Does anyone have any experience with Righting Bags, I've got an TheMightyHobie18 and curoious about where to stow a bag and how to bring it back on board

I have stowed the bags by lashing them to the center lacing. To get the bag back on board, just pull it close to the boat, and grab it by the bottom so the water runs out.

Do you stow it on top or under the tramp? Do you use a pulley system??

How do I tell if my Hobie 18, 1980 is a Magnum??

Thanks for the advice

What size bullets do you use, Go ahead make my Day! Does'nt the Magnum have smaller wings ,shorter mast, no spinaker and a holster!

I have a righting bag I dont use, send me a pm if you are interested in it.

Bill

I usually stow it on the underside of the tramo so I can get it when the boat is capsized. I don't use any blocks to hoist it to the boat. The bag weighs very little inthe water. It only has weight when you pull it out of the water. That's why when you get it to the surface you use the grab handle on the bottom of the bag so you don't lift the water.

An TheMightyHobie18 is a Magnum if it has the smaller (6' long) welded wings and the standard TheMightyHobie18 mast (not the taller 18SX mast). I will be looking for an all aluminum SX mast (did Hobie even make those in the States?) in the spring. I will have a bit of a Frankenboat with the SX mast and the Magnum wings...

Could a small sea anchor/drogue also be used as a righting bag? Seems like that would be ideal. In light air you could use it as a righting bag, and in heavy air you could use it as a sea anchor to keep the bows into the wind to aid righting and keep the boat from sailing away without you after it is righted.

And a sea anchor/drogue is very lightweight material and stores in a very small space.

And a sea anchor can be useful for safety in other situations -- like to slow your drift if you are capsized and being blown toward a lee, rocky shore or into a shipping lane. Or if one person is separated from the boat and the crew member on the boat needs to slow the drift so the man overboard can have a chance of swimming to it. (If the boat is on its side, the sea anchor sort of feathers the boat into the wind so the wind is not pushing directly against the trampoline.)

Just an idea.

I think you could use the righting bag as a sea anchor. If the bag is too heavy then it makes it difficult to use as a righting bag.

You bring up some very good points, Mary, about another item that could be considered as safety gear.

I don't think a righting bag would work well as a sea anchor -- too heavy and not as open at the top. But why would a sea anchor be too heavy to use as a righting bag? You would just let in enough water to right the boat.

Or else you could have a pulley mounted on your righting line that goes over the top of your hull, and run a line from the sea anchor up through the pulley and back down to you to put your weight on. I'm no engineer, but wouldn't that 2-1 purchase increase your righting leverage?

Guess I will have to experiment.

I have learned the hard way that I can not solo right my TheMightyHobie18, or even get it righted with my female crew. I can get it righted with my male crew however.

So I have built a righting bag, holds approx 250lbs of water and I have a 4 to 1 pulley system to get it out of the water. I store it under the tramp in a tube like pouch. My righting line is stored in a tramp pocket, it also has a loop tied in it that just clears the hull after being tossed. I attach the pulley system with a carabiner to the loop in the righting line. I've got all this rigged up but have yet to try it.

Of course you can rig a pully system to use the righting bag. I prefer to have as little complication in a system that needs to work every time. I don't want to have to mess with fouled pulleys when I am trying to quickly right my boat.

When I've used them in the past, I jsut put the line holding the bag over my shoulder, stood out like I would on a smaller cat while holding the righting line. When I stood out the bag came out of the water. Since I was wearing my PFD the padding distributed the weight of the bag.

Lowpuller,
Yes! That sounds like what I was visualizing, and 4-1 purchase should do the job for sure! I thought 2-1 would be sufficient.

But if the "righting bag" was a lightweight parachute-type material (sea anchor), it could be left attached to the righting line permanently (in a little pouch), so you could use it or not, depending upon whether you needed it.

And I am going one step further. If you need it as a sea anchor, you would leave the righting line attached where it is (base of mast or main beam)and run it through something up at the bows and deploy the sea anchor out of its pouch.

Just thinking out loud.

NicK:

"An TheMightyHobie18 is a Magnum if it has the smaller (6' long) welded wings and the standard TheMightyHobie18 mast (not the taller 18SX mast). I will be looking for an all aluminum SX mast (did Hobie even make those in the States?) in the spring."

I've never heard of an all aluminum SX mast; here they're all comp-tips. The wings on the Magnum of the later boats are exactly the same as the SX; the only difference between the Magnum and the SX is the mylar sails and the longer mast.

And, I use a righting pole with a Hobie Bob on top. I'm 170 lbs and have no problem in getting my boat up by myself with little hassle.

Wyatt

I wasn't sure if the SX mast came in all aluminum. I want to put a spin or a Hooter on the boat and the comptip can't hold in the upper tang I would hae to install.

The righting pole seems to be the best solution. It falls into the category of work smarter, not harder. Why move all that extra weight around when you can just increase your moment arm.

I was heading down the power pole path but got rerouted. From what I have heard, no experience, the pole works great in calm water, but is almost impossible to use in any kind of chop. I started to redesign the pole attachment point so it was rigid, for instance attached to the dolphin striker, but again several sources pointed me to the righting bag solution, so here I am.

I believe the righting bag needs to be more substainale than parachute material, I don't think the stiching could handle the weight the material is ok but would need serious reinforcing at the stitching. I made mine out of a light weight coated codura. I let you goes know if it works, I'm capsizing on Sunday, it get this a heated lake, to test everything out. The lake neveere gets below eighty, sail until your cold jump in with wet suit of course, warm up and sail some more.

I'm not sure why the righting pole won't work in chop. But, if you already have the bag and it works for you then you have your solution.

Everyone always gives me grief when I race about never leaving without a cooler. At the Hirams Haul a few weeks ago, we capsized and tried every trick in the book to get the boat righted. We finally hooked to the beer cooler to the righting line and that gave us the last bit we needed to right the boat. It worked like a charm. Being light does have it's advantages.

I just wanted to post a comment about using your righting bag as a sea anchor. Yes this could work, but you do need to repace the line that it comes with if you are using a standard Hobie bag. The reason i say this is that while sailing on lake champlain over the past two seasons with Hobienick,my righting bag came loose from under my tramp and ripped right off the line. ( I stored it under the tramp thinking in time of need it would permit easier access)I bought a new bag the next season and when sailing in a heavy chop, this to came loose with out a pop. I did not realize it was gone until I got back to shore. The moral of my story is, I need to secure my bag better, and most likely on the deck. i have used the righting line for a tow when the wind has died and have always been a little wearly of its strength.

I have constructed a tube shaped bag with a velcro opening on one end, and gromments for attachment. The bag is supported below/from the trampoline beside the dolphin striker. Super easy to access with the boat on its side or from the tramp to replace the bag, after righting the boat. I attach the bag to my righting line with a carabiner into a pretied knot.