Sorry for the delay; passed out last night when I got home. We are talking about naming this the Too Much/Too Little race. BIG wind Saturday and boat-clearing waves(Thomas Pt data said 24 knots with gusts to 27); no wind Sunday. Those few who were pushing for the long course Sunday were very glad we settled on the short one. First 4 Inter 20s did the 50 miles on Saturday under 4 hours; Sunday's 37 miles took 7-9 hours. Chris Allen and crew won with an 11 minute lead Saturday and a very close second on Sunday (9 seconds after 7.5 hours!). Team Tygart of Doug Kirby and Andy Herbick finished second with a win Sunday, and Robb Lancaster and Don Sievert finished third. David Nees and Gibson finished 4th overall and first in non-spin on a H20.

Multiple flips by everyone on Saturday (Mark Olson and Lynn may have been the only exception to this as they stayed upright, although Lynn's stomach was flipping too much to continue). Only 8 of 15 made it to Cambridge, and two of those cut the corners just to get there for Sunday's sail back. Significant boat damage on three boats with one dismasting, one crew-punched main, and one Tornado turtled and damaged during towboat-assisted righting. Sunday's early wind died out to nothing and then clocked around for some tight frustrating racing. Full scores will be up as soon as I can transfer the data from my old no-export laptop.

Thanks to our sponsor Fitness Resource for the cool shirts, Jonathan Cristiani for his help in running this event, and to Harry Murphey as always for building the awesome box we use to literally carry this event.

Chris

And HUGE thanks to Chris for putting on this event! Awesome food and great support. I always feel bad (but very grateful) for the sailors that put on events and don't get to sail in them, but this time Chris may have been more happy to watch!

I like Chris Allen's quote afterward - "this race is cruel"...

Can someone shed some light on what happened with the Tornado? Apparently the coast guard forced them to abandon their turtled boat will SeaTow mangled their rig?

I'd prefer that the skipper give the full story, but the Coast Guard did REQUIRE the crew to abandon. The crew was on hand and participated in the righting attempt, however. The righting got the boat upright with mast intact, but it was not an easy operation in those conditions and damage occured. Some damage like broken battens may have also occured in the intial un-righting event ( I don't know if it was a pitchpole/capsize/other). The towing company (don't know if it was SeaTow) charged for the righting AND the tow home; very good time to have towing insurance.

Maybe a topic for another thread; what's the best way to right a turtled 10' beam boat in 20+ wind and 3-5 foot seas?

I would have thought that the seas and the wind would have made it easier to right it...although a lot of Tornados don't have sealed masts do they...that would have made things considerably more difficult.

I've said this before but I firmly believe that when power righting a catamaran from turtle, tie the line to the top (submerged) side of the mast post and tow the boat backwards very slowly and into the wind if possible. It will pop up like a porpoise. Trying to pull it over from the side leaves more potential for damage and for the boat to spin at awkward angles.

Chris has the story correct. The coast guard got several calls from other boaters about several cat's flipped near the Thomas Point light. They got to me first and there was no option of staying with my boat and continuing to try to right it. By the time they got me back to the boat after a scenic tour of several boats in the process of righting, the boat had been turtled for about an hour. By the time sea tow was on the scene... the boat was turtled for two hours.

It was a pain in the butt to get the boat righted after this. Jake's advice may well have proved to be the easiest way to right the boat.


FYI, In answers to previous threads on another board, the Coast Guard does not require any notification prior to racing because 15 boats going distance racing is not a hazard to navigation so no permits or notification are required.

Top of the mast post? You mean at the mast base? or at the mast head?

What do you mean "tow the boat backwards"? In the direction of the rudders? Can you draw us a picture?

I'm not getting what you are describing.

Its an interesting topic and something we should all have worked out before we spend two hours (or longer) in the water.

What about untie-ing the spin halyard and using that to pull the mast up from a turtle?

Sorry you had trouble righting. I sure hope you didn't damage your new mast!

Skip Elliot told me the he's always recovered from turtle by standing on the "leeward stern" to generate windage on the bows and get some air under the tramp, letting the wind and waves push the boat back onto its side, mast to windward. He said he didn't need a powerboat to recover from turtle, but he also said he never had to right without a powerboat. He said he thought it should be possible, especially with a Carbon mast. I ask him why he never tried it, and he said because there was always a powerboat offering to help.

I capsized my Tornado deliberately in ~3' swells with Gary Friesen as practice with 4 PFDs hoisted on the spinny halyard to prevent turtling. Following his example, we each righted singlehanded repeatedly with a righting pole Gary designed (a carbon reinforced 6' oar with a fitting to fit the centerboard slots), despite the extra weight atop the mast. We rotated the boat relative to the wind by pulling ourselves around the edges of the sails in the water. Go around one way and the boat turns the other. I can see it would be much harder in 3-5' wind waves. Gary also did this with another Tornado, and found that one PFD atop the spinnaker halyard was enough to prevent turtling in mild conditions. We never tried without a PFD because we didn't have a powerboat standing by. (We deliberately sailed a couple miles offshore to avoid offers of help from powerboats, keeping our VHF and seatow card handy.)

Some other good advice from Gary: as soon as you go over, free the mainsheet and hang on the boom to get lots of slack in the mainsheet while it is easy to do so. Later, you can free the jibs sheet and traveller. The boat will be much easier to right with the sails as free as possible. Get the bows and mast pointed equally upwind, and right it. If you fail because the mast blows around, try again with the mast more upwind. If the boat rolls after righting, try with the bows more upwind.

Of course, all this is much harder in the presence of a powerboat... especially an impatient one. Mark, you have my sympathy!

--Glenn

Mark, is it possible the mast was hitting the bottom? All it takes is two inches in the mud,and that beast is ANCHORED. I can also tell you two people on the stern of a H20 (also with flat decks) only gets the opposite bow up 2 inches or less; I imagine the Tornado would move even less.

Getting back to the original thread, or at least hijacking it in a different direction, I was amused that someone on another forum sugested we required handheld VHFs as the normal ones don't work when wet. Great idea; now I can get rid of that 12V car battery and the whip antenna, but I will miss the handset on the cord :-) Seriously, we didn't require one in the past because we were trying to limit costs. Now that everyone has a fancy GPS and a cell phone, should we require a handheld radio (instead of our current policy of a radio OR cellphone)? Seems a relatively small cost; heck, our late registration fee this year would have paid for a cheap one.

Yeah - I mean on the post at the mast base..or around the beam at the mast base. I've seen several boats that have taken on water in the mast and were unable to be righted without oustide assistance (one was a Supercat 21 Tall rig). In both cases I witnessed, there was damage to the boat when the powerboat tried to right them sideways.

I dont' have time to sketch a drawing at the moment...but I'll try to be more descriptive.

I don't recall where I read it (I think it might have come from something Smyth had on his site a long time ago), and I'll admit to haveing never attempted it on a beach cat, but this is how I've seen several several large tri-marans be righted. A line is attached forward on the boat (mast base on a cat or somewhere on the bow on a tri) and run it down the underside of the turtled vessel so that the line passes the stern and then goes to the tow vessel. The tow vessel only needs to slowly apply power because with the sails raised under the water, as the boat just begins to move backwards in the water, the sails will swing out and act like an anchor. The boat should then pivot upwards as the bows come up and the sterns start to dig in. The boat should splash down right side up (somewhat gently because the sterns will be depressed) with much less tow force required than if the boat were towed sideways.

The boats that I saw that were pulled sideways, the sails would fight the righting moment and would usually try to spin the boat as they were pulled upwards from turtle. Maintaining proper orientation between the tow vessel and the cat was very difficult and resulted in the tow vessel trying to accelerate very quickly before the cat would spin - but all this did was result in was additional forces applied until something was damaged because the sails would just spin the cat faster.

Chris - I vote yes on requiring a waterproof VHF (yes, yes, it probably still needs a dry bag) with the recommendation of two - one for each crew that they have on their vest.

I also liked the "require a handheld" comment. We'll go a little faster without the complexity of the electical system for sure!

We each had a handheld vhf on Gertie! And I vote it should be required.

Jake is correct. And it helps for the crew to sit on the back of the boat to depress it into the water as much as possible to make it right faster and more easily -- and keep the righting line centered as much as possible.

To right a boat head over heels like that, the boat should be pointed downwind (sterns facing the wind), and the tow boat should be pointed upwind. Then when the boat is righted, it will be pointed into the wind and won't take off chasing the tow boat <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />.

It is also best to not have too long a tow line from the pulling boat. The longer the tow line, the harder to keep it centered and keep an even pull on the boat during the righting process.