Re: [Liveaboard] A SAFER WAY TO ANCHOR MANY MODERN BOATS IN A HURRICANE
Ben, Thanks for the report from Chesapeake City, which we have enjoyed a couple of times on trips through there... Glad you came through so well and hope for the best for all others on the list. Ed On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 3:20 AM, Ben Okopnik b...@okopnik.com wrote: Hi, Steve - On Tue, Oct 30, 2012 at 12:45:10PM -0400, SteveW wrote: Hey, Ben, how did you weather the storm? Your normal anchorage or did you move the boat to someplace else. I was very, very lucky: I've already started my cruise south, and was sitting in Chesapeake City (still there right now) when this happened. The eye went right over us, and... we got about 25kt gusting 35 - at least according to the Army Corps of Engineers weather station that's located about 500 yards from us. Their data is posted to NOAA/NDBC, and available real-time on the Net. All the heavy-duty stuff was to the NE of the eye. In any case, though, it wasn't the wind that did the damage - at the height of it, they were reporting 57mph gusting 72 at JFK; it was the water. Being at the top of these two bays, and in the middle of a canal, we only got about 3 feet extra. You guys got the whole buildup that came up the coast... that long fetch is just murder. By the same token, I suspect - although most of it is a SWAG and a prayer - that your boat is OK. Since all that stuff cam from the south, and you've got a big chunk of land in that direction, you just might have made out fine. That's certainly my big wish for you! We had been invited by a local family - a Coast Guard Auxiliary volunteer who is also a sailor - to spend the night at their place, about a block away from the boat, and took them up on it. Overall, it was the most peaceful hurricane passage, especially one that went right over. My crew now thinks of me as a minor (or perhaps a major) Deity, able to produce luxurious quarters out of thin air on a moment's notice... The phones are down in Long Island (not to mention power, trees, and general devastation) so I haven't a clue whether or not I still have a boat. YouTube has a number of videos of the area from Oyster Bay and Eaton's Neck; most of them don't look like anything bad. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KnL7MdX1vo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irTuttLlc44 Very cute little girl doing the reporter act :) - and showing the water (relatively calm) in OB: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1M5CaourkU Most violent thing I can find is an Eaton's Neck video, showing waves breaking on a bulkhead and spray shooting up about 10'. I'd estimate maybe 35kt gusting 50, no more than that. Another video from Kings Park Bluff at 11am shows 2'-3' seas in open water on Long Island Sound. At this point, first of all, we're stranded in Manhattan at home (bridges are closed and tunnels are flooded) and even if we could get to Queens I doubt the roads are clear out to the Island and Oyster Bay. It may well be a couple of days before I'm able to either connect with the yard and/or drive out to see what's what. Here's hoping for pleasant surprises! I've lived here my entire life, all 69 years of it, and never saw such a storm or destruction, especially here on Manhattan!!! 4' of water on 1st Avenue and 95th Street??? And in lower Manhattan, around the Battery, it's the first time since a major storm in the late 1800s where the Hudson and East Rivers actually met!!! Just to give you an idea, the measured storm surge for that storm was 11+ feet. Sandy's surge was 13+ feet!!! Just insane. I can only imagine what it will take for the recovery. Sheepshead Bay is just wiped out; all of the marinas there are totally destroyed. Coney Island beach looks like a junk pile, with tons of floating garbage left on it by the waves. Incredible. If you had access to a TV you would have seen water pouring down into the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel like it was coming off a spillway!! Just awful. Steve, all I can do is wish you guys the best of luck; all my hopes and prayers are with you. Ben -- OKOPNIK CONSULTING Custom Computing Solutions For Your Business Expert-led Training | Dynamic, vital websites | Custom programming 443-250-7895 http://okopnik.com http://twitter.com/okopnik ___ Liveaboard mailing list Liveaboard@liveaboardonline.com To adjust your membership settings over the web http://liveaboardonline.com/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to liveaboard-j...@liveaboardonline.com To unsubscribe send an email to liveaboard-le...@liveaboardonline.com The archives are at http://www.liveaboardonline.com/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/liveaboard@liveaboardnow.org The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html -- Ed Kelly sailing vessel ANGEL LOUISE - Catalac 12m Skype to
Re: [Liveaboard] A SAFER WAY TO ANCHOR MANY MODERN BOATS IN A HURRICANE
On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 01:57:05PM -0400, Philip wrote: The JSD is not a sea anchor. It is a drogue. Unlike a sea anchor (para anchor?) It yields to the seas instead of holding fast. This reduces the strain on fittings and allows the boat to become part of the wave action, not in opposition to it. Despite the (admittedly inaccurate) nomenclature, nothing - sea 'anchor' or otherwise - holds fast in the ocean except an actual anchor that is dug into the bottom. The distinction you draw owes much more to marketing than to reality; a large drogue will have more resistance than a small sea anchor, and vice versa, so it's really about the relative size of what you stream rather than its meaningless name. The sea anchor that I used in the first case was smaller than the recommended size for the boat - I was a relatively new sailor back then, and thought that too small was better than none at all (an idea that's got quite a number of failure modes built into it.) In the second case, the sea anchor was just slightly larger than recommended. The biggest difference, however, was that the first vessel, S/V Recessional, was an ocean racer with a fine, tapered stern with very little buoyancy and with a displacement of 4.5 tons with an LOA of 34', while the second, S/V Ulysses, was a motorsailor with a very large, high stern with tremendous buoyancy and more than twice the displacement for the same length. Recessional was a racehorse; Ulysses was a bit of a lumbering bear, a floating home with sails (steady enough at anchor that my ex baked a carrot cake - grated the carrots, etc. - during a 45kt storm that stalled over us, while other people in the same harbor were getting thrown around hard enough to cause bruises.) In both cases, however, the boats found their best position on a Pardey rig; for Recessional, I found this out when anchored in a wind across current situation. Rigging an actual anchor that rode on that rig put us at a very comfortable angle that greatly reduced the rolling. I have very little doubt that it would have worked the same way if I had rigged the sea anchor on it. Perhaps the biggest lesson here is that you have to be aware of your vessel's configuration and make decisions based on that as well as all the other info you have rather than just having a religious faith in a gadget of whatever sort. It's all just tools; you, the skipper, are supposed to be the brain that decides on their proper use and configuration, regardless of what they're called. Ben -- OKOPNIK CONSULTING Custom Computing Solutions For Your Business Expert-led Training | Dynamic, vital websites | Custom programming 443-250-7895 http://okopnik.com http://twitter.com/okopnik ___ Liveaboard mailing list Liveaboard@liveaboardonline.com To adjust your membership settings over the web http://liveaboardonline.com/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to liveaboard-j...@liveaboardonline.com To unsubscribe send an email to liveaboard-le...@liveaboardonline.com The archives are at http://www.liveaboardonline.com/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/liveaboard@liveaboardnow.org The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
Re: [Liveaboard] A SAFER WAY TO ANCHOR MANY MODERN BOATS IN A HURRICANE
Hey, Ben, how did you weather the storm? Your normal anchorage or did you move the boat to someplace else. The phones are down in Long Island (not to mention power, trees, and general devastation) so I haven't a clue whether or not I still have a boat. I saw something late last night on one of the coverage's which showed 90+ gusts at Eaton's Neck which is right next to Oyster Bay. At this point, first of all, we're stranded in Manhattan at home (bridges are closed and tunnels are flooded) and even if we could get to Queens I doubt the roads are clear out to the Island and Oyster Bay. It may well be a couple of days before I'm able to either connect with the yard and/or drive out to see what's what. I've lived here my entire life, all 69 years of it, and never saw such a storm or destruction, especially here on Manhattan!!! 4' of water on 1st Avenue and 95th Street??? And in lower Manhattan, around the Battery, it's the first time since a major storm in the late 1800s where the Hudson and East Rivers actually met!!! Just to give you an idea, the measured storm surge for that storm was 11+ feet. Sandy's surge was 13+ feet!!! If you had access to a TV you would have seen water pouring down into the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel like it was coming off a spillway!! S Steve Weinstein S/V CAPTIVA 1997 Hunter 376, Hull #376 Sailing out of Oyster Bay, NY All outgoing mail protected by VIPRE A/V -Original Message- From: Ben Okopnik Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2012 11:34 AM To: liveaboard@liveaboardonline.com Subject: Re: [Liveaboard] A SAFER WAY TO ANCHOR MANY MODERN BOATS IN A HURRICANE On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 01:57:05PM -0400, Philip wrote: The JSD is not a sea anchor. It is a drogue. Unlike a sea anchor (para anchor?) It yields to the seas instead of holding fast. This reduces the strain on fittings and allows the boat to become part of the wave action, not in opposition to it. Despite the (admittedly inaccurate) nomenclature, nothing - sea 'anchor' or otherwise - holds fast in the ocean except an actual anchor that is dug into the bottom. The distinction you draw owes much more to marketing than to reality; a large drogue will have more resistance than a small sea anchor, and vice versa, so it's really about the relative size of what you stream rather than its meaningless name. The sea anchor that I used in the first case was smaller than the recommended size for the boat - I was a relatively new sailor back then, and thought that too small was better than none at all (an idea that's got quite a number of failure modes built into it.) In the second case, the sea anchor was just slightly larger than recommended. The biggest difference, however, was that the first vessel, S/V Recessional, was an ocean racer with a fine, tapered stern with very little buoyancy and with a displacement of 4.5 tons with an LOA of 34', while the second, S/V Ulysses, was a motorsailor with a very large, high stern with tremendous buoyancy and more than twice the displacement for the same length. Recessional was a racehorse; Ulysses was a bit of a lumbering bear, a floating home with sails (steady enough at anchor that my ex baked a carrot cake - grated the carrots, etc. - during a 45kt storm that stalled over us, while other people in the same harbor were getting thrown around hard enough to cause bruises.) In both cases, however, the boats found their best position on a Pardey rig; for Recessional, I found this out when anchored in a wind across current situation. Rigging an actual anchor that rode on that rig put us at a very comfortable angle that greatly reduced the rolling. I have very little doubt that it would have worked the same way if I had rigged the sea anchor on it. Perhaps the biggest lesson here is that you have to be aware of your vessel's configuration and make decisions based on that as well as all the other info you have rather than just having a religious faith in a gadget of whatever sort. It's all just tools; you, the skipper, are supposed to be the brain that decides on their proper use and configuration, regardless of what they're called. Ben -- OKOPNIK CONSULTING Custom Computing Solutions For Your Business Expert-led Training | Dynamic, vital websites | Custom programming 443-250-7895 http://okopnik.com http://twitter.com/okopnik ___ Liveaboard mailing list Liveaboard@liveaboardonline.com To adjust your membership settings over the web http://liveaboardonline.com/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to liveaboard-j...@liveaboardonline.com To unsubscribe send an email to liveaboard-le...@liveaboardonline.com The archives are at http://www.liveaboardonline.com/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/liveaboard@liveaboardnow.org The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
Re: [Liveaboard] A SAFER WAY TO ANCHOR MANY MODERN BOATS IN A HURRICANE
Hi, Steve - On Tue, Oct 30, 2012 at 12:45:10PM -0400, SteveW wrote: Hey, Ben, how did you weather the storm? Your normal anchorage or did you move the boat to someplace else. I was very, very lucky: I've already started my cruise south, and was sitting in Chesapeake City (still there right now) when this happened. The eye went right over us, and... we got about 25kt gusting 35 - at least according to the Army Corps of Engineers weather station that's located about 500 yards from us. Their data is posted to NOAA/NDBC, and available real-time on the Net. All the heavy-duty stuff was to the NE of the eye. In any case, though, it wasn't the wind that did the damage - at the height of it, they were reporting 57mph gusting 72 at JFK; it was the water. Being at the top of these two bays, and in the middle of a canal, we only got about 3 feet extra. You guys got the whole buildup that came up the coast... that long fetch is just murder. By the same token, I suspect - although most of it is a SWAG and a prayer - that your boat is OK. Since all that stuff cam from the south, and you've got a big chunk of land in that direction, you just might have made out fine. That's certainly my big wish for you! We had been invited by a local family - a Coast Guard Auxiliary volunteer who is also a sailor - to spend the night at their place, about a block away from the boat, and took them up on it. Overall, it was the most peaceful hurricane passage, especially one that went right over. My crew now thinks of me as a minor (or perhaps a major) Deity, able to produce luxurious quarters out of thin air on a moment's notice... The phones are down in Long Island (not to mention power, trees, and general devastation) so I haven't a clue whether or not I still have a boat. YouTube has a number of videos of the area from Oyster Bay and Eaton's Neck; most of them don't look like anything bad. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KnL7MdX1vo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irTuttLlc44 Very cute little girl doing the reporter act :) - and showing the water (relatively calm) in OB: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1M5CaourkU Most violent thing I can find is an Eaton's Neck video, showing waves breaking on a bulkhead and spray shooting up about 10'. I'd estimate maybe 35kt gusting 50, no more than that. Another video from Kings Park Bluff at 11am shows 2'-3' seas in open water on Long Island Sound. At this point, first of all, we're stranded in Manhattan at home (bridges are closed and tunnels are flooded) and even if we could get to Queens I doubt the roads are clear out to the Island and Oyster Bay. It may well be a couple of days before I'm able to either connect with the yard and/or drive out to see what's what. Here's hoping for pleasant surprises! I've lived here my entire life, all 69 years of it, and never saw such a storm or destruction, especially here on Manhattan!!! 4' of water on 1st Avenue and 95th Street??? And in lower Manhattan, around the Battery, it's the first time since a major storm in the late 1800s where the Hudson and East Rivers actually met!!! Just to give you an idea, the measured storm surge for that storm was 11+ feet. Sandy's surge was 13+ feet!!! Just insane. I can only imagine what it will take for the recovery. Sheepshead Bay is just wiped out; all of the marinas there are totally destroyed. Coney Island beach looks like a junk pile, with tons of floating garbage left on it by the waves. Incredible. If you had access to a TV you would have seen water pouring down into the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel like it was coming off a spillway!! Just awful. Steve, all I can do is wish you guys the best of luck; all my hopes and prayers are with you. Ben -- OKOPNIK CONSULTING Custom Computing Solutions For Your Business Expert-led Training | Dynamic, vital websites | Custom programming 443-250-7895 http://okopnik.com http://twitter.com/okopnik ___ Liveaboard mailing list Liveaboard@liveaboardonline.com To adjust your membership settings over the web http://liveaboardonline.com/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to liveaboard-j...@liveaboardonline.com To unsubscribe send an email to liveaboard-le...@liveaboardonline.com The archives are at http://www.liveaboardonline.com/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/liveaboard@liveaboardnow.org The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
Re: [Liveaboard] A SAFER WAY TO ANCHOR MANY MODERN BOATS IN A HURRICANE
Ben list, Our experience in the use of the Jordan Series Drogue at sea came between the Azores and Falmouth England and showed its operation to be similar to the old time practice of trailing warps and running. We slowed from 7.6 knots on bare poles to .45 knots during the next 26 hours in 20 foot seas and winds just over 40 knots. (We used a 150 mini parachutes drogue we made using a Sailrite kit and 300 feet of 3/4 Goldbraid), all fixed to the boat stern with a bridle at special attachment points. When we talked to Don Jordan prior to building it, he echoed your caution on the attachment points. We installed two tangs at the back corners of our boat with backing plates of steel and marine plywood in our boat (I believe we could lift the boat from the stern with them - in a survival storm they would get terrific loads). There is a more complete discussion of this and real stories in the sidebar at www.jordanseriesdrogue.com It's a good read. The article and physics lesson on stern anchoring is there, along with stories on loss of many boats in survival storms. We have attended the Pardey's excellent heavy weather seminar and studied their experiences via their writing. The use of the sea anchor from the port or starboard quarter with a bridle - turning to take the sea at an angle - also negates the unstable wind load / center of loading problems of the mast that cause problems when taking the loads dead on at the bow, which the Jordan article discusses in discussing the benefits of anchoring on moorings stern to with an adequate bridle. Probably it would be better anchoring to a mooring for a hurricane force wind over one of the front quarters as Ben describes using his bridle the sea anchor than fixing the bow to the mooring. It might also provide the freedom from chafe and instability of sailing at anchor that higher winds cause. Interesting physics comparison. Ed On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 1:01 AM, Ben Okopnik b...@okopnik.com wrote: On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 12:08:23AM +0300, Ed Kelly wrote: Jordan's work discovered many boats could more easily survive a hurricane if they were anchored with a bridle in a STERN TO position in a hurricane.═ A note from personal experience: fairly early in my cruising career, I deployed a sea anchor off the stern of my boat, S/V Recessional, in a gale off the east coast of the Dominican Republic. Within 30 seconds, it almost sunk my boat by holding the (admittedly fine) stern down to the oncoming seas; the following wave immediately filled my cockpit to the brim, and if it had been any larger, we would have gone done instantly. I managed to slash the bridle away before the next wave, and I am utterly certain that had I not done that, we'd have gone down in seconds: the next wave would have stove in the main companion boards. (No, the sea anchor was not oversized for the boat.) Some years later, I deployed a sea anchor in a strong NW winter gale in the Gulf Stream, on a roller running on a stem to stern bridle, the way the Pardeys recommend. The boat I was on, S/V Ulysses, slid around to a comfortable position - taking the seas ~40 degrees off the bow, as I recall - and stayed that way for the two days that it took the weather to ease. These were two completely different boats, but whether it's just a personal preference or otherwise, I find that I'm very hesitant to recommend deploying a sea anchor off the stern without a sharp knife close at hand. If you do own one and plan to head out to sea with it, I'd strongly recommend testing it in calmer weather just to familiarize yourself with it. (N.B. If you do not have a cleat or another securing point aboard your boat which you can trust to hold at least a couple of tons, you have no business taking that boat to sea; one each fore and aft if you wish to use the Pardey technique. Check you friendly nearby horizontal anchor loads table for why this might be important. :) Ben -- OKOPNIK CONSULTING Custom Computing Solutions For Your Business Expert-led Training | Dynamic, vital websites | Custom programming 443-250-7895 http://okopnik.com http://twitter.com/okopnik ___ Liveaboard mailing list Liveaboard@liveaboardonline.com To adjust your membership settings over the web http://liveaboardonline.com/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to liveaboard-j...@liveaboardonline.com To unsubscribe send an email to liveaboard-le...@liveaboardonline.com The archives are at http://www.liveaboardonline.com/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/liveaboard@liveaboardnow.org The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html -- Ed Kelly sailing vessel ANGEL LOUISE - Catalac 12m Skype to AttyEdKelly or Skype-in phone: 202-657-6357 attyedke...@gmail.com
Re: [Liveaboard] A SAFER WAY TO ANCHOR MANY MODERN BOATS IN A HURRICANE
On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 12:08:23AM +0300, Ed Kelly wrote: Jordan's work discovered many boats could more easily survive a hurricane if they were anchored with a bridle in a STERN TO position in a hurricane.═ A note from personal experience: fairly early in my cruising career, I deployed a sea anchor off the stern of my boat, S/V Recessional, in a gale off the east coast of the Dominican Republic. Within 30 seconds, it almost sunk my boat by holding the (admittedly fine) stern down to the oncoming seas; the following wave immediately filled my cockpit to the brim, and if it had been any larger, we would have gone done instantly. I managed to slash the bridle away before the next wave, and I am utterly certain that had I not done that, we'd have gone down in seconds: the next wave would have stove in the main companion boards. (No, the sea anchor was not oversized for the boat.) Some years later, I deployed a sea anchor in a strong NW winter gale in the Gulf Stream, on a roller running on a stem to stern bridle, the way the Pardeys recommend. The boat I was on, S/V Ulysses, slid around to a comfortable position - taking the seas ~40 degrees off the bow, as I recall - and stayed that way for the two days that it took the weather to ease. These were two completely different boats, but whether it's just a personal preference or otherwise, I find that I'm very hesitant to recommend deploying a sea anchor off the stern without a sharp knife close at hand. If you do own one and plan to head out to sea with it, I'd strongly recommend testing it in calmer weather just to familiarize yourself with it. (N.B. If you do not have a cleat or another securing point aboard your boat which you can trust to hold at least a couple of tons, you have no business taking that boat to sea; one each fore and aft if you wish to use the Pardey technique. Check you friendly nearby horizontal anchor loads table for why this might be important. :) Ben -- OKOPNIK CONSULTING Custom Computing Solutions For Your Business Expert-led Training | Dynamic, vital websites | Custom programming 443-250-7895 http://okopnik.com http://twitter.com/okopnik ___ Liveaboard mailing list Liveaboard@liveaboardonline.com To adjust your membership settings over the web http://liveaboardonline.com/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to liveaboard-j...@liveaboardonline.com To unsubscribe send an email to liveaboard-le...@liveaboardonline.com The archives are at http://www.liveaboardonline.com/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/liveaboard@liveaboardnow.org The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
