainly does not halve the height of all seas. The actual numbers will vary, but I think it unlikely that the slick in the lee of a small vessel (less than 20 metres or so) when hove-to ever reduces the wave height by much more than a metre – and a metre reduction in the height of the rare but dangerous big breaking sea does little to reduce the damage it does.
Another example of this illusion is the old one of spreading oil to calm waves. Tests by the RNLI in Britain about 50 years ago concluded that although oil has a remarkable calming effect on small waves, it has no appreciable effect on breaking waves that are large enough to be dangerous. I believe exactly the same applies to the slick a vessel produces when hove-to – both reduce the size of the small waves but not large breaking seas.
That is not to say that there is no point in trying to keep the vessel in the slick while hove-to. It is more comfortable than fore reaching ahead of the slick or drifting behind it. I have ridden out quite a few near gales and gales (force 7 and 8) comfortably hove-to in Iron Bark’s own slick. I remember one in the North Atlantic where the calming effect was sufficient for me to sit in the cockpit and watch the fulmars paddling in the slick, but we both had to jump for shelter from the odd bigger breaker.
With a bit of fiddling around, most boats can be induced to make a square drift and lie in their own slick – some will need some sort of a drag device off the bow, a few particularly lively or small vessels will need to add a spring line to the drogue to adjust the angle that they lie to the seas (the Pardy system). Some such as my Iron Bark will lie-to under deep-reefed mainsail alone or main and backed staysail and can be kept in the slick by adjusting the sheets and how far the helm is lashed down.
A vessel that can heave-to without drogues off the bow will find it easier to adjust things so she fore reaches a little or drifts slowly downwind, allowing it to avoid a danger to leeward (land, ice etc). This will of course be a more uncomfortable as the vessel will no longer be in the slick.
Like John, I do not know when it is no longer safe to heave-to even on my own boat, which I know well. I could not (and would not) try to give firm rules applicable to all vessels – that is way beyond my ability. I think that when in doubt, the safest option is probably to run off with some sort of drogue astern and it is better to do this too soon than too late – which of course is exactly John’s advice.
Regards
Trevor
Hi Trevor,
Yes, the whole slick thing is an interesting one and, like you, I tend to be a bit sceptical about how it will work in breaking waves.
On the other hand, the Pardeys do make convincing case and have ridden out some pretty bad stuff heaved to with and without a drag device. Also, I do have to admit that in the blow I wrote up (linked to above) we got hit hard by a breaking wave twice when we were forereaching out of our slick and not at all after we deployed the Galerider off the bow and stayed behind the slick.
Anyway, like you, in the end I come down on the side of “who the hell wants to fine out the hard way that slicks don’t work” side of the argument.