Category Archives: OFFSHORE

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Storm Jibs and Solent Stays

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Regular readers will know of my enthusiasm for Solent stays as a great “Gear Change” for most conventional sailing boats. The Solent is particularly effective if the boat in question has a low aspect-ratio rig. That is the height divided by the J-this distance is roughly the forward side of mast at deck level forward to the head-stay fitting on the deck. So for instance a spar height (commonly referred to by riggers, mast makers & sailmakers as the “I”) of say 45 feet and a J of 15, is a three: one aspect ratio. A boat with a 47’ x 12’ rig is close to 4:1 aspect ratio.

And yes a tall skinny sail is just fine more or less—When sailing up wind close hauled—Only. For the average cruising boat high aspect-ratio sails are not so good. This has to do with both the strain on the head of the sail: the top of the sail tends to go very round in the head pretty quickly and more importantly, when the sheet is eased, the top of the sail twists off dramatically.  When adding foresails to the inventory, an owner would be well advised to consider the aspect ratio of the where the sail is to set.

Quest 30 arriving in Newport. Headsail in use is the primary sail on the furler. You can see that the sail is relatively tall and skinny

With this in mind I have been working on just such a problem over the past month or so. A mate of mine is preparing his Quest 30 for the Bermuda 1-2—a solo race to Bermuda from Newport, RI then a DH race back from Bermuda to Newport. The Quest has an “I” of 41.0 feet and a “J” of 10.7 feet so again close to 4:1. Since the boat is to be sailing the ocean, simply relying on only one headsail on the furler  to sail across the most likely spectrum of winds between Newport and Bermuda in June is not a sound seaman like option. Especially with this type of furler which is merely a furler, not a reefing headstay.

The boat does not readily allow of a Solent set up, in the classic fashion–Roughly parallel to the headstay and a foot aft. Thus I had to design a system for setting a small sail that ended up being a Solent hybrid. A cross between a “cutter” stay and a Solent. In this  case the bottom of the stay lands very close to the stem head of the boat, like a Solent stay would. BUT the top of the stay lands at the second (top) spreader in the way a conventional Cutter stay might. There are a few reasons for this.

Primarily the fact that the spar had already the fittings necessary for a stay, runners, a sheave box and the halyard all at the top spreader-See image above.

So there were a lot of the basics for a stay on which a small sail could be set, with out re-designing the entire mast and deck layout. Overall  my goal was:

  • Design a system that could be deployed easily quickly and with the least amount of ruckus given that when it is going to be used, it will be blowing at least 25 kts.
  • Ideally the installation made use of the various equipment already installed and available on the boat-We did not have time or inclination to get into the boat building business.
  • Do it in a way that was cost effective, the more so since the entire staysail arrangement would only be rigged up on the spar and deck and perhaps not even deployed at all, every two years for the Bermuda 1-2. The rest of the time it will live in a bag in a locker somewhere.
  • Get it all designed, fabricated, installed and sea trialed as soon as could be done so any adjustments could be done in a timely given the start of the B-12 is 08 June.
There was also a fitting on the fore deck, very well secured to the aft edge of the anchor well, as is common however using this was not viable for several reasons I will get to.

I know this boat, intimately as it turns out:(I sailed this boat to Plymouth, UK in April 1996 so the then owner could sail it back in the OSTAR-But that is another story) So my first question was to look at the rest of the sail inventory to discover what headsails were to be carried in the race?

  1. The primary headsail is a 105% or so slightly high clewed jib set on a roller.
  2. The mainsail has three reefs. The head of the mainsail is below the top spreader when the third reef is set-Watch for this detail later-on in this post.
  3. There is a small sail called a storm jib, but having used this sail on the boat, I know it is a useless in practice. It is the wrong geometry completely.
  4. The boat has water ballast. This is in effect another gear/reef. As the wind comes on, rather than reefing, filling the water tanks is the equivalent of reducing sail.

The primary 105% furling headsail sets on a furler at the stem head, like normal, but not on a “normal” Harken type furler with a foil. It sets on a Facnor 4500 foil-less furler. As the images below show, the furler is very simple:

There is a stay made from 1×19 wire as is pretty normal. The tack of the sail attaches to the drum–You can see the horizontal pin with the key ring and light line holding it to the boat in the above picture. The drum is driven by an endless loop line (led aft) that rotates the drum and so the wire: the head swivel rotates freely. The sail is attached to the stay by the soft hanks made of Velcro.

The sail is attached to the stay by “soft hanks” made of webbing and velcro

The idea here is to get the best of two worlds. A sail that can be furled, most of the time, BUT when it needs to be removed, it can be unrolled and lowered to the deck like a sail, with, well hanks-Just like the old days-So the sail is not going to blow all over the foredeck life lines and end up in the water.

The furler for the primary headsail is an foil-less furler. The Jib uses soft hanks connected over the wire stay. The grey cylinder is the top swivel

The white material aft of the drum attached to the tackle is a strop we fabricated to pass through the deck and connect to the headstay pin. To minimize chafe we installed a through-hull fitting into the deck for the strop to pass through. We attached a Wichard eye to the headstay pin and secured the strop to the eye with a soft shackle–The image seen below is a light line we used to line up the hole through the deck to the headstay pin.

To anchor the bottom end of the stay, we threaded an eye to the aft end of the pin holding the headstay to the boat. The light line is a guide we used to line up the angle of the stay through the deck with the eye fitting so we could get the right location in the deck for the stay strop to pass thru.

BUT

In practice I cannot see unrolling this sail lowering it, (the material is pretty stiff and the sail has vertical battens-as seen in the top picture sailing into Newport Harbor), lowering it to the deck, removing the battens, flaking the sail, getting it in a bag, releasing the hanks, pulling the tack pin out, un-shackling the head of the sail from the swivel, without losing the shackle, getting the whole show below without losing anything over board, including  yourself, getting banged up yourself and then finally reversing the process with another small sail.

I cannot see that process talking less than an half an hour per sail even on a 30 footer.

So as a practical matter, the primary headsail would be furled up and a smaller sail set so the boat needed an inside stay.

A quick scan of the possibilities indicated that the best option would be to have a sail set from the top spreaders and landing just aft of the head-stay. Some of the issues to do with this that needed to be addressed included:

  • The main furler is installed below decks in the anchor well, so immediately aft of the forestay, there is nothing meaty enough to land a stay on.
  • Since the sail would go to the top spreaders, the rig would need running back-stays
  • If the small sail was to be set on the foredeck, at the aft end of the anchor locker, then the aspect ratio would be too tall and skinny-Not good geometry for a hard air sail, to be used in the ocean. The aspect ration of this triangle is over 3.5:1-too tall and skinny.
The pad eye in the foredeck was too far aft to either make for a good shaped sail nor would it be big enough, as can be seen in the picture below.

This image shows the location of the one pad eye aft of the stem, at the aft end of the anchor locker. (far left of picture) This was unsuitable because to install the stay tensioning tackle properly would have needed another couple of pad eyes AND the sail would be too small AND not very good geometry–Too high aspect. The results of what we did-Install a tackle and stay just abaft the stem-head, can be seen in this image.

“Normally” inside stays for most cruising boats today (although I am apparently single-handedly changing this), of any flavor use some kind of mechanical ratchet crank device or a Hy-Field lever. Both of these options are:

Heavy, difficult to handle, very difficult to tension after a while when everything as stretched in, and being heavy are awkward to man-handle around the foredeck when needed. They cannot be removed in a hurry as circumstances dictate.

A Wichard hand crank adjuster on the Solent stay on a 44 footer, using a wire stay-This particular wire stay has been replaced by a textile stay that weights 5 pounds. Handling the crank, stay and a sail is way too much work and being heavy throws a lot of inertia around in the seaway that will be in evidence when this equipment is in use.

At the end of the day I designed a set up as follows:

Textile stay fabricated from a Spectra fiber product known to Hall Rigging, who made it for me, as Fiber wire.

The Fiber Wire stay. The keys are to give idea of scale. The “T” fitting is visible on the right hand side

This stay attached to the spar using a T fitting, seen above

The bottom end of the stay was tensioned by a 4:1 tackle running through Antal thimbles.

The stay is tensioned by a 4:1 tackle running through Antal thimbles

The tensioning line is dead ended on the port side and runs aft, through the pad eye on the starboard side to a clutch in front of another Antal thimble and from there the tail is long enough to go to any winch.

The stay is tensioned by a 4:1 tackle running through Antal thimbles

The stay is tensioned by a 4:1 tackle running through Antal thimbles. Since the line is not required to be adjusted all the time, the thimbles are perfect. They are light, strong, in-expensive in general and particularly when compared to a ball bearing block of equal strength, the latter by perhaps a factor of 10:1.
The knobby ball of cordage connecting the stay to the top thimble is a “soft shackle” an increasingly widely used device for attaching anything to something else, as one would with a stainless shackle

There are a pair of running backstays connected to the spar.

The running backstays are attached to the mast just below the upper spreaders and opposite the point where the inside stay connects to the spar. This is high enough that with the third ref in, the head of the sail is below the runners. The end of the boom is far enough forward that both runners can be set up and the boat can be gybed and tacked without handling the runners. An extra insurance policy on hard conditions.

These are tensioned by a 2:1 tackle led through Antal thimbles, to a clutch, thimble and again with enough tail to get to any winch.

I used himbles again on the flying part of the runners: They are light (does not hurt so much when it hits you in the head….)strong & inexpensive-A trifecta that is hard to beat.

The running backstays are led through a thimble secured on the transom and forward through a clutch to another thimble permitting any winch to be used to tension them

The serendipitous aspect of the runners and where they land in the spar is that with the third reef in the mainsail the head of the sail is below where the runners attach to the mast AND the runners are sufficiently aft of the end of the boom, so BOTH runners can be set up when it is really howling and the boat can be tacked or gybed without attending to the runners. In this configuration the assumption is the inside stay will be deployed so the spar has another level of security to defend against damage.

The runner tails are dead ended on the same chain plate as the standing backstay, led up through the flying part of the runners, back to a thimble and forward through a clutch, thimble and so to any winch available.

 

 

 

 

Man Over Board

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Much is written and talked about concerning the recovery of someone who is knocked or falls of a boat. Very little, zero as far as my research indicates, is written on how to not get overboard in the first place.

This issues washed into my brain as I was driving home from presenting a seminar on preparation for distance sailing.

I will be doing more on this subject soon but for now you can take a look at the highlights here

Alex Thompson does the right and good thing

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So the “Alex Dilemma” seems to have diffused a bit.

He gets to be the good guy and demonstrate that it is possible to be a gentleman and competitive at the same time. Frankly that is a relief.

He looks to be able to take his Third and perhaps an 80 day Voyage too (Yogi Berra rule though is sill in play)

The latest report on the VG site reports Thompson lightening the pressure on the GO pedal so as to stay within Jack Aubry’s proverbial  biscuit toss of JP Dick until it is clearer what the impact of the conditions out there for the next 24-30 hours are really going too be.

JP Dick has a good man at his back, or at least close enough to his port  side, that if he submerges the Windex, he ought to not have too long to wait for part of the Cavalry to arrive, and well dressed they will be to boot. Not quite sure about the drill for recovering someone in the conditions they may be forced to face though. My guess is that a 60 will not be manageable, have steerage way, at anything under about 5-7 knots of boat speed and so getting a line to JP, without fouling one or both boats and then getting JP aboard….well lets not get too far down that track.

I guess this is one time that both skippers would be glad to not have deck spreaders.

Position wise, as defined by DTF, Alex is now, 3 miles ahead of JP, but 40 miles roughly to the north of him. Both are still SW of the Azores.

The leading edge of the front with the Big Wind, is about 350 miles to their NW.

The BBC High Seas forecast maintains Storm Warnings for 6 areas.

I wish this race would hurry up and end-I gotta get back to work….

Bon Courage.

 

Vendee Globe: Alex Thompson and JP Dick press on.

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At the 1400 (Paris time) position report on Friday 25 Jan, Alex Thompson still has not passed the keel-less JP Dick. The calculated DTF is down to 16 miles but Thompson is to the NW of Dick by about 90 miles and a little abaft his beam. It looks as though they may be splitting the Azores: Thompson West, Dick East. That Thompson will sail by Dick cannot be in doubt, I think (I reserve the Yogi Berra Rule), but the present positions/conditions are the easy part.

Roughly 600 miles to the west and a bit north, weather on the tracking site shows a large low shaping up. That is separate from the already 50 knots plus low directly north of them

A look at a N.O.A.A. high-seas forecast–you have to look at both parts-The divide is 45 degrees west…gives you some idea of what is shaping up. West is here: East part over the Azores is here. This is the 12 Z forecast for Friday. I read this as a  984 mb (so far) low,.

Then looking at GRIB files, Oh Boy. It is gonna get ugly out there. I make this low to be generating hard weather from the longitude of roughly the west end of Iceland all the way to Halifax and from 48 N to 32 N. 16 degrees of latitude, almost 1,000 miles. So in terms of area? Mebe eighteen hundred miles by a thousand, so 65% of the North Atlantic?

Gcaptain, a commercial shipping blog shows a map here, that does not do justice to what I am seeing on the grib files.

And the BBC shipping forecast site has issued gale warnings for the bulk of the West coast of Ireland out to the SE corner of Iceland. The BBC  High Seas forecast shows storm to violent storm, Force 9 to11 in the areas they call East and West central sections.

In any event, it is going to be windy to the finish, for all four of the leaders. We have all been in situations where the risk/reward decision tree get pared pretty thin. I would not like to be in Thompson’s sea boots right now let alone JP Dick’s.

Bon Courage.

 

Vendee Globe: Alex’s Dilemma

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With the failure of a second keel in the Vendee Globe, that of Virbac-Paprec skippered by JP Dick, Yogi Berra’s old adage is never more to the fore.

Dick is closing in on the finish with less distance to sail (c 1800 miles at 1400 eastern) than an O.S.T.A.R,. A couple of days ago, third place JP Dick reported that his keel had fallen off. After he stabilized the boat he did the ET thing and phoned home via satellite phone to report the loss. Personally the fact that over oh, 15 years or so, these IMOCA 60’s have evolved to the point where they can sail, close to up wind, WITHOUT a keel, at 10-11 knots yet, is mind-boggling in the first place. And then (surviving) to call the race organizers to tell them the keel fell off has the air of calling your credit card company to report a lost or stolen card.  Although it is also probably worth contemplating that his design is the “same” as the first boat to lose its keel, Safran, skippered by Marc Guillemot whose keel fell of inside the first 50 miles of the race back in early November.

(One cannot but help being reminded of the late Mike Plant).

Apparently Dick has not (yet)withdrawn and as of Wednesday 23 Jan at the 0907 (Paris time) report Dick appears to be continuing on towards the finish and, sans keel, is still doing 11 knots…..

It is perfectly possible for Dick to be balancing his previous 6th place finish in the 2005/6 race with an ABD in this one. Given the preposterously huge amount of work this race now takes, the 47 year old sailor must be doing some serious soul seeking.

The phrase “Alex’s Dilemma” was the subject line of about 15 of my morning emails. The gist of the traffic is interesting and in a larger way is a commentary on the state of the world: Doing the “right thing” versus acting solely for ones’ self interest.

The discussion seems to have been initiated by Jerry Freeman, O.S.T.A.R. vet, prominent solo/DH sailing advocate and voice of the solo/DH community in the south of the UK, the Solo Ocean Racing Club.

In short, the question of “Alex’s Dilemma” revolves around RRS rule one-helping other competitors in distress-Should Alex Thompson (presently having his best showing in a Vendee Globe- in a strong 4th place) close in on Dick to render assistance- versus pressing on and (presumably) finishing in third. As of the 1400 (Paris Time) tracking fix, Thompson is about 130 miles south of JP Dick and a bit to the west.

Comments in the Petite Bateau Forum, from whence the emails come, run the gamut from: JP Dick has neither retired nor requested assistance, nor (it appears after sailing without his keel for more than 24 hours so far) does he seem to be in any tearing hurry to do so, thus Thompson ought to press on. The opposite extreme is that Thompson ought to stand by while Dick gets to safe harbor which as of about 1100 EST Wednesday morning is the Azores roughly 750 miles to the NE. As of the 1900 Paris time report on the VG site, Dick is in communication with his team and the boat’s designers to figure out a solution which I guess has two answers: Sail on OR abandon to the Azores. Apparently the weather is going to deteriorate as Dick heads further north with the leader presently expected to finish in 30-35 knots and 5 meter seas.

Two comments are firmly in the “Alex should go on” side of the ledger- “It is a race, not a cruise!” One other concurred and added that Dick might easily be collected by another vessel and added the idea that JP Dick ought to be protested since the boat now longer complies with the IMOCA rules for stability……

In the “stand by to help” column were three succinct comments: “seamanship trumps silver every time”

Thompson was quoted on Tuesday in the British paper the Daily Telegraph as hectoring the IMOCA leadership for allowing the design of keels that cannot survive the life of the boat. So some comments in the email exchange suggest Thompson does not have a choice, being so safety conscience, other than to sail over to Dick and offer assistance.

The fence sitters propose:

That Thompson offer assistance, have it refused and then press on for a third and so receive adoration on both counts. A top three finish AND helping a distressed seaman. A third would be Thompson’s best finish, in fact his only in three attempts, so he is pretty keen too. It is further observed that Thompson will be in the vicinity of Dick for a couple or three days as he sails by him by which time Dick will be pretty close to the Azores and so presumably safe(er). The speed difference Wednesday afternoon, Newport RI time, has JP Dick sailing at about 10 knots to Thompson’s 14-15Kts.

Some propose Alex offer a version of stand-by, then ask for redress and so presumably place third and possible be still credited with a sub 80-day voyage. This comment opines that if he merely goes to JP’s aid without a request, then the redress hearing might be “muddy”.

What does one raised in the old school do about all this-What is one to make of the situation and comments? Why might a redress request based on complying with the (most basic) RRS (1.1) be “Muddy”? How might a “muddy” ruling in this case effect a dinghy skipper not assisting a fellow sailor since the distressed sailor did not ask for help? Is it to be so ruled merely in the fact the boats are out of sight and asking for help is required since it is not obvious to the competitors that a boat needs help?

There are the Rules of the Sea, ancient and unwritten and the recent and formalized version covered in the RRS.  As a practical matter all the skippers of these boats are “Professional Mariners” and RRS aside (maybe) they might be questioned by a skilled lawyer as to why they did not render any and all assistance to a vessel in distress.-This issue was raised in one comment: If Thompson “ignores” offering assistance and Dick dies, might Thompson be brought before a court for his involvement or lack of? Might the interested parties of JP Dick bring civil suit against Thompson for neglect?

Ocean racing in general and the Vendee Globe in particular has seen more than its fair share of  commercial and military ships involved in the recovery of solo sailors in all manner of conditions admittedly mostly all after a call for help. The competitors have also gone to the rescue of other competitors too. This incident though seems to be a bit outside the range of normal since Dick is demonstrably at a disadvantage sailing his boat without a keel, yet he is still sailing upright, and pretty fast for now. As of this writing neither from his team or the VG administration does there seem to be any indication of which course he will take.

Nowhere, in any race or regatta in the world, is this basic requirement of assistance more required than in the Vendee Globe. In a sense all sailors rely on each other for support but alone in the grey trackless wastes of the Southern Ocean is this not merely a “Rule” but must, still surely, must it not, be a basic act of humanity? OK the warmer part of the North Atlantic 750 miles away from the Azores is not the Southern ocean, and Dick is a supremely skilled, experienced and talented seaman, but sailing is governed, more than most, or any, sport by precedent and actions of the competitors.

Do we really want to participate in a sporting activity (Or has professional environment changed the form of sailing that much?) where it is possible to ignore a “wounded competitor”  Unlike say an Ironman, where there are helpers and medics following and spread out on the track, sailing, the VG  in particular, demands a camaraderie unseen elsewhere.

As for the idea of protesting Dick for anything related to this incident- Some refer to the DSQ handed to Swill sailor Bernard Stamm based on his activities in southern NZL fixing stuff. Rules are Rules and so stability is a rule and absent it, a DSQ is appropriate goes this theme. But Mike Golding was apparently protested in this fashion for the same reason-finishing sans keel and the protest was tossed out, so Dick might be protected in some way by this precedent.

What will be the outcome? Might Dick be criticized in the event he decides to press on, past the refuge of The Azores? The latest update on the VG site says Dick will postpone any retirement decision until after the Azores. A day north of the Azores, he is still two days to the Spanish/Portuguese coast, if the winds remain favourable. What if he finishes, a fourth is most likely-the 5th boat is 1700 miles astern as of this writing- this works out to five and a half days at 300 miles a day averaging 12.5 knots. Will JP Dick be seen as a national hero (in France) or a hazard to good, and bad example of, sound seamanship? What happens if he presses on past the Azores, and crashes? His team and sponsor must have contingency plans in place, or perhaps this point is part of the dialogue now burning up satellite bandwidth today. What happens if he crashes and dies? Sailing is still the last arena where the individuals rely almost totally on their decisions and the implications of such decisions. Will people (family & friends) really let Dick’s decision to carry on past Safe Harbor and then die, be the end of the discussion?

Regardless of the outcome of the race proper, this edition of the Vendee Globe will set the bench mark for a nail-biting finish, with performance that was barely 20 years ago the sole domain of the 80-120’ Cats with full crews. And that does not even include the (Likely-Do not spook the herd yet) victory of a photogenic and youthful first timer in the guise of Francoise Gabart. I reckon there is at least one insurance company in the world today very happy with at least one of their recent decisions. A discussion for a different post is, what does Gabart do now or next? Take on the solo Fastest Around The Blue Marble time in a 120 foot Tri?

Perhaps the alternative to this entire event is the reprise of the Golden Globe, the original solo circumnavigation race-Back down here on earth.

And just in case all this great racing gets you inspired to try your hand at solo/Double handed sailing, read my latest column in WindCheck Magazine on the subject here.