On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 12:08:23AM +0300, Ed Kelly wrote:
>
> Jordan's work discovered many boats could more easily survive a hurricane if
> they were anchored with a bridle in a STERN TO position in a hurricane.═
A note from personal experience: fairly early in my cruising career, I
deployed a sea anchor off the stern of my boat, S/V Recessional, in a
gale off the east coast of the Dominican Republic. Within 30 seconds, it
almost sunk my boat by holding the (admittedly fine) stern down to the
oncoming seas; the following wave immediately filled my cockpit to the
brim, and if it had been any larger, we would have gone done instantly.
I managed to slash the bridle away before the next wave, and I am
utterly certain that had I not done that, we'd have gone down in
seconds: the next wave would have stove in the main companion boards.
(No, the sea anchor was not oversized for the boat.)
Some years later, I deployed a sea anchor in a strong NW winter gale in
the Gulf Stream, on a roller running on a stem to stern bridle, the way
the Pardeys recommend. The boat I was on, S/V Ulysses, slid around to a
comfortable position - taking the seas ~40 degrees off the bow, as I
recall - and stayed that way for the two days that it took the weather
to ease.
These were two completely different boats, but whether it's just a
personal preference or otherwise, I find that I'm very hesitant to
recommend deploying a sea anchor off the stern without a sharp knife
close at hand. If you do own one and plan to head out to sea with it,
I'd strongly recommend testing it in calmer weather just to familiarize
yourself with it.
(N.B. If you do not have a cleat or another securing point aboard your
boat which you can trust to hold at least a couple of tons, you have no
business taking that boat to sea; one each fore and aft if you wish to
use the Pardey technique. Check you friendly nearby "horizontal anchor
loads" table for why this might be important. :)
Ben
--
OKOPNIK CONSULTING
Custom Computing Solutions For Your Business
Expert-led Training | Dynamic, vital websites | Custom programming
443-250-7895 http://okopnik.com http://twitter.com/okopnik
_______________________________________________
Liveaboard mailing list
[email protected]
To adjust your membership settings over the web
http://liveaboardonline.com/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard
To subscribe send an email to [email protected]
To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
The archives are at http://www.liveaboardonline.com/pipermail/liveaboard/
To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]
The Mailman Users Guide can be found here
http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
