Do the Jupiter videos from the 2007 Tybee still exist somewhere? If so, could someone post a link?

Thanks!

took a couple of refined searches on the internets.

But: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/media/07/0514/

Thanks!

y'all just HAD to bring that **** up again didn't you?

wasn't that like 2004? I remember that nasty day at Jupiter... lots of carbon on the beach...

"Ohh the Humanity!"

the crazy thing is, those videos don't look as bad as I recall it being in person. Maybe because you couldn't hear the "thunk" of the masts as they broke, or the shoreside audience response.

JC has a killer picture taken overhead while his boat pierces a wave in the vertical position. Makes my sphincter pucker just looking at the photo. Kenny is visible through the water clinging to the hull for life...

it was 2007 actually.

only two years ago.

Watching these videos can really give us some good tips about how to get out of surf, even surf thats not as bad as whats in the videos.

Although, it just makes me cringe everytime I see my poor boat getting subjected to that business.

*cringe*

That video can teach us when it's time to stop sailing and start drinking. You have to start in the morning if you are going to drink "all day".

the guys in the vids look to be doing everthing right, there just doesn't seem to be enough wind to get any speed on. Nightmare!

That was the Tybee 500 in '07...we tried twice to get out. The last time, we made it way out to the second sandbar and I yelled to Frank (who was belly down on the bow with one hand on the spin pole and the other on the chicken line to help counter the flipping force of the waves) "one more wave and we're out'a'here!". As I squared up to the wave a strange motion caught my attention in my peripheral. It was a second wave coming in at 45 degrees to the one I was squaring up to and they both met right under our bows. Didn't even have time to say "****!". Frank landed above the spreaders in the main and I landed somewhere behind the boat. I was hanging onto the mainsheet but making the boat turn an odd angle into the surf and I was concerned about the mast - so I let go. As I watched Frank and the boat ride the waves to shore I rolled over onto my back to catch my breath for a few minutes. I rolled back and realized I was, what felt like, 1/4 mile away from the beach. It took me 20 minutes to backstroke and surf my way back in. I felt very thankful for my lifejacket as there was no way I had enough energy left to keep my head above water on my own. And then I realized I lost my sunglasses.

okay. The Jensen beach debacle I recall witnessing was somewhere in the 2002-2004 area, as I was still living in Stuart. May have been the W-1000 leg...

Jensen's starting to get a reputation here....

Yeah I was about to wonder whether you were talking about Jupiter or Jensen.

The videos I linked today were from 2007 Tybee, Jupiter launch.

Luckily only one mast snapped that day.

I remember watching those videos when it happened .... I wonder if all that volumn up forward in the bows just gives the waves more to work on ...

Question: When I was taught how to launch through a surfbreak on a H16 the oldtimers taught me to "power" the boat up by sheeting in the sails while holding the boat in calf deep water until you could not hold her anymore ... then the crew jumps onto the boat and takes off. Kind of like drag-racing using a "Linelock". It was explained to me that the sailplan can produce much more power then the crew can trying to push the boat through the surf and once the water is approximently thigh/waist deep when the crew tries to get on the boat the friction/drag from the water on the crew's bodies will use up most of the energy the boat has at that moment.

So what I'm asking using 3-4 people do you think that if you hold the boat in place in calf deep water, could you "power up" the boat while timing the waves ... at the proper moment the crew jumps on ... the "boat holders" then release the boat w/ a short push, allowing it time to power up even more and accelerate before hitting the first oncoming wave???

Now I've never sailed an Inter20 through a surf break so I do not know how the Inter20 responds in the surf ... I'm just asking why your technic is so different from what I was taught.

Also do you think a "bungie hold-down system" for the rudders would help matters by keeping the rudder blades as deep as possible in the water ... Yes, they will drag on the sandy bottom but the helm would not have to keep trying to keep them in the water and could instead looking forward concentrate on power, speed, and timing the oncoming waves.

Just trying to learn something here ...

HarryMurphey

The forward buoyancy helps get through the waves, but if you're too far back, the boat will just flip over backwards. This is why you'll see alot of the crews straddling the hull in front of the crossbeam.

Your theory about powering up in calf deep water is sort of correct. When we're launching in the T500, when my ankles hit water, I'm jumping on the boat. We have pushers that continue to give us forward progress while we power up the sail. Remember the apparent wind generated from the pusher helps too - especially for steering. Another trick - if you're launching into the wind and you're having trouble getting stuck in irons... steer with your sails... keep your jib sheeted while keeping your main loose but still generating power. This will keep the boat from going into irons before you can get your boards down.

The issue that day was that the wind was blowing straight onshore and it wasn't blowing but maybe 10 knots. The surf was from a sub-tropical depression that was swirling offshore. The beach also drops off really quickly there in Jupiter - so the pushers had footing for 15 feet but then either got too deep to help anymore, lost their footing, or got smacked in the face by a wave. Basically we're doing the "powering up while standing still" but we're doing it while someone is pushing us too.

Maybe an added benefit of a "Rudder Bungie Hold-Down System would be that the "helm" could be further forward on the tramp ... instead of holding the rudder crossbar ... thereby placing more of the crew's wieght further forward helping to keep the bows down

In Hobiedom we called it a "Texas Bungie Hold-Down System" ... you can make a quick cheap system w/ some spacers (you can use slightly larger nuts as spacers) and oversized fender washers installed on the lowwer rudder blade bolt and 7/16" or 1/2" bungie cord

(its called a "Texas System" because of the large jellyfish in the Gulf of Mexico that liked to kick-up rudders when hit)

Give it a try ... it just may work.

HarryMurphey

with regards to the rudder hold down it would actually lead to more damage. If you'll notice, the boats spend quite a bit of time going backwards in the waves which, if the rudders are forced down, will most certainly break them. The Nacra rudders are pretty heavy and tend to go mostly down on their own - but even with them partially raised, both the team Tybee and Ooooolala teams broke rudders as it was.

The big issue here was that the wind was moderate and at the same angle as the largish waves. The waves really weren't THAT big - there was just a lot of them and not quite enough wind to compensate. I later found out that I was using the flat spots we would find incorrectly. I was using them to sheet in and get upwind as fast as possible while crossing my fingers and bracing for the next wave set. I later learned that you have to look ahead at the wave sets and use the flat spot to sprint to the weaker end of the next wave set instead of blindly trying to get out to sea. Most of your upwind bites will come as you cross the smaller wave set you worked to get to...apparently this is pretty common knowledge in the windsurfing community.

Humphrey,

Precisely what the last post said, steer mostly with your sails.

In a situation like this, you DON'T want the rudders to be held down to the sand.


When the boat gets pushed backwards (and it will), SNAP, there goes things like, rudder, casting, TRANSOM, and any combination. They break easy enough in these conditions anyway. When extreme, I would often leave my rudders locked UP, and use the sails to navigate.

When it's extreme like that, using the technique you propose MAY help., but it's really ALOT of skill, and about the some luck.

Even then though, if you just steer with the sails, you won't have enough power to gain against the onrush of water in the waves. On the N20 anyway, you have to have some board and some rudder to get enough bite to make any significant upwind progress. Sheeting and trimming sails IS definitely important ... like making a big ease on the main as you top a wave to keep you from getting auto-tacked...but you have to sheet and counter-steer to get going in the flat past the wave. The other biggie is to watch the water flow of the wave as it gets to the rudders. Because you get a big rush of water suddenly moving in the opposite direction, your rudders work backwards and you need to be ready to back the boat in the water without switching your heading. It's tricky getting through that stuff but I feel like I learned a lot that day.

We just completed the move of http://www.adventureonline.tv to our new (and much faster) server. The 2008 Tybee videos are already there, and the previous years videos I will try and restore by the end of the day today. The video link for Scuttlebutt will not work much longer, for the future use the http://www.adventureonline.tv link.

The videos are also on our MySpace Video page: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.channel&channelid=264917903