I and several buds sail on a local lake mostly singlehanded. When one of us capsizes, due to the weight of our cats, solo righting works sometimes but not always, so we would like to help each other right a capsized cat if necessary. This of course would require one of us to sail up near the capsized cat, park our cat in irons, and leave it unattended for some period of time while assisting to right the capsized cat. Although I think this can be done safely, I do have conerns that some things could go wrong and want to learn from others experience since doing this safely would largely depend on technique. We sail in a range of wind up to around 20 kts and it can get fairly gusty (but one can find themselves unexpectedly in more wind). So a few questions:

1) Do other cat sailors do this or would it generally be considered unsafe?
2) When intending to park a boat in irons so it can be left safely unattended, would the optimum technique be to center the traveller and then sheet in the main once in irons (to keep it in irons)? One would have to be concerned that with a big enough wind shift a sheeted main might cause the boat to sail off or capsize? Would it be better to center the traveller and loosely sheet the main? If the main were left unsheeted, could the boat get of of irons on it's own?
3) Does one have to be concerned about the two boats drifting apart? Obviously if the right the boat, even with drift, they can sail back to it. So maybe I'm asking how often two people might have trouble righting a capsized and/or turtled cat such as a H16 if they were caught in winds up to 25-30 kts (in which case they couldn't get back to the sailable cat)? Also, which boat would drift faster, the one capsized one or the one in irons?
4) One of my friends suggested that we might consider tying the two boats together so they don't drift apart. I have concerns that this could have the potential to create more problems than it solves (ie, it could interfere with righting the capsized boat, could pull the other boat out of irons, etc). Is this in fact unsafe?
5) Another approach I've consisered is to use a sea anchor to safetly keep the cat in irons. I would think one could then ease the mainsheet and traveller. The two boats would definitely drift apart in that scenario. Would this be a better approach than #2 above or is it not necessary?

Any other advice or ideas as to how people deal with the issue of rendering assistance would be very appreciated!

Jerry

If I were in this situation this is what I would do.

To right a boat, you need to point it atleast 45 degrees into the wind to make the task easier. If I were to help someone, I would aproach the capsized cat from the rear, tie a line to the capsized boat so mine does not drift away, release all my sails, pop the rudders into the up position, and help the other person right his.

But I think if wind is blowing 20kts, I would not be sailing alone. Remember to use common sense, if you think it is unsafe, then it WILL be unsafe.

Jerry,

First I'd like to comment that abandoning a singled handed boat is should be a last resort. You put yourself, the sailor you are helping, as well as other people, not just racers, on the water in danger. Why not use a righting aid. I am 120lbs and can successfully right a 5.5uni by myself using a righting bucket. Try this link to check them out http://www.murrays.com/archive/45-46.pdf . The trick is getting the boat into the wind. To do that simply stand on the bow of the boat and it will spin into the wind. make sure your traveller and main are loose and once the nose of the boat is pointing into the wind, take your righting line with the bucket tied to the bottom of it and lean out over the daggerboard. As long as your mast is sealed and hasn't taken on water, you should be able to right the boat.

Leah

abandoning your boat = Trouble

Flag someone in a power boat down for your friend and watch him so he does not get seperated from his boat. These boats will sail with the tramp up pretty fast. It can get away from you before you know it. If you are able to swim to it, you are going to tired.

David Mosley

My suggestion is to NOT leave you boat when your buddy capsizes.

Instead, sail over to his mast and grab the top of his mast. When he is ready to right the boat, you gently lift the mast and then toss it in the air and give him the little boost that he needs to right his boat.

We did a coaching session with Randy Smyth one time and I capsized. Randy grabbed the top of my mast and gave it a little lift from the small motor boat he was in and the boat came up easier than I have ever experienced.

If you think about how much more leverage you can provide by lifting the mast, you can much easier and much more safely assist your buddy.

This way you dont have to think about leaving your boat unattended.

Bill

bill,
I would be very hesitant to do the mast flip up thing from a catamaran. I have done this sucessfully a number of times. I have also put someones mast through the side of my hull in rough seas trying to do this. I don't like doing this from a powerboat in rough weather either. It is very difficult ro aproach safely if it is windy and in big chop/swells.
In flat water and moderate conditions it is not so tough
Eric Anderson

rather than leave your boat while your friend has his boat ready to right ie pointed into the wind with righting line ready sail up to the tip of his mast and with your boat in irons reach down and lift the tip of his mast out of the water while he leans out on his righting line. i have used this to help right hobie 18s prindle 19s and mystere 6.0s

Yeah never leave your boat unattended floating on the water, it will sail away from you much faster than you can swim, I watch 2 cats ghost sail away from poeple, one was screwing around, and the other slide off and failed to hold onto the sheet as they were beiing drug through the water. The point is the boat will leave you and head towards something solid at a high rate of speed.

If you guys all mostly sail solo, why don't you all get righting devices or use shroud extenders so you can right your boats without help?

This might work:

1. furl the jib.
2. deploy sea anchor (or regular anchor if shallow)
3. loosen downhaul all the way so that some battens flip over to the other side. This will neutralize the main.
4. very gently sheet main
5. let traveler out 1 foot.

I still wouldn't try this in anything over 10 knots though.

NO NO NO NO NO NO.....Except in Dire emergancies like need to apply First aid / M2M or CPR

You never leave your boat. If someone cannot right their boat, if you get off to help them chances are that your boat will capsize. The only time I would consider it was if you had taken all sails down and could moor to a bouy (thus it will not move).

One other (last ditch method) would be the following (I.e no bouy and you really really need to go help some one):

1, Take sail(s) down - replace the halyard with the mainsheet and Spi sheets if you have them and tie to the base of the mast ball , take mainsheet blocks off the back beam and boom and tie it to the downhaul eye at the luff of the sail, tie / shackle the boom to the outhaul eye on the foot of the sail - Basically try and tie as much dead mass to the bottom of the mainsail.

2, Throw all this off the front of your boat, you have now made a considerable sea anchor and so might be able to help control/limit the amout your boat might drift.

However, if you are sailing single handed, out of site of land, I would suggest taking the following:

1, A set of flares (The first one may not been seen)
2, A mobile Phone in a Aquapac type bag
3, A GPS (and learn how to use it)
4, A small plastic mirror.

A combination of above should allow you to get some help. And tell people wher you are planning to sail

Let's presume that it's windy and rough.

I wouldn't abandon the your boat.

Single handed, sailing to the tip of his mast and grabbing it without damaging your boards or rudders or losing control
of your own boat will be tricky. Getting that close to anything when it's honking always is.

Carry about 60ft of some 3/16 line. A halyard tail will be about right. Have your buddy tie it to the forward crossbeam of the top hull. When he's ready to try to right, sail by and have him toss you the end of that line. Take a couple of turns around your rear crossbeam. Sail away at 90 degrees.

I strongly recommend you guys get righting poles.

Just don't do it! Capsized cats sail a lot faster than you can swim. It doesn't take much imagination to see how the two of you can be left with no cats to climb onto - or indeed, a situation where you both need to self-recover. If your friend cannot right himself, you should view yourself as his lifeline rather than the saver of his boat - i.e. you pick him up from the water and both live to tell the tale.

Two of my friends were sailing two up in February 2003, when they capsized. One got trapped by his foot in the toe strap and found himself hanging upside down suspended from his foot 7 feet in the air. He was the lucky one. The other guy watched helplessly as the boat sailed off on its side faster than he could swim - and he tried! This guy spent 2 hours in the water, which in North West of Britain in February is a very bad idea. Both lived to tell the tale, but consider themselves very lucky. Moral of the story is to be prepared for self-rescue in all circumstances and to protect life not property. And don't leave a perfectly good boat to put yourself in danger. I am sure that with righting aids you will both be able to self-right easily.

If you are interested, my friends' full story can be read on our club website:

http://www.dee-sc.co.uk/news/2003.htm
Scroll down three quarters of the way to "10 Mar 03
A Blustery Day" for the full story.

I started to post how this can be done in calm conditions but unless you are overestimating the winds, you are pushing survival conditions for singlehanding a 2 man boat.

National Weather Service 20 kts on a big bay means 3-5 ft swells with solid whitecaps and the puffs will blow spray off flat water. On a 2 man boat with good crew, I am real careful. Under these conditions anchor the flipped boat, pick up your buddy and come back with help.

I have to agree with the sage advice of most of the other posters - don't leave a perfectly good boat - pick up your friend, head for the shore and get some extra help to right the other boat.

That said, I have left my boat to help another cat sailor. We were both sailing solo on Galveston bay in around 15 knots of wind. He flipped just at the edge of the Houston ship channel - not a good place to be floating. Rather than do the sensible thing, I furled the jib, popped the downhaul and sheeted the main to put the boat into irons. I then lifted the rudders and hopped off my boat to swim to his. The current was against me and the wind was carrying his boat away from me - so I had to swim like hell to close what had started out as a really small gap between the boats. I was totally breathless by the time he hauled me aboard. We got his boat righted and then headed after mine - which had drifted faster downwind than the boat on it's side.

All in all not one of my smarter moves - I got away with it but wouldn't do it again unless I was in very safe water with other help to hand.

Chris.

I still think its posible though. I would never leave another sailor alone in distress. I work in the Coast Guard and our mission is to save lives first, then try as hard as posible to save property. It is what we do best. I still think that if you tie the right side up boat to the capsized boat, release all sails, IE bring them down, pop the rudders up I seriously think it is do-able.

Although I will never see myself sailing solo with another friend on another beach cat in over 15kts winds. Unless of course its a reggatta with chase boats to assist.

First off- how big is this lake? Are we talking Lake Superior, Lake Hartwell, or Lake Wannabebigger?
What are the conditions on this lake? Does it develop waves of good size, have sandy shores or cliffs or seawalls, etc...?

I've done the vast majority of my sailing on the Gulf of Mexico, Tampa Bay, and the intracoastal waterways. Most of the time, I was sailing solo in the company of other single-handers- we were all on 18' boats.

If one of us went over, we'd sail up to them and tie 30-40' of anchor line from the bow of our boat to the stern of theirs. Furl the jib, center the main but leave it a bit loose, pull the rudders up and let our boat drift down (which also helps pull their bows into the wind and keep them there). Then hop off and swim upwind to the capsized boat that is drifting towards you- use the line tied between them if you want. After getting the capsized boat back on its hulls, pull your boat up and hop aboard, untie the anchor line, unfurl the jib, and get going again.

I haven't had to do this in "survival conditions", and wouldn't want to. The boat that's drifting downwind on the end of the line can sail around a surprising amount. Occasionally I'll anchor or tie off the a piling with the jib furled and rudders up, main centered but not tight, and find the boat sailing over its anchor or past the piling.

Thanks to all for interesting replies.

I agree with the input that people should be able to right their own cat themselves using aids if necessary, but sometimes this doesn't work out and there is still a need to render assistance. It sounds like leaving your boat to drift freely or leaving it on a sea anchor is not an acceptable soultion just because there is too much risk your boat may end up sailing off or drifting too far for you to get back to it if there was trouble righting the distressed cat.

Our lake is relatively small, maybe a mile across, and winds are most commonly 15 mph or so with 1-2 foot waves but you can get caught in more wind unexpectedly. There are lots of docks and beach around the lake. In these conditions, leaving your boat to help another may be more appropriate than if you were in open water or in areas with breaking waves, currents, and cliffs/rocks.

The idea of lifting the mast top sounds like it could be useful if someone capsized in a gust but the conditions were otherwise tame. In rougher conditions I could see how this would be asking for trouble.

I was worried about tying the two boats together but it sounds like this can also work in non-survival conditions. If it's always the case that the upright boat will drift faster than the capsized boat, then sailing up to the disabled boat, throwing them a line, and swimming across after the upright boat is put in irons and the lines tied off as suggested in the replies may be relatively safe in non-survival conditions. I am a little reluctant to actually drop the main during this procedure since I imagine it could be tricy to raise it again with the boat rocking about in the waves - how many others do this and how hard have you found it to do? If you ended up with the sail stuck only partially up I would think you could get into some trouble of your own in the process particularly with the boom getting in the way of steering the boat and the potential for the boat to sail out of irons due to a combination of waves and the fact that the main is no longer helping to keep it in irons.

Any additional experience or input will be appreciated.

Jerry

Hi, I often rig up my Tornado and go out solo, and the technique I use to rig is to take my righting line (tied to the mast base), string it out in front of the starboard forestay attachment and around under the hull, take it across to the port hull and wrap it around the hull aft of the forestay there, then make a loop in the rope in the center of the hulls and string the end through the loop, then I tie up to a dock. (I hope this makes sense).
I find that when tied off in this manner the boat stays head to wind regardless of shifts, gusts or waves. If you left the loop in the righting line in the right place permanently, it wouldn't be too hard to do this on the water, although maybe not to easy either now that I think about it. Then you could furl the jib (or detach it from the sheet), release the clew of the main from the outhaul attachment point and tie off to the other boat's stern.(and pop up the rudders) Your boat wouldn't sail anywhere and you would be attached by your righting line.

If you simply tie up with the righting line attached to the mast base, the boat sails all over the place.

My only other thought, if the lake is that small, why not just drift to shore and then self-rescue in shallow water?

I'm with everyone else, don't leave your boat (unless you've tied them together).
Think of us northerners during the long winter.
Al

Jerry:

I have a Hobie 18 magnum, weigh 170 lbs., and I can get my boat over myself because of a righting pole. However, I can understand your frustration with your friends because, outside of my daughter on her Hobie 16, no one else will buy these silly looking things.

I have jumped off my boat to help people and I may have been lucky. I have never done it in anything over 12 though:

1) Furl the jib.
2) lightly trim the main.
3) I bungee the rudders to turn into the wind.
4) jump off close enough so there's no swimming.
5) get the other boat over.
6) quickly sail like hell to get my boat before it drifts.

I do like the idea of tying a tow line to it, though. I always carry a 30 foot line with a quick shackle on one end. I think I'll do this in the future.

Good luck,

Wyatt