Heavy Weather

The photo of the large yacht hitting a wave was, I believe, taken near Morro Bay in the 1980's. It made the front cover of a boating mag at the time.

I find that most curious that your winds lighten up in the fall, while for us fall is the windy season. Spring here tends to have lower winds (and more fog). I wonder to what extent the winds in the Bay and the Lake are caused by the temperature differential between the air and the land/water more than by weather patterns in general.

As for taking the boat out of the water, it might have been good I did. Earlier, in another thread on this discussion group I inquired about the life of the stays. The conclusion was that, when they fail, they fail catastrophically. No slow strand by strand.

After the mast came down I checked the stays, particularly at the masthead. On the backstay, the most dangerous to experience a failure, right at the swage fitting, one strand was broken and the cable was coming untwisted. So next year, new stays. I would say I got the full life out of these.

As for the picture of the motorboat entering something, there is a chain of fishmarkets on the west coast, I believe it is called the Fishmarket, that has that picture posted as above the order counter - but with no explanation.

Attached is a picture of Grand Haven on the east side of Lake Michigan in one of last year's storms. This picture, incidentally, was from a California paper.

As for the Giants, I anticipated that my quip would get your attention and response. No offense.

Theis,
As far as the wind patterns go for the SF Bay you are right on when you talk about the temp differential. Out here we often refer to the summer winds as sucking. What we get is a wind that is rushing in to the inland valleys.

Inland running almost the length of California are valleys where the summer temps will stay in the high 80-90's. Along the coast we have a water body know as the Japanese current where the water temp will be in the mid 50-60 degree range. As a result the warm air rising in the valley will "suck" the cool air off the water. Squeeze this cool air through the mouth of the bay at the Golden Gate and you end up with 25 knots. Cool down the valley in the winter and we get the "sea breeze" the will range in at 8-12 knots (minus winter storm fronts). So you are dead on with statement " temperature differential between the air and the land/water more than by weather patterns".

Glad to hear you caught you rigging problem. Surprised to hear it was on the top though. I have found that most the early warning signs in swage fittings show up first at the bottom. Suspect this has to do with water cupping at the bottom and holding there. What ever the case it sounds like it is time to spend money )>: ........ed

My boat is getting all new standing rigging this Winter too. There is a small crack in the bottom swage fitting of the upper shroud. Its been making me nervous. I don't want to worry about catastrophic rig failure, which would probably happen during the most miserable conditions.

Theis, tell us more about that knockdown. Sudden squall? Must have been heap big wind. How much sail did you have up?

The picture of the large powerboat was taken in NJ , I think it was Absecon Inlet or Cape May , the actor George C. Scott was aboard and a number of folks were injured as was the boat .
Photo was run in Cruising World or one of the main rags in the 1980's . I have a copy buried somewhere .

http://luther.trammell.com/images/CloseCall.jpg

The East Coast can get real lumpy too , especially around them inlets

Ed, my research confirms your thought that the rigging fails at the lower end, where the water collects as it runs down the stay, freezes, etc. That is why I flipped when I saw the failure at the top - there but for the grace of God go I. Maybe this why Bill and others advise replacing them every ten years (on salt water, 20 years on fresh water) and don't look back. When I restored my puppy, I had them inspected by a professional rigger and he said they look fine. Maybe he wasn't a professional rigger.

Pete, replace those stays. The way I figure is that if one looks like it is going, (assuming a car didn't drive over it) they all are because on one boat, they are all crystallizing/corroding at the same rate and all made out of the same material. Whoever makes them for you. let the shop know they are used on the Great Lakes. Apparently the stainless cable used for fresh water is different than for salt water.

Now about, yes, the knockdown. Bill limits me to 10,000 words so I will make this brief, but I have to build an adventure.

It happened in Green Bay. Let me describe the area. Between Green Bay and Lake Michigan, from the Door Peninsula of Wisconsin on the south, to the Garden Peninsula on the north there is a stretch of perhaps 40 miles of water dotted with several islands. Green Bay, at this point might be 20-30 miles wide, east west, with the main body of water largely facing northeast southwest.

About midway in this passage among numerous islands is Rock Island, a wonderful state park. On the west side of the island facing Green Bay are high vertical cliffs. Between Rock Island and Washington Island, the next island to the south, a distance of about one mile, lies a rock shoal connecting the two islands that is impassible. Washington Island itself runs east west at this point, the shoreline forming a high gravel bar wall. Cut out from this gravel bar at one point near the shoal lies the narrow entrance channel to Jackson Harbor, a picturesque, small protected harbor. In short, the only exit from the Rock Island/Washington Island bight was to the west and into the large seas, with the exception of Jackson harbor with its small inlet.

All day it had been raining, overcast and blowing from the northeast, creating large seas in the main body of Green Bay. In the late afternoon, it appeared the wind was abating, and I decided to take the one mile run from Rock Island and return to the protection of Jackson Harbor. With me aboard Solsken were my wife and another couple. There was nothing ominous or chancy about the winds or the seas. They had been steady all day long. The passage was largely protected from the waves by Rock Island.

My recollection was that I was carrying my storm jib and a full main. We left the dock at Rock Island on a reach, and were doing well when the winds started shifting clockwise and the velocity rapidly increased. I tried to dump wind both by letting out the sail and turning more into the wind, but could neither turn fast enough or let out sail fast enough.

By now I could not see shore through the mayhem. Fearing being blown up either against the cliff or into the shoal, (Remember, this predates the GPS) I asked the other guy to grab the anchor so we could just drop hook and ride the blow out. He had no more than opened the lassarette than over we went on our side, the sail solid in the water, the coaming well under water, and the water pouring into the lasarette from which we were trying to grab the anchor. (The water did not go into the cabin) We immediately closed the lasarette and gave up the anchor routine. (The other lady confessed afterwards that her thoughts were about her kids, and how unfortunate they were to be orphans at such a young age).

It was all very fast, but because of the emotional intensity, we have no idea what "fast" really means. It could have been a minute or perhaps fifteen minutes - in that range. We were very busy. You all know how loud a dacron sail is when it is being blasted by the wind. I don't remember ever hearing it, nor does anyone else. When Solsken popped up again after the blast passed, the sail was in two pieces, torn from the leach to the tack. No one had seen it or heard it go. The dinghy that we had been towing was right side up, but totally filled with water. We had a moveable claw on the boom (used with what is a preventer today) and that had been blown off the boom - I don't know how it cleared all the boom fittings, not to mention the topping lift fitting at the end of the boom. No one noticed it go.

My face was pock marked and red. Apparently we had had hail that had been severely pummeling me, but my concentration on handling the situation prevented me from knowing that I was being pounded. I only remember that I had trouble seeing.

We survived obviously. I had an experience that was worth the world that I never want to repeat again. Pulling into the small port of Jackson Harbor (perhaps 6 places for boats to dock), people gathered and commented how, seeing our boat disappear, they had became very concerned.

What happened we will never know for certain. It could have been a microburst. However, subsequently we heard that there were tornado spottings in the northern Greenbay area about the time we were making our short crossing. I think that we were caught up in the tail end of a tornado (they tend to dissipate when they hit water), and that would explain the reason the wind direction was changing so rapidly. A microburst, on the other hand, as I understand it, is a blast largely from one direction.

As for repairing the sail, I learned to sew (The ladies made a point that sewing was not ladies work).

The really good news is that the Ariel can take a knockdown and pop up ready to go again. It takes one humongous blast to knock it over. It doesn't fill with water, unless there are large waves, and then it is just a matter of boarding up the cabin.

So that is the tale - no BS. I even checked this out with my wife.

Now, for me, the unanswered question is whether this could have been a waterspout, of if this is what a waterspout would be like. Generally with a tornado there is an erie green illumination, and this blast did not have that strange glow.

So now you have heard the story. Pete, you need to ask it again in a couple years and see if it comes out the same way and is this abbreviated.

Yowza. Thanks Theis. That's way up there on the pucker scale.

Did that couple ever sail with you again?

How about this picture. This is a huge waterspout photographed by an airplane accompanying a North Atlantic convoy during WW II

http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/historic/nws/wea00344.htm

The guy was an experienced racer, sailing out of Chicago for years before and for a short while after the knockdown. The experience didn't phase him. Sailing was in his blood. Not so for the Missus. She was not a sailor, and to the best of my knowledge never stepped on a boat again (The knockdown event occured on a weekend trip, and the reason we were returning to Washington Island was to get the last ferry back to the mainland so we could be back at work on Monday).

A year or so later they moved down to Dallas and were divorced. And they both lived happily ever after I assume.

But other than for this incident, we had a wonderful sail, hike and weekend. Such is the nature of cruising these ponds out here. Sometimes I think a dragon would be preferable to the junk that gets thrown at sailors from time to time.

Commander Pete has in the past asked for sailing stories. I can share one with you (long) that luckily I was not a part of but know it to be true. A good friend of mine was crew on an Express 37 that was doing an ocean race from SF - Santa Barbara. This is a down wind race that has a distance of about 350 miles. It starts off in the SF Bay heads out the gate and then turns left heading south. Just south of Monterey that is an area that is know for very high winds and big rolling seas with breaking waves. It is were the rubber meats the road so to speak.

So the story goes that this particular boat was under full sail on a dead run with the 1 ounce spinnaker up. At around 10pm the boat suffered a round down. This is where the boat will spin out (broach) after doing a uncontrolled jibe. The end result is that you have the boom and the spin pole on the same side of the boat.

There are ways to get out of this but often the easiest and quickest is to just drop the spin and get her back on her feet. In the case of this broach the skipper called for the release of the halyard after about 20 minutes of laying on their side. To the surprise of all when the halyard was released the kite would not come down. It seemed that the thing was jammed at the mast head.

To make a very long story get to the point they stayed on their side for over eight hours. They even got to the point where they were shooting the flare gun at the spin to try to burn it up. All the time they were lying on their side being pulled by the spinnaker with breaking seas coming over their bottom. The only way to get this thing back up was to get this kite off which would have required someone to enter the water (in the dark) go to the mast head and cut the kite. This is just what was done at day light with two other boats standing off to assist it the retrieval of the swimming crew. IN the end all went well but has turned into a local sea tale. The story has grown in drama over the years but the above is accurate from the crew on board and told to me by the guy who ended up in the water cutting the head of the spinnaker. ....ed

Good story Ed. I sometimes wonder if those "deck-sweeper" jibs and genoas might cause a problem in a knockdown (scooping up water).

Only a few more weeks until I have to pull my boat for the winter. They say the weather is going to be rough again this weekend. Getting down into the 30s at night.

The Commander is a real wet boat when it gets rough. Sometimes I wear ski goggles. There was so much spray last time the mainsail was drenched most of the way up.

Here is a weather tip. If you see this coming, shorten sail:

http://cellar.org/2002/stormfront.jpg

Pete,
I suppose anything is possible but I have found the biggest issue with any knock down is the wind. Pathfinder has been in it's share of roll downs over the years. If fact if you are in the cockpit and look up to the top of the mast you would see the little wind indicator thing with just one tab. The other arm was ripped off when we laid her down trying to fly the spinnaker in a little to much breeze. I leave the broken part up there to remind me "Don't do it again DUMMY" Still the best thing said for all this heavy weather sailing is from Theis, "The really good news is that the Ariel can take a knockdown and pop up ready to go again". Thank you Mr. Alberg

regarding your attached photo I don't know if I would be thinking of shortin' sail or cleaning my drawers. Bottom line is, this is going to be ugly.......ed

Ed - your story reminds me of the reason for my safety alert I issued on the pearsonariel website this fall discussing the jamming of my foresail halyard in the masthead block. Probably worse than losing a spar, a jammed halyard with the sail up full is about as frightening as it gets. Incidentally, that is why a hitch should never be put on a halyard cleat with a sail up (which I did until I learned my lesson), but rather wrap the halyard around the cleat. The hitch can jam.

Incidentally, my recommendation is to change drawers after the maelstrom, not before or during.

It doesn't look rough out in this picture, but there is still a bunch of seaweed washed onto the deck and around the mast.

This picture was taken about 25 years ago.

Maybe someday I'll get that dodger.

Now that's what I paid to see!

I have never heard of using seaweed for running rigging. I'm not surprised it shreds in a blow.

No, it doesn't look rough out there. The main isn't even reefed. And the crew is smiling. Are you trying to put something over on us?