Seaworthiness

But if the use is not specified...ie. who the targeted buyer is, what his experience might be, where he might go and what he might encounter, what the boats use is, then the discussion is moot. Giullermo might as well complain that there is no storage for a wheellbarrow on board the Pogo, so it is not a proper cruising boat. It is not a lake dinghy either but that doesn't qualify it for criticism yet, unless somebody was implying that that is what it is for.
I am sure he has an idea of how the boat may encounter some of the danger he has outlined, but he has not shared that idea with us. Personnally I don't see them encountering this situation enough to put limits on the marketing of them. But it sounds as if Guillermo has studied the effect of a stalled boat in big waves and if he wishes to use the Pogo as a test case I think it is a great idea. Just outline the test case so the results are vaguely valid, or at least solid enough evidence to make me pay closer attention to the potental dangers there.
I am not talking about a scholarly paper here.(I probably wouldn't understand most of that anyway) Just some good clear communication that we can all put to use.

 

It's fair, DGreenwood. I'm too busy these days, but I'll come back as soon as possible and try to post something more claryfying. By the way, do you know we do not have an 'unique word' translation for 'seaworthiness' in spanish? It can be commonly translated as 'cualidades marineras'. The direct translation of 'aptitud para la mar' is not used. (And yes, it takes a lot of effort and time for me to express my thoughts in english.)

PI Design, you've got my point, thanks.

For the sake of fairness, I'd also appreciate if for the forthcoming debates everybody participating here identifies him/herself with full name, formation, experience and what they do for a living. Also some previous reading of at least some basic divulgative books on everybody's side, as the multi-mentioned 'Seaworthiness, the forgotten factor' and 'Principles of Yacht Design' would be very helpful and time and efforts saving. A good base to begin debating again.

Cheers.

 

correction

That makes a little more sense...

 

But multis can capsize, don't turn up, and people die...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/li...ews.html?in_article_id=437932&in_page_id=1811

Interesting from there, not only to multis:
"...They and their skipper, Steve Hobley, were 200 miles east of Bermuda on Monday evening when the storm hit with 40ft waves and winds of 65mph....

....The trio were delivering the boat from France, via Madeira, to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and had no idea the storm would be so savage.
'There was one exceptional wave. Just as the boat came up, the crest of the wave broke. It just flipped the boat over,' ....

...Paying tribute to Mr Hobley, who was in his 50s, Mr Klinges said: 'He was an extremely competent sailor..... "

Cheers.

 

As a general rule, Guillermo, it's probably best to not quote the Daily Mail if you want to preserve a shred of credibility. There is only a slight chance that any facts in the report are actually true. Their sole mission in life is the make the population of the UK as fearful of just about everything as is possible. Seems like they now want to include multihulls in their repertoire of 'things to worry about'.

However, this report is unusual for a Daily Mail article. Apparently the cause of the catamarans troubles was large waves and high winds. In every other story they cover, the cause of the problem is always either Tony Blair or bogus illegal political asylum seekers.

 

How many hours does of what sustained wind speed over what fetch does it take to generate 40 ft waves?

Take the answer to that and try to reconcile it with "had no idea ..."

Contrary to what seems to be popular belief, 65 knot winds and 40 foot waves don't appear out of nowhere. Makes a great story for a tabloid though.

 

Eh? what was that? Tony Blair is the reason for catamaran problems?

I thought that it was that in the norther hemisphere the port side hull always goes down first.

 

Well, I was not thinking of posting here anymore, but I have read something that I thought that should be posted here. It is the Editor´s column of Bluewater Sailing Magazine, March 2007. It is about choosing a bluewater boat and it is pure good sense, and good sense is something that hasn't been much around in this thread.

 

Me neither, and maybe not the right thread, but I started to think about seaworthiness and safety, and what are the risks in boating. I didn't find any statistics for sailing crafts but for the Norwegian local fishing fleet.

From
http://www.teknofisk.no/images/news...åten_resultater fase II - SINTEF RAPPORT.pdf

In the 20 years from 1985 to 2005:
vessel breakdown, capsize etc (84 dead)
man overboard (64 dead)
drowning in harbour(!) (52 dead)
working accidents, hits/squeezes (21 dead)
fire/gases (4)

I assume that sailing yachts are safer than fishing vessels regarding capsize, break down and working accidents. So falling overboard on sea or in harbour is still the most realistic danger in boating.

 

Yeah, I think that's highest of all boating related risks, getting back to the boat, (if you can find her), coming from the pub late in the night.

 

Most of the people drowning in Norway are men, age 40+, the zip open, alcohol in the blood...

 

Ragnar
That's why we could do with some detailed data harvesting, SOLAS is very efficient and effective at saving life after vessels have foundered but I think it skews the statistics too much to use as an indicator of vessel suitability.


Randy
In areas where the swell is often large, a gale produces almost instantly a very dangerous sea state, particulalry when the wind re-inforces the swell. The wind energy is disproportionate concentrating on the crests and can turn a large benign swell into a breaking system considerably faster than the graphs of sea state and wave height indicate. That is usually where the "instant" storm seas come from.


cheers

 

New Poster

Hi guys, just what you need a new voice.

I have read the posts from the start and considered them to be valuable. I think this has all been healthy even though there is frustrations here and there. All posting here
have valid positions and make good points. I have made a net gain from reading them, There are probably many others who are benefiting also. I hope you will see my remarks as valuable also.
The most recent posts seem to be bringing this to harvest time and some fruit should be dropping.

I make some points here with NO order of importance:


1. I say Mikejohns comments are quite valid re: NA, ME. I am an engineer with structures and materials background. And I work with very senior physicists and engineers with little sailing experience. I started racing in 1970 SORC, plenty of offshore experience since then. I take my guys sailing, and I am always impressed with their ability to quite easily come to speed on concepts which I consider pretty heady. In moments we are having discussion on higher levels than I ever did with the old crews and most of the new guys alike. Presently, I am a Race Chairman, so I get to talk with lots of very experienced racers including some who will be doing the Transpac this year, which I will start. I get to hear a lot of “less than scientific” talk from people sailing some of the fastest boats built. It can be frustrating. On the other hand, my guys will be talking Navier-Stokes equations within minutes, while I end up trimming jib, which is what they should be doing. I don’t complain, I have learned things from them even with my respectable technical background and experience combined. Smart guys pick up surprisingly fast, surround yourself with them.

2. Someone said we all are biased, and subjective. Right, so am I. I own 2 early 70’s 41 and 46 ft. race boats and love them; beefy hulls, cute butts, Barients everywhere, very high static curves, skeg rudders (upgraded). I like how they sail upwind in well developed sea, and I don’t overpower then off the wind. When I go up, they don’t lift their rudders, or bury their bows. They are displacement hulls and don’t pound, and they look good, (to me). Personally I think these boats are at the top of the curve for safety, speed and comfort combined. I would guess they could handle a container quite easily. My 41 spent 6 hours in the surf in Maui, pulled off by a cutter and was sailed away with a minor kink in the rudder shaft. The new breed is painful for me to look at. If speed is so important that I have to get it with something so hideous looking, then I should just be driving jet skies and play station. You can tell I am lost in the 70’s. That’s me. In the 70’s I would get fever walking down the docks looking at Running Tide, Sorcery, Passage……..Yep, I have my reasons. If the newbies get fever with the tea cups fine, I have no problem. We were talking design seaworthiness to start, and the jury is out I say. There is not enough data in for the really stressing cases.

3. Guillermo’s concerns are quite reasonable and no amount of speculation will replace data, which will accumulate as these boats log miles. However, I can say that any boat which requires the crew or driver especially to be on top of their game to keep the boat from harm is not good. Although I sailed with bulletproof crews in the 70’s, I was on one race where we took 2 knockdowns at 2 AM with sky so black the only illumination of the breaking crests was the lightning overhead. In all of this, none of us feared anything until we realized only 4 of us remaining out of 11 crew were still functional. We were tired and getting punchy. This was on a distance race where everyone starts. Out of 120 entries, I think there were 30 DNF’s, lots of broken gear and at least one helicopter rescue. Boats on passages will get caught and hammered. You can’t think you can avoid it every time. I have been hammered in the tropics by quick 60 knot squalls where rain stings and the falling ice cold air chills you past shivering into quaking where I started to loose mental ability to think. It happens. It is a good thing when you have no question that the boat is tougher than you. To keep complications down we cruise with less people, maybe just one other person, so we are already down on crew. These teacups that are out there now, let someone else give me their report if they survive. If they do and the boat too, then great, I will take the battlewagon approach. Fast enough and very tough. My 41 weighs 18500 lb, my 46 weighs 32000, there is a noticeable difference in motion considering they are similar designs. Smaller boats will have to take more risk with time windows and need more cautions on crossings but they will do fine, most of the time, however they will have their stories to tell, no one is going to sail for years with out taking a few lumps. But if you get injured it’s a different story. I jump around on a boat like mountain goat, but 15 years ago, I slipped after landing square and was in a cast for 6 weeks. To this day I can’t figure how it happened.

4. The new boats out there are nothing new to designers. The new breed are just large ballasted dinghies which people are brave enough to take out to sea. The fine long bows and zero dead rise stern was seen decades ago (in protected waters and then hauled on to trailers behind cars). The design now is all to keep the hull from getting locked into a gravity wave. Overhangs are gone and now you get to pierce the oncoming wave with 2 feet of green water over the deck. Wow, just what a cruiser wants. After enough punishment you then crack off and of course you have to power down with a huge slab reef in a boom almost as long as the boat. Now what about that lee shore? And when you below it sounds like inside a cement mixer, however your crash helmet will attenuate some of that noise. And when you try to get some rest you can be serenaded by pounding from the “pounding section” which starts on a 1-foot chop. When you go to the head to take a leak, don’t aim, won’t matter anyway. And then the galley… These are all things the cruiser will love I’m sure. I can say this, Every time I had to make the painful crossing from the Bahamas back to Florida, (painful meaning the fun was over) I wished the boat was just a little slower, the sight of land was painful. Actually I don’t wish the boat were slower. My point is that reasonable speed which is attainable by most boats is plenty fast to do crossings with reasonable care and preparation. Why cruising people need more speed and more concentration and risk is to me as silly as someone who will work an extra 20 hours a week out of his precious spare time just to own a more expensive car.
A seaworthy design is debatable, but I think the nuggets are what we are after. I have my list, others have theirs If people would like to compose their weighted lists and post, I would like to see that and we could average them.


Thanks


KEV

 

Mike,

I've gone looking for data to support that idea on more than one occasion, mostly from looking at historical data from weather buoys. I can't remember finding a data set that showed waves very far out of proportion to wind speed that developed anything like "almost instantly". Granted, storm strength surface winds can arise quickly from local "mini systems" like thunderstorms. However, these systems are usually short lived (about 45-60 minutes). They are also relatively easy to identify from cloud formations. Ocean racers seek the squalls, since modern boats can use high wind speeds to advantage. If ocean racers can actively seek these systems, it seems to me that the cruising sailor can also avoid them if they wish.

Kev,

Welcome to the thread.

I've had green water over the bow on a 300+ D/L boat more than once. A 80-90 D/L boat would have been surfing in those conditions and no wetter.

As far as a lee shore goes, the cruising version of the Pogo 40 sails 36.8 deg off the wind @ 8.05 knots in 35 knots true wind for a VMG of 6.44 knots. I'll venture to say that many 40 footers cannot do as well. I was quite surprised to find the boats so weatherly. Until I had more information I assumed they were only fast off the wind. Compare the numbers for a Farr 40 (30 knots True Wind): 43.4 deg, 7.33 knots boat speed, 5.33 knots VMG. I'd rather have the Pogo if I have to claw off a lee shore.

 

And waves can even go faster than the wind:
http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/ocng_textbook/chapter16/chapter16_04.htm
Cheers.