Seaworthiness

Racers have always pushed the limits of what was considered to be "seamanship" by others; I seem to recall in the first Transatlantic (between Vesta, Fleetwing and Henrietta in the mid 1850s) professionals refused to sail. When Thomas Day launched the BErmuda race, there was so much criticism that he wrote a classic editorial about it. Lee Loomis, or Carleton Mitchell of Finnisterre, one of the most famous and classic of ocean racers, once wrote a short fictional story about a Transatlantic racer picking up a trawler crew and horrifying those pros with the way they drove the boat. He was happy about the way the racers terrified the pros. There are many instances where those early racers who are now often held up as ideals horrified the pros and the conservatives of their day.

Many of the cruisers were similar. Just to think of a few stories I grew up with, there was former professional seaman-under-sail Erling Tambs, who sailed from Norway in the Colin Archer "Teddy" in secret as the harbourmaster wouldn't let him go as the boat and crew were not seaworthy. He almost lost her several times before finally sticking her on the bricks in NZ. Tambs - a hero of my childhood - then got another Archer, Sandefjord, and pitch-poled her and lost one of his crew. Slocum did amazing things, but his Tilikum was an open boat that would and did horrify the "normal" pros almost as much as singlehanding itself did, and of course the idea that Spray was superbly safe seems at odds with his disappearance and that of Pandora, the first (I think) Spray copy to go cruising. Fred Rebel converted an 18 Foot Skiff (inshore racing version) of the '30s and sailed it across the Pacific to the USA with a sextant made of a hacksaw and (I think) a kid's school atlas as a chart. His Bermudan rig was thought to be unseaworthy, as it was when Schlimbach used it in the '30s to cross the Atlantic on Stortebecker III.

Peter Johnston wrote that only 34 singlehanders sailed across oceans before 1945, so this means that a very high rate of such trips were called "unseamanlike" at the time. He also notes a few other trips, like the first guy to singlehand around Cape Horn east to west, who was killed when his boat was wrecked soon after.

haven't looked at the cruising sailors of 50 years ago because by that time there were so many that there's no way of knowing what % would have been considered unseamanlike. The early days of multis in the South Pacific DID show a very poor safety record in the '60s, indicating that not everyone was interested in conventional seamanship.

I'm not attacking Slocum, Rebel, Tambs etc. I know this isn't a formal study. You may be right that today's cruisers are less seamanlike. The ones I have met have been pretty good, generally, but I suppose it could be those I meet. I merely find it interesting that a very high proportion of cruising sailors of those times were called "unseamanlike" by conventional wisdom of their day. Surely we should use that to give us perspective about our own tendency to use the same allegation?

If those intelligent professional experienced critics who called Rebel and Carleton Mitchell and Slocum "unseamanlike" were wrong then, how can intelligent professional experienced critics be sure they are not falling in the same trap when they lay the same charge at other sailors today?

 

Randy

I am still confused as to exactly what your response is to a long inversion time? Either you can be on deck or down below. If on deck you are likely to drown or be separated from the boat. I was not trying to misquote you , I am honestly confused as to what your argument is.


Perhaps we can clarify it by asking the same question I asked before:


“ How long should a seaworthy vessel be expected to remain inverted, lets say in cold water far from shore? [a cruising monohull]

I figured something as clear as drowning as you frantically try to release your tether should be simple enough for anyone to debate without too much interpretation or distortion or stonewalling to promote their point of view. My argument is that with some relatively small concessions the vessels could be inherently safer. "


We can start to develop a seaworthiness concept a step at a time. Already in this thread we have covered a host of concepts that add up to seaworthiness , No one is challenging for example ...... roll inertia , weatherliness a decent speed when not in heavy weather, a hull strong enough not to fatigue to failure and . Now I am suggesting a sensible AVS so that the boat can self right with the on deck crew alive and kicking.

I really have trouble getting my head around the mindset that would object to this criteria for a cruising boat.

I also think any decent designer should be able to produce a vessel which embodies both performance and what I consider some very basic seaworthiness.

I deeply feel that there will be needless deaths if the trend in popular racing style cruising boats continues towards extreme hullforms ....I dont want to be right, I would be very happy to be proven wrong.

Regulation on seaworthiness of commercial vessels is not just dreamed up by conservative (pompous) committees but is largely from observation of what worked and what failed. Changes to modern trawler designs are a good example.


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Hello Chris


Oh well ........change the shcool kid to a uni student ... Doesn't have quite the same appeal

A bit busy at present and spending too much time on this thread.

Cheers

 

There are still different rules applying to uni students in a uni activity, than to the same uni students doing things with their friends (I write here as a uni coach).

As to the performance of boats that are narrower and heavier; there's a lot of evidence that they WILL be slower. I know they can carry bigger rigs, but what about the increases in the difficulty of sail handling, gear costs, etc? And I still can't find any example of a heavy boat that goes as fast as a comparable light boat. Personally I reckon that's fine - I feel very strongly that having the fastest mono keelboat is like having the biggest bonsai or the fastest daschund, keelboats will never be fast for their length or cost so why worry about ultimate speed - but not everyone shares that viewpoint and we have not seen any examples of a heavy boat that goes as fast as a comparable light one. Maybe if you give us some examples of boats that fit your vision we could see do some research to see how they go?

And just to underline, I'm with you on extreme beam and inversion times, and there's no way I want a high aspect bulb keel on a boat that can sink. It's just that I get a bit concerned about the impact of increasing costs to reduce what is, after all, a fairly minor cause of death compared to all the other ways people can die. If the price of a cruising yacht is lifted by $50k, what happens? Many middle class people - teachers etc - may have to drop out of offshore yachting altogether. Will that increase their life expectancy or quality of life?

They could cut costs in other areas to afford a more expensive (per ft) boat. They could drive a cheaper (and therefore less safe) car, work more hours (more stress and less exercise, leading to health risks), or buy a smaller (and theoretically less seaworthy) boat. Or they could save for another 7 years before going cruising, so you get older, less healthy people handling bigger, heavier boats with less sailing experience ('cause they've been sweating in the office for 7 years as their smaller boat is deemed too dangerous).

Driving a cheaper car so you can buy a safer boat is probably vastly more dangerous than driving a safer car and buying a more dangerous boat. The point is of course that if you increase the time, cost and effort that has to be devoted to getting a "safe" boat, you take time, cost and effort from other areas that may have a much better safety payoff. Given the demonstrated benefits of having better cars and better health, don't you have to be able to make a pretty significant case to prove that it's worth spending a lot of effort on reducing inversion time (remembering that even a fast inversion or a severe knockdown can still be a major problem, and that the suggested authority Andy Claughton says "This (test data) suggests that alterations in form (of a sailboat) that improves capsize resistance may be rendered ineffective by a relatively small increase in breaking wave height."

I've known several people who have been killed sailing. I have known plenty of people who have inverted multis. None of those who inverted died. None of those who died had their boat invert. Obviously this is NOT a good statistical sample. Obviously inversion kills people; but in in Hobart '98 it killed 1 or 2 of 8, in Fastnet '79 it played a role in the death of 2 or 3 of 15. Even in those situations it was only a minor cause of death. About as many people were lost going overboard from an Ohlson 35, which has been held up as an example of a superb cruiser. Yes, any death can be said to be too many, but in a world of limited funds and effort does it deserve the attention it gets?

 

But we have, we have twenty five 40class boats sailing for 3 days in Beaufort 12 conditions, in 8m waves. We have several boats hit by breaking waves, at least one hit by a monstrous 8m breaking wave. All boats with a solo sailor, all boats on automatic pilot with the solo sailor inside for 4 to 6 hours a day and none of them capsizes. Do I have said that these boats are unsinkable and that was verified during the race? It worked, they had to scuttled the damage boat.

What conclusions can we take from these data?

What about these ones?

(On that race, on the 40class, there were 12 Pogo40)

Yes, it looks like that the autopilot is quite able to do “demanding steering” to keep the boat away for the dangerous “resonant rolling”, even when the skipper is sound asleep.

You are very disagreeable, as usual, I am afraid, but you are wrong. I am using numbers, not the imprecise data that you use to post, but sound statistics evidence. The real thing.

Of course the average speed of the 40class boats in the “Route du Rhum” was a high planning speed of about 6.5K.


Crazy stuff, Crazy thread

 

It was an impressive performance by the Classe 40 boats. They look like great boats. One race, though, isn't the sort of very broad statistical base that some people would like to see.

 

they sound like really good boats to me vega,,,,,,8 meter waves,,,,thats what im talkin about,,,longliner

 

I am not talking of one race, but of the several days of 70k winds and 8m waves that all of them and faced. 25 identical boats x 3 days of beaufort 12, is not an insignificant data base in what concerns the boat stability.

This was the worst weather they had in the many editions of the race.

 

Im not a mathamatician and therfore I am at a loss in understanding on how given any measurement, loads , wieghts, etc, etc could one crunch up these number and then say this boat will go so fast and go into the wind of these degrees with this sail with this roach and this hight of mast with these waves, bla bla bla.

I am willing to accept you may be close. Close enough in trying to encourage an investor to build.
I think that sayin a man died at sea because his boat did not have a high enough 'BS' number is -- well I am not a mathamatician

 

Errr, several days of sailing in one race is actually just one race!

As I said, the Opens did well, however this remains a limited database. We don't know how they would have handled more severe stuff. For example the Sydney-Hobart '98 had 11m+ waves recorded at Kingfish B oil platform, 27/12/98 (from memory it's about 80nm away in a probably calmer area) and vastly higher readings from radar altimeters aboard rescue helicopters flown by Royal Air Force and Royal Australian Air Force crews out in the area where the race boats were. There were reports verbatim, from named RAF pilots, of horrifying measurments from radar altimeters. Reports indicate "winds averaging 70 knots but reaching 92 knots with corresponding 15-20m swells.....This estimate was verified by one of the US-built Australian Navy helicopters, whose instruments measuring height above 'ground' showed 80ft when over a wave trough and 10ft at its peak."

As Claughton says, a 'relatively small" increase in wave height can be more important, when it comes to capsizing a boat, than a change in hull form. A 3m to 12m increase is possible according to the Hobart figures, and such an increase would hardly be called "relatively small". Possibly if the RdR 8m waves had had a "relatively small" increase to the same levels that KingfishB recorded, or even to the 20m the radar altimeters got further out, then the Open 40s could have been in trouble if we apply what Claughton says.

I agree, this is no more than a possibility. But it still remains a possibility, and Claughton's words indicate that the fact that Open 40s can handle 8m waves does not mean that they would necessarily handle 11m+ waves. Therefore, the one (impressive) performance by the Open 40s cannot be seen as proper statistical proof that they will be safe in all conditions. They may do better than other boats in say 10m waves, but they may also do worse. The RdR performance, while impressive, is just one statistic, just one piece in the jigsaw puzzle.

 

Modern cruising boats and modern racing boats built for ocean passages have their roots in racer/cruisers of 40 years ago.

Both of these modern ******* design styles are trying to claim seaworthiness. However the design briefs have higher priorities than seaworthiness to begin with.

Modern design has some kind of residual seaworthiness. If it doesnt intefere with the design concept then it can remain.
Keels especially that are designed for performance means the keel is just drag for sailing conditions. The keels primary function used to be for self righting but now its higher function is performance.
Initial stability being provided by stiff hullform allows sail to be carried longer and spacious accommodations but doesnt decrease inversion time.

Seaworthiness and seamanship doesnt rely on outside assistance or communication.

Bravo if you want to take these new ideas to sea, but try being self reliant and face the elements like a real sailor did. Put your life on the line, money where your mouth is etc...if your boat screws up stay put and drown. Dont go calling for help like a loser, asking for another chance.
Remaining pool of designers and sailors can learn from the mistakes of the dead. A bit old fashioned really.

It is a bit easier to be brave when society is waiting to catch you if you fall. If something bad happens someone will pull you out and you can blame nature. Careers evaporate when you play the blame game in racing. As long as no one is at fault you can carry on.

Unless you are a 'consumer'. Normally industry speak for '***** who believes what they are told'. Try substituting that snip throughout this thread whenever the word consumer appears in a post. Consumer is not a nice word , it is used by ******* to elevate themselves above the 'masses'.
Designing a boat for consumers is the biggest load of rubbish I have heard. It is the worst design brief there is. Crappy boats sold to any one with the money. And trying to certify or brand these idiot boats as seaworthy with an idiot number...? And a new improved model every year...Stylists begin to appear in the design office.
Seaworthiness gets designed out if it conflicts with what the 'consumer' wants.

The requirement for standards shifts the responsibility onto the owner and releases the designer/builder from liability. An entire industry can relax its standards to a common denominator, reducing choice and marginalising 'alternative design'. Wierdos with full keels will become pot heads and wear beads.

Seaworthiness is disappearing from modern design concepts.

When my son wants to go sailing accross the ocean I will remind him of the better sailors and designs that sailed the oceans independently of external assistance.

And as for marina cafe style discussions, there is a lot more seatime or experience in these discusssions than in the Ivory Tower.

 

Until we can define what long inversion time is, we cannot see what boats might be suspect. Any boat that has negative area on it's GZ curve has the potential to remain inverted indefinitely. Do you want to regulate that cruising boats must have zero negative area?

The argument is that to regulate the absolute seaworthiness of a boat we must have objective measurements. We can decide relative seaworthiness (based on our own priorities and biases) between two boats. However, we have not been able to define seaworthiness objectively. Since defining an absolute seaworthiness rating for a boat is what is required to have regulation of seaworthiness. I don't think it can be done. Seaworthiness is a subjective measure rather than an objective one.

As example there are two kinds of speed regulations. Posted Limits are objective. "Speed Limit 80 km/h". Easy to enforce, robots can (and do) enforce such regulation. "Reasonable and Prudent" (Prima Fascia) is equally valid. Drivers limit their speed to what they deem to be reasonable for the existing conditions.

The objective limits are set by someone that thinks they know best. The subjective limits are set by the drivers.

I want to see sailors make reasonable and prudent choices based on their own judgement.

Your position seems to be that others should make the choice for them.

I want freedom of choice, You want freedom from choice.

As far as inversion time goes, when is it an issue? Only after a capsize event. How often to capsize events occur? Of those events, in how many did the inversion time play a part in the survial of crew? Basing the determination of seaworthiness on a best guess of how long a boat might stay inverted, in the unlikely event that it is capsized while crew are exposed in the cockpit makes no sense to me.

Cheers,
Randy

 

Hey Rough, you are quite modern...for a retro Dude .

Assuming that modern boat designers are neither idiots nor irresponsible guys, I would say that you could assume as correct the average value they assume as correct for an AVS on an Ocean Going sailboat.

That value is around 120º, even if for approving a boat as a ClassA boat you need less.

An AVS of 120º gives you a medium recovery time between a minute and three minutes. Of course this is an Average time and a relatively small increase in the AVS (5º) will give you a significant better recovering time.

The Open60 that has been criticized in this thread to be unable to right themselves have now an AVS of 127,5º.

Most stability curves take into account for the AVS, only the hull stability and they don't take into account the effect of the superstructure. My boat has an Avs of 118º if taken into account only the Hull, but if considered, as it should, the superstructure, the real AVS is of 130º.

On this thread the emphasis is all in the capsize and little on the forces and circumstances needed to capsize a boat. Modern boats have GZ (arms) bigger than older boats, sometimes 40% bigger and that means that for compensating that, and have the same rightening max moment, the old boat has to be 40% heavier.

Long keels and narrow boats are less capable of transforming the sideways push of a breaking wave in a lateral movement, dissipating that way the wave energy. Long keels give a big "trip" lever, inducing a rotating movement and the narrow hull is much less adapted to a lateral rapid movement on the sea, because the hull has a lot less form stability.

With this I don't want to say that heavy boats are not seaworthy, only that the discussion of seaworthiness, centred only on capsizing risk is very poor and meaningless, if considered the complete picture.

It is common knowledge that the higher risk to loss of lives at sea is the man overboard situation. Old boats need that one or more sailors go to the mast to reef the sails and that is a high risk with stormy seas.
Most of new boats have systems that permit you to reef the boat without left the protection of the cockpit. This is probably the biggest contributions to safety and seaworthiness of a sailboat in many decades.

Regards

 

First of all capsize risk is second after sinking, as a concern for the crew.
It is important.

Too much beam is bad.
Beamy boats trip over their side decks.
Long keels do not trip a boat. Beam does.

 

Capsize risk seems to be discussed in an academic way sometimes.
'If it is so rare why worry about it?'
'Marginalising this risk can give us a free hand with what we draw.'
'Not many people die from this insignificant risk, and we can always split the statistics into freak weather, bad storm tactics, inexperience... whatever.'

What is this! Trying to make it into which came first, chicken or egg?!
Old clunker isnt heavier.
New lighter boats have to compensate for all the weight that is moved around on the drawing board.
Weight moves from hull to keel. More beam on shallower body with longer waterline results in a pointy raft.
This branch of evolution wasnt inspired by seaworthiness.
To turn around and claim that seaworthiness is a beneficial side affect of pursuing speed is rubbish.


And as for the righting moment curves that turn into a cliff at 'max'.....