rough seas herreshoff?

am i right in thinking that a herreshoff 15 is not the best in rough waters?
what would be a more suitable vessel in that style?
a john alden triangle or dark harbour perhaps?

 

also, is there such a thing as an uncapsizeable boat?

 

No !

Every boat will capsize in the appropriate seas.

Whether they will all right again, is the question

 

Capsize can happen, even to a boat that has a 180 degree positive righting arm. The real questions are: how well does it recover from a knock down and at what angle should you be concerned she will not self right. Well founded yachts will have a significantly high "AVS" (Angle of Vanishing Stability). This is the point a yacht no longer has the ability to self right from a severe knock down and she flops over on her beam ends.

I'm not sure of the H-15's AVS, but it's probably not much more than 110 degrees. The cockpit is quite exposed, the freeboard low, the cabin roof not very intrusive, so, if she's blown onto her beam ends, she fill pretty quickly and has nothing there to prevent her from going over the rest of the way.

The H-15 is a good boat in heavy air, if skippered properly. She'll need to be reefed early and managed well in strong winds, but her motion and ability to claw off a lee shore are very good. This said, you don't want to learn how to sail in heavy weather in this boat - just too much that can go wrong fast, but in skilled hands she can take on a light gale. Naturally, she's a day boat, so when SCA's go up, you should head for shelter. This said, you can get "caught" and a sudden storm can roll in on top of you. This is when her abilities will get tested, as well as the skipper's. She's well mannered in follow seas, can carve to windward in a good blow and though you'll be very wet, from the experience, she'll bring you home safely.

Knock downs are fairly rare in a day boat (except dinghies). Capsize even rarer, so focus on things that will happen a lot, rather then once in a life time event possibilities. Simply put, most sailors never get capsized, nor even knocked down 'till the spreaders touch. I have experienced both of these events, but I'm a white knuckles kind of sailor, actually looking forward to taking on hurricanes in sailboats. Okay, the last one was Hugo and I sailed it twice, but I'm older and supposedly wiser now. Look, the bottom line is you don't take day boats into storms or areas where you could get beat up - they're just not designed for this, but it's not something to worry about.

 

Channeling Captain Robin Walbridge, late of the Bounty?

 

Don't start me up David

It's one thing to head into a storm, with a boat well preped for the ordeal and another to try to shirt around one and hope for the best, in a ill equipped and crewed vessel.

 

Uncapsizable ships, but boats in the size you refer to are subject to large breaking wave action.
The risk of inversion is indicated quite well by the static GZ curve and particularly the area under that curve from 90 degrees to AVS or LPS.

That's the best all round indicator of inversion resistance in beam seas, with breaking wave significant height equal to or greater than the boats beam. It appears regardless of keel areas roll inertia or hull shape or displacement.
There are other capsize mechanisms but the beam on capsize is the one most likely to whomp you and it's the attitude a vessel takes to the waves if left to lie ahull.

 

Extreme sports !

 

The best small daysailor for choppy waters would be selfbailing.

The best way to handle a small daysailors in choppy waters is with good seamanship.

 

Of the two, the Alden would be a better rough weather boat, though neither is very well suited. Again, these are day boats and used in fair weather. Neither are self bailing and both have large cockpits.

A boat that can tackle rough seas will have a small cockpit, that's self bailing. It'll have higher freeboard then a racer would typically like to see and a more modest rig, again things a racer wouldn't like to own.

The abilities of a boat to take on heavy seas is more a function of the skipper. Though some features are desirable in a rough slosh, making some designs better than others, the skipper is the key ingredient.

 

The only reason to build a Herreshoff 15 is because its beautiful.