Steve,

Thanks for the explination of how one would go over under just the jib. I had not thought about how the boat would swerve downwind once the main is down. I would guess that you might get a good wall of water forming on the leward side of the bow's that would also help the boat to trip over itself.

And I agree completely about the saftey issue often being a case of hindsight. Once I was out sailing in Lake Michigan in my 470 in late May. The winter had been cold so the water temps were low. My crew and I were both wearing wetsuits, but he had borrowed his from me and we are very different body types. To make a long story short, we capsized and he got very cold, VERY quickly. We would have been in real trouble if we had not been able to right the boat quickly. We thought that we were being safe with a wetsuit, but we had not bothered to think about the thickness/fit of the wetsuit versus the actual water temperature.

One does not always dress like one is in the Southern Ocean, or carry as much saftey gear. An interesting question is how do you decide what is the minimal amount of precautions that you should take for any given sailing situation? I will always wear a life jacket, but when do you need flares on your boat? On that inland lake with 10 knots of wind?

Thoughts?

Drew