Are there warps or drogues that prevent pitchpoling

I search things alot and it seems for sailboating, things are very hard to find.
How do warps and drogues, fair on trimarans and their specifications requirements. I'm more interested in modified warps.

Are there warps that you can use while sailing downwind to prevent pitchpoling, that tug at only a small degree and allow slow or moderate downwind speeds?


I am thinking of a hydrofoil warp concept, that has a set knot speed to the design of the ship and as it goes over that speed the hydrofoil would dig deeper slowing the boat. As the ship goes slower the hydrofoil raises and creates less drag aiding to get into that sweet spot of the designated knot speed the warp is designed for.

 

That is really old school thinking. Modern multihulls should be able to surf without pitchpoling. In general going straight downwind in heavy weather is not a good idea. However, a broad reach can be safe enough.

 

Racing multihulls pitchpole capsize all the time. When having a shaper bow, pitchpoling becomes more possible.

I don't think it's old school thinking at all and in fact I think it's the exact opposite of old school thinking. A hydrofoil drogue that can prevent sway and dive on large swell? Nothing old school about that.

 

Secondly, I don't have a half a million to buy a new boat. Thanks for your input, I think....

 

The modern approach is to use hydrofoil T-rudders to control pitch.

 

Can you provide any data to back your statement? Your posts are full of wild claims with no factual basis.

 

John Rivers: Now that you've developed an interest in multihull sailing, I would recommend reading as many books on the subject as you can find.
A good start is Multihull Seamanship by Dr. Gavin LeSeur.

 

Reading is OK, but sailing much better. The worst weather I sailed a cat was a Wharram 34 I owned. It was east of New Jersey, about force 10 (Beaufort). It handled fine with no significant concerns. I didn't use warps or anything else trailing from the boat. A decent boat and good seamanship were enough. Go sailing young man.

 

John. Look at the latest entry in Multihull Structure Thoughts about a Heavenly Twins cat trailing wraps in a big sea.

 

Page 430 of "Surviving the Storm" by Steve and Linda Dashew (see SetSail FPB » Free Books https://setsail.com/free-books/) shows the sea drogue, which is close to what you ask for. It doesn't have a speed at which it changes it angle, though. You get the normal proportionality of force to square of speed.
Also see Victor Shane's Drag Device Data Base | Using Parachutes, Sea Anchors and Drogues to Cope with Heavy Weather – Over 130 Documented Case Histories https://dragdevicedb.com/

 

With my Searunner 37, I always had Jim Brown's recommended car tire on a swivel and a bridle off the sterns of the amas. It was always rigged and ready to deploy on any passage. I never had to use it; I usually just ran off with just a small jib (at 22 knots one night). There is a good section in Brown's book "The case for the cruising trimaran".

 

My cat had older point bows and would go down the mine when pressed. Most of the GBE class were modified to have the bows shortened (and a bit added to the stern) The blunt bow had greater buoyancy and reduced nose dive.
I 'elevated my rudders' last year but we were running a 3/4 gennaker in 1-2m seas with 40 knots breeze. I think only one MH finished that race and not without taking some damage. Fun times.
My reason for sharing this, is that I've often wondered how I would manage if making a passage (obviously wouldn't have a kite and only 1 reef in...) I've been in conditions where we were doing 9 knots bare-poles and surfing down waves - always there's the bit at the bottom where the boat has the potential to nose under.
A friend of mine has been experimenting with foils on the rudders which will be interesting.
Another friend of mine with a lovely cruising cat spent many many hours making his own drogue which consisted of a series of cones - there's a name for this model but I can't think of it atm.

 

It’s called a Series Drogue. A commercial brand is the Jordan series drogue.

 

A series drogue will work, though a lot of things work when one is willing to slow the heck down. What this thread is missing is any hint as to the purpose of the boat in question. Are we trying to set speed records, or just keep the coffee safely on the table. Short of foils, racing multis are designed with capsize as a real possibility. Think of the, obviously unusual/anomalous boat, Cheers. It was sorta designed to keep sailing while capsized. But that is certainly not the case with anything designed for the cruising market. Just what are we talking about here? We need to nail things down to whether we are talking Wharrams, or whatever is the latest creation for offshore racing.

I would add that the fact that it is difficult to google up and answer, in this case, may be a tell.

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One thing that is not talked about all that much are the low resistance racing boats that may be quite resistant to capsize, but occasionally win races. And there are also low resistance boats that win races, and are supposed to be capsize recoverable. Mostly the work of the Gougeons. It would have been amazing if their Ostar design for Phillip Steggall had made it off the board and to the OSTAR starting line.