More 38-200 installation pics (storm sails, solar/wind, radar, monitor self steering)

[bgary]

Just My Humble Opinion (tm)

I think it is incumbent upon someone heading offshore to have options in their armamentarium

IMO, this is the key - a well-prepared offshore sailor has thought through the possibilities he/she might encounter, and has a plan-A, a plan-B and more. If when the situation occurs, no matter what it is (sudden squall, unavoidable front, engine dies, rig fails, whatever), the best option is picked from the catalog of pre-considered options and put into play.... with the others kept handy as backups.

Hesitating to sound judgmental, but... if an offshore sailor finds himself "needing" to rig storm sails in survival conditions, it's probably because he's ignored all the clues that would have allowed him to take proacctive measures, and resultingly has put himself in a position where most of the "good" options are no longer available. That's a good position to avoid, if at all possible.

 

[Christian Williams]

Let's go here to continue this offshoot, rather than hijack Ryan's interesting thread.

 

[bfaatz]

Solent Deck Mount

Congratulations on your great solent stay installation. Would you mind posting a picture (or comment) on how the deck mount is reinforced? My rigger's solution is a Wichard double-D backed by a stainless plate that's about 7" fore and afft and reaches out to the hull/deck joint. Did you do something like that, or did you run a wire to a mount on the stem?

 

[Joliba]

I'm sure Ryan will reply to your questions eventually. To my knowledge he is spending several weeks along the northern side of Hiva Oa, near Hanaiapa, where Internet connection is difficult at best.

 

[Joliba]

If Ryan cannot reply in a timely manner, you may try to contact Pacific Offshore Rigging, http://www.pacificoffshorerigging.com/. I know that they were a tremendous help to Ryan and Nicole in San Diego and are familiar with Naoma's rig.

 

[Ryan L]

Congratulations on your great solent stay installation. Would you mind posting a picture (or comment) on how the deck mount is reinforced? My rigger's solution is a Wichard double-D backed by a stainless plate that's about 7" fore and afft and reaches out to the hull/deck joint. Did you do something like that, or did you run a wire to a mount on the stem?

Sorry for the delayed reply, as Mike (Joliba) wrote we did have have internet access the past eight weeks. We used a Wichard doube-D (like you describe) but with a much different backing than you describe. Rather than a stainless plate we used a piece of G10 that was tabbed/glassed in place. It's permanent but stronger as it becomes part of the boat. Plus there are no potential issues with corrosion as a metal backing plate might have if salt water were to reach it. One of the bolts holding the D-rings has an eye-nut. There is another eye-nut on one of the bolts securing the lower part of the stem fitting. We have spectra loops through each of those eye-nuts. There is a turnbuckle between the loops.

To summarize, the D-rings are backed by a G10 plate that is glassed and tabbed into the hull. The D-rings are further backed by a spectra/turnbuckle "stay" running between the bolts holding the D-rings and the lower stem fitting on our bow.

So far there is no obvious evidence of any unusual stress or damage even after about 300 miles of extremely hard upwind sailing in 30+ knots and rough seas, all done on a staysail.

I hope this helps! We don't have a good enough connection to send images now but I can try later if it improves.

Ryan
SV Naoma
Atuona, Hiva Oa, Marquesas Islands

 

[bfaatz]

Thanks Ryan. The eye nuts and turnbuckle should be an easy addition, so I'll give that at try. The backing plate is bedded in thickened epoxy to fill in the crown under the deck, but tying it to the stem will guarantee no flexing. I'm glad to hear your stay is serving you so well.

 

[Ryan L]

There is an argument against storm jibs, storm trysails, short stays and all of it, which I think always ought to be part of the conversation.

In my (limited) experience, shorthanded crews will have trouble rigging any of it.

If you can sail, reefed sails work well. In a real storm, sailing stops and survival commences--probably running off dead downwind with a series drogue.

It is exceptionally hard to rig and control any sails in a gale. A passing front may appear with 40 knots and little notice, and digging out a storm trysail will be problematic.

In Force 10 with big seas and a crew of nine on deck, we had a difficult time rigging a storm trysail. It took hours, at night. And the guys were supermen.

It can be argued that a cruising boat should stick with easy rig. Sails will likely be furled in survival conditions, or a scrap of jib or very deep mainsail reef.

Skip Novak is persuasive on the topic, at least to me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P66FPQhRwy8

I'm not sure how a "passing front" can "appear with 40 knots and little notice" as it is relatively easy these days to track approaching fronts for days in advance, even without internet access. If you're talking about areas with lots of strong squalls then I agree you can experience 40+ knots with little notice but it's also relatively easy to know when you're heading into a region where that's likely to happen and thus prepare in advance. I'm not disagreeing with Novak, I'm just stating that in the areas most people are cruising (ie coastal and/or trade wind passages) in 2016 with some basic communications gear, basic weather knowledge, and reasonable diligence it is highly unlikely to unexpectedly encounter significantly adverse weather. In other words, there is plenty of time to set trysail and storm jib (or working jib). We find it is relatively easy to set those sails but obviously that is a function of how the boat is rigged and experience of the crew. In our experience a deeply reefed main and deeply furled jib do not offer much performance at all, especially compared to a trysail and small jib, and can be damaging to the sails. If you're just bombing downwind for a short time then maybe the deeply reefed option would be adequate but if you're sailing upwind or reaching for many hours to days then in our experience the deeply reefed option doesn't work well enough to be viable. We spent about 4 days sailing close hauled in moderate seas in winds reaching mid 30's and tried many sail combinations. By far the magic combination for our E38-200 was a working jib on a solent with a trysail. This is true even though we have a laminated North Sails genoa with foam luff (holds shape well and designed to be reefed) plus a radial cut North Sails mainsail that is less than 2 years old with deep reef points. Our working jib, storm jib, and trysail are off-the-shelf North Sails products and have proven to be extremely well built with excellent performance.

In a worst case scenario if you're caught in a "passing front" with strong winds it's easy to heave-to and wait for it to pass!

By the way, I haven't been in true "survival conditions" but I tend to respectfully disagree that in boats like ours the best option when caught in those conditions is to run downwind with a series drogue. Even in moderate conditions we find way too much water gets dumped into the cockpit from waves and water is often forced up the exhaust thus flooding the engine (assuming you don't have a way to seal it). Plus you loose a lot of ground, end up prolonging the time spent in the bad weather, and the boat rolls miserably. I'm a fan of heave-to under sea anchor (per Lin and Larry). If you haven't tried that I suggest doing so. The first time we did we were stunned how effective it proved to be although it does take practice to get the gear set correctly under bad conditions.

 

[Ryan L]

Just realized I re-hijacked my own thread! Oops, sorry. Thanks Christian for pointing that out a few posts earlier... We got internet for the first time in a while and I got ahead of myself. Sail on!