Rough weather sailing technique: Running off before a storm
Claude Carrier
technique. One of this technique was running off before a storm.
The article about this technique was quit short and not very convincing. After reading it, I
had more questions than answers.
If you run before a storm, won't it eventually catch you?
If it doesn't catch you, when do you stop running? Unless you have a very fast boat I would
be very surprised if you could go faster than the storm.
Or maybe I misunderstood completely this technique?
Could someone give me more informations about this technique, it's advantages, etc.
Thank you,
Claude Carrier
Deborah Halliday
<ccar...@mediom.qc.ca> wrote:
You're not trying to outrun the storm. What you do want to do is not let
the boat come abeam of the large stern waves, so that these waves may
swamp and capsize your boat. In conditions that are not too severe, you
would try to keep your boat pointed upwind, so that you are not moving
faster than the waves. When you move faster than the waves, you take the
risk of burying your bow in a trough and pitch-poling. Under conditions
too difficult for pointing upwind, you must run off or hove to, because
the pounding the boat takes when pointed up becomes too much; many boats
suffer bad delamination and other structural weakening when they pound for
a long time into tough conditions (that's why the beat from the Bahamas to
the Caribbean is so tough). But again, running has its own risk.
When you are exhausted or far enough off shore, the best thing to do is
hove-to, as long as you know your boat will have-to well. The last resort
is to lie-ahull, with no rag up at all to balance the rudder. This leaves
you somewhat more vulnerable to capsizing.
Your best bet? Read a short, good book on heavy weather sailing. There
are tons of them, each readable in a couple of hours. Good luck.
Lloyd Smouse
>In article <dh126-20099...@dialup180.cc.columbia.edu>,
>Deborah Halliday <dh...@columbia.edu> wrote:
>>Your best bet? Read a short, good book on heavy weather sailing. There
>>are tons of them, each readable in a couple of hours. Good luck.
>
>so and practice the techniques you just read about. It helps if you're
>on a body of water big enough to have a good fetch to develop nice 4-foot
>waves. Oh yeah, you'll have to pretend that you actually *don't* want to
>surf down those waves. Have fun!
>
>My favorite heavy weather book is "Heavy Weather Sailing" by K. Adler
>Coles. It's old, and new lighter boats may require modifications to the
>lessons learned in this book, but you will learn something from it, and
>it's a damned fine read in any case.
>
>tim
>
>--
>Timothy R. R. Flanagan ti...@eskimo.com
>Sailing in Seattle: http://www.eskimo.com/~timf
The above is an excellent suggestion. If you are a novice you might want
read "Heavy Weather Cruising by Tom Cunliffe..A lot of info packed into a
small book..Plainly written and easily understood..Check your local
library, most of these books have been around a long time..Lloyd
Bruce MacDonald
>I recently read an article in Sail Magazine (August 1995) talking about Rough weather sailing
>technique. One of this technique was running off before a storm.
>If you run before a storm, won't it eventually catch you?
>If it doesn't catch you, when do you stop running? Unless you have a very fast boat I would
>be very surprised if you could go faster than the storm.
>Or maybe I misunderstood completely this technique?
I didn't read the article, but the idea of "running before a storm"
is not to outrun it but simply to put wind and seas behind you. Running
before the wind reduces the apparent wind, and putting seas behind you
(in most cases) makes you less vulnerable to breaking seas. In very
heavy weather, running downwind with no sail up may be the only sane
choice. Sometimes, it may even be necessary to attempt to slow the
boat by towing something (lines, tires, whatever), though in my
experience those would be very severe conditions indeed.
W.I.mosher
have some real good articles in there back issues. You will know when it is time to
turn around and run with the storm, it will be at the point when you realize that
if you dont you will lose the whole ball of wax. Somthing else to keep in mind is
when working up wind in heavy seas keep the fore sail well off the deck(4 ft) so the
green water that is passing over the bow does not weigh down the sail and pull the
bow down. WIM