Originally Posted by jollyrodgers
So,
Is anyone interested in discussing how that team could do things better? There are quite a few points that would come up.
What they did right: they were wearing good wetsuits and their boat looked to be fairly well rigged.
Things that need improvement for sailing in a breeze:.....


well...they made it through - so job well done.

The crew didn't seem prepared that the boat could drift away faster than one can swim. this knowledge alone would have probably convinced them to hang onto that sheet they just got untangled with until they make solid contact with the hull.

(untested) I still thinking keeping a water born drag chute (typically used by fisherman and sometimes called a drift sock) on the boat is a good idea to clip on the forestay bridle and toss into the water to slow/stop the progress of the boat while capsized (and help keep it head to wind). It could have made the difference and allowed the crew to swim back to the boat and lead to a calm righting process (and given time to flip the tiller bar back over the rudders ... that sucks when that happens).

A little, loose, bunji tied from the rear beam to each rudder arm will keep them from flipping completely over the rudders leading to a real steering nightmare as seen in the video (which wasn't as bad as it could be because the skipper knew what to do there...but imagine if the boat had just been righted and the arms were crossed like that...been there, done that...it steers for crap when one arm is flipped forward and the other flipped back because the rudders turning opposite of each other and if you are in the water dragging under the boat, you're not fixing that).


Jake Kohl