I found myself once returnig to the beach with strong wind blowing exactly in the same direction, in a narrow path with lots of obstacles. I centered the traveller and sheeted in. Then tried to control gybes by staying slitghtly out of DDW direction and making controlled gybes when necessary. Centering the traveller is a good idea, it depowers the boat in that case and also restrict the effect of an unwanted gybe. The problem is that things get scary very fast if you change direction, but I doubt that it happen primarily because of the traveller position. It's just because the main is sheeted in and you may not be able to sheet out fast enough. Landing was a bit scary actually. It wasn't sand but little stones, so I had to control the boat before landing. It wasn't 30 knots, in that case I'd have tryied to drop the main as suggested above.

The last time I was in this situation, the wind was much lighter than 30. I was trying to fetch the dock at the Sanibel boat ramp (not the mainland ramp at Punta Rassa), the wind was coming off the land and would switch directions wildly and puff from near zero to 15-20 in an instant. Being in no particular hurry, I just ran the travel down about a foot sheeted the main tight but not absurdly so. That allowed me to hold the bows off the wind for ease of steering and depowered the main all at the same time. It was all together a pleasant 10-15 minutes, with me practicing the "hold the boat in one place" manuever.

I have gone out only 2x in above 25 intentionally. both times it was on a dart (18 & 20) and it got up above 40.

we were loving it on the dart 18.. until it got so hairy the skipper couldn't effectively steer it and we beached it about 1/2 mile south of our target sans damage.

The second time was with 3 of us on a dart 20... it was fast, furious and very wet... we were snapping battens left and right...

In hindsight... i'd probably stay on land

To me that's pointless. I've only done that once intentionally and it was immediately clear it was a mistake. We made it back to the beach with no damage and I've never repeated the mistake.

Usually my vote.

Usually.....







Semi funny. My crew lost the boat, I was still in the water. I slid back as she was drifting to the rear, and grabbed onto the rudder, she grabbed my foot. She yelled "Now what?!" I said climb me. The boat was drifting so fast I wasn't able to pull both of us up.



A weather station a mile or so away reported 60mph winds. It was definitely blowing like hell, but I don't think it was that high where we were.

You don't have a mainsail up the mast in that going downwind...unless the mast is pointed toward the bottom. Boats will auto-right in 35+ and won't even stay capsized unless they're turtled.

Did you find your hat?

Gotta test the limits sometimes to know how far is "too far"

where i sail is protected from the gulf waves and if we capsize there is land within a mile or 2 in every direction. As long as the wind isn't pushing you out the pass into the gulf... your not gonna drift for to long...


even the 2nd time was fun and i had a cute girl screaming and holding on to me the entire time, meanwhile Capt Steve had a **** eating grin from ear to ear... the whole time, even when the battens were snappingin gusts around 45mph.

Both Darts handled the wind like a champ...

you dirty dog! - but i am gonna try that line next time i capsize with a hottie onboard

PS who took those amazing pictures?

Holy crap....this is the second photo sequence of you wiping out in one week. Either a) you wipe out A LOT, or 2) Photo boats seem to find you at the best possible times!

Top pic gets my vote:
you see the hat in the air, and the crew falling into the drink through the trampoline

Yes, and yes.