Re: More Water Ballast

Geez guys, come on.

I've lived and sailed my Catfisher catamaran here in and around San
Francisco Bay for six years. I've sailed her with full main and genoa
across the slot in 25 knots of wind and felt just as safe as doing
the same trip in my old Columbia 45 with 12000 lbs of ballast
attached
to the bottom of the boat.

No, that's not right. If I were hit by a sixty knot gust and didn't
have time to spin the wheel to head upwind or yank the mainsheet out
of it's cam cleat and then became the first of 56 production
Catfishers to flip in 30 years of world wide cruising, then while my
boat would probably be pretty messed up I'm pretty sure the Coasties
would have no trouble rescuing me.

I have a friend who lost his 1995 Morgan 45 "Painkiller" in the
Caribbean a couple of years ago when he hit a partially submerged
container. The modern, high tech and very well equiped Morgan filled
up and sank in 10 minutes. I also had a neighbor who lost his big
sailboat when he hit a partially sunk fishing trawler off Monterey
about ten years ago. He just had time to get his wife and their dog
into the liferaft. He said he had just enough time to cut the line to
keep his 55 footer from pulling the liferaft under too. And a lot of
monohulls have sunk at their docks because old through-hull fittings
failed or a bilgepump couldn't keep up with a leaking packing gland
or the seams sprung a leak on an old woodie (this happened to another
neighbor just this summer, just got a very stiff fine from the
Coasties for having to clean up the spilled diesel).

I think many, many more boats sink because they hit things;
containers, REEFS, whales, etc, then because they get "blown over".
And while I might get some wet carpeting and need some fiberglass
repair, I don't think any of these things are going to sink a well
made modern catamaran.

And comparing a Hobie to a Seawind 1000 or Gemini 3200 etc is like
comparing a Teal to Moccasin.

Peter

----------------------------------------------------------------------

> Actually, some people in the boat design business place high value

on model

> tests.
>
> The Hobie doesn't have the initial stability of a larger boat in

terms of

> torque, but it also wasn't meeting significant waves in the

Intercoastal

> Waterway, nor did the winds compare to those such as are found at

40 degrees

> South. (I've been reading Jack Aubrey again.)
>
> The problem is not the initial stability, it is the failure mode

and the

> probability of a graceful recovery. To capsize five times in one

race, you

> must have been able to get back up fairly fast with little damage

or the

> committee boat would have gone home long before you finished.
>
> Dismasting can be an advantage. The first significant sail boat I

crewed on

> had been dismasted at least twice in Tri-State races at the south

end of

> Lake Michigan,

> again.
>
> Roger
> derbyrm at starband.net
>http://derbyrm.mystarband.net
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <fountainb@s...>
>
> > Roger Derby wrote:
> > > One memorable day in Daytona Beach we watched a Hobie cat
> > > pitch-pole down the Halifax.
> >
> > That is a bit like saying monohulls are unstable because I
> > once flipped my laser 5 times in one race. A Hobie is no
> > indicator of the behaviour of a large cruising cat.
> >
> > If That's good. A 34' sloop with 4800 lbs of iron in her keel,
> she'd have sunk otherwise.
>
> Monohulls are unstable. So what? If well designed, they live to

swim
we are talking large (say 37ft+) cats with cruising rigs, then

> > I think you will find that capsizes are extremely rare. Demasting
> > is more of a problem.

Actually, some people in the boat design business place high value on model
tests.

The Hobie doesn't have the initial stability of a larger boat in terms of
torque, but it also wasn't meeting significant waves in the Intercoastal
Waterway, nor did the winds compare to those such as are found at 40 degrees
South. (I've been reading Jack Aubrey again.)

The problem is not the initial stability, it is the failure mode and the
probability of a graceful recovery. To capsize five times in one race, you
must have been able to get back up fairly fast with little damage or the
committee boat would have gone home long before you finished.

Dismasting can be an advantage. The first significant sail boat I crewed on
had been dismasted at least twice in Tri-State races at the south end of
Lake Michigan. That's good. A 34' sloop with 4800 lbs of iron in her keel,
she'd have sunk otherwise.

Monohulls are unstable. So what? If well designed, they live to swim
again.

Roger
derbyrm at starband.net
http://derbyrm.mystarband.net

----- Original Message -----
From: <fountainb@...>

> Roger Derby wrote:
> > One memorable day in Daytona Beach we watched a Hobie cat
> > pitch-pole down the Halifax.
>
> That is a bit like saying monohulls are unstable because I
> once flipped my laser 5 times in one race. A Hobie is no
> indicator of the behaviour of a large cruising cat.
>
> If we are talking large (say 37ft+) cats with cruising rigs, then
> I think you will find that capsizes are extremely rare. Demasting
> is more of a problem.

Roger Derby wrote:

> One memorable day in Daytona Beach we watched a Hobie cat pitch-pole

down

> the Halifax.

That is a bit like saying monohulls are unstable because I
once flipped my laser 5 times in one race. A Hobie is no
indicator of the behaviour of a large cruising cat.

If we are talking large (say 37ft+) cats with cruising rigs, then
I think you will find that capsizes are extremely rare. Demasting
is more of a problem.

Bruce Fountain
Senior Software Engineer
Union Switch & Signal
Perth, Western Australia

I agree. The primary danger in large cruising multihulls appears to be the
difficulty in depowering the sails fast enough to avoid damage from sudden
peak loading of the rig, thanks to the high initial stability. Translation:
ballasting the daylights out of a multihull isn't the great idea that it may
seem at first glance.....

David Romasco, a former Hobie racer

_____

From:fountainb@...[mailto:fountainb@...]
Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2004 7:16 PM
To:bolger@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [bolger] Re: More Water Ballast

Roger Derby wrote:

> One memorable day in Daytona Beach we watched a Hobie cat pitch-pole

down

> the Halifax.

I agree completely with your opinions on that water ballast scheme, but
"multi-hulls don't have a capsize problem?"

One memorable day in Daytona Beach we watched a Hobie cat pitch-pole down
the Halifax. He had a ball atop the mast which kept him from turning
turtle, but he went over at least three times before giving up. He then ran
for the shore and ended up ten feet from the water before he stopped. Put
the bow under water at speed and bad things are going to happen.

Put +trimaran +capsize into Google and see the many reports.

To me a "capsize problem" is present if there is a difficulty getting the
boat back on its feet. The book about the fellows that floated inverted for
119 days in their trimaran was too grim for me. A knockdown may be
upsetting for the chef but it's a nuisance, not a problem.

Roger
derbyrm at starband.net
http://derbyrm.mystarband.net

----- Original Message -----
From: "proaconstrictor" <proaconstrictor@...>

<snip>
> The idea doesn't strike me as having any real merit. If is not
> difficult to add the amount of ballast such tubes would have while
> keeping the boat clean for sailing. There can't be any doubt that a
> boat with permanent ballast, and clean hulls would perform better,
> and be safer.

<snip>

> Multihulls don't actualy have a "capsize problem", and are safe as
> houses compared to most boats discussed here, or available anywhere
> for that mater. But multis do have a capsize perception problem, and
> the only way to deal with that is to take a boat with this "problem"
> and add something to it to cure the "problem". If the boat is sick,
> it needs to be made well. It's just the wrong diagnosis, and the
> wrong cure.
>

He earlier used that system on a trimaran. As I recall, it was
substantialy simpler, consisting of nothing more than open ended
pipes, the idea being that the pipes would not have time to drain
during a surge with capsize potential.

The idea doesn't strike me as having any real merit. If is not
difficult to add the amount of ballast such tubes would have while
keeping the boat clean for sailing. There can't be any doubt that a
boat with permanent ballast, and clean hulls would perform better,
and be safer.

These tubes would have serious impact on upwind performance. Which
can be a key survival issue.

The idea was elegantly simple, but a tube that is exposed inside and
outside, and has water running through it is a major source of drag.
If you seal the ends, what the heck is the point vs locating similar
weight sources within the hull.

The main appeal it seems to me is that you are adding net ballast.
Multihulls don't actualy have a "capsize problem", and are safe as
houses compared to most boats discussed here, or available anywhere
for that mater. But multis do have a capsize perception problem, and
the only way to deal with that is to take a boat with this "problem"
and add something to it to cure the "problem". If the boat is sick,
it needs to be made well. It's just the wrong diagnosis, and the
wrong cure.

If I'm not mistaken Jones added the tubes to his first multi, at a
time when he didn't have extensive multi exprience, and was
converting a racing tri to a crusing format (which shouldn't be a
problem actualy, but I guess it conventrated his mind on capsize,
this that did happen in racing tris with massive rigs being pushed
like heck).

A better solution for boats that don't stand up that well, is the
saddlebag system they sell for water ballast, that hangs on the shear
of your boat, and uses water pressure to load and unload. I forget
who makes them, but they are advertised in some of the sailing
magazines. This a mountable, and demountable system that works to
significantly increase ballast, without increasing drag, or
trailering weight.

Jim,

Being a sailor in S.F. Bay area I'm familiar with the exploits of
Tristan Jones. Living, as I do on a Fisher catamaran, a "Catfisher",
I'm also interested in his approach to self righting cats. Though a
displacement cat like mine really would require a hurricane to capsize.

I like the idea of the movable water ballast system Tristan came up
with. It occured to me that it may have worked a little better if he
had flattened the pipes into foil shapes, a' la a hydrofoil. This
would have given the cat a little lift at speed, reducing the wetted
surface area and making up a bit for the increased drag, which would
have been reduced further by the foil shape. (I played around a bit
with hydrofoils, hovercraft too)

Applied to a monohull like a Superbrick, the system would work even
better. The transverse pipe would be internal, not adding drag, could
be open at the waterline so it would drain when the boat is hauled, and
the flappervalves could be accessed easier from the inside for service.

On another non-Bolger note, this week I acquired a 1969, 23' Bluenose
fractional rig fiberglass racing sloop, built in Nova Scotia. Purchased
from the Encinal sailing foundation. My lady friend and I took her out
Sunday afternoon for a fun sail up and down the Oakland estuary,
dodging the high tech Solings, Melges and Antrims racing in the Jack
Frost series. Intermittent drifting punctuated by moments of straining
rigging and bursts of speed while heeling twenty or thirty degrees.
Great fun! Susan loved it.

Peter--- Inbolger@yahoogroups.com, Jim Pope <jpope@a...> wrote:

> Just a few years ago an old one-legged sailor by the name of Tristan
> Jones sailed from the US to Phuket, in Thailand, on a catamaran donated
> to him in order to demonstrate that a physical handicap like that
> shouldn't keep a sailor ashore.
>
> Old Tristan was, in addition to being one hell of a sailor, a super
> story teller and a very bright guy. He was a good man too, and he gave
> up his sailing in order to improve the lot of a group of orphans in
> Thailand whose physical handicaps had reduced them to the level of
> India's untouchables within Thai society.
>
> As said, he was clever too. He figured out a way to make that catamaran
> almost completely non-capsizeable. He attached a fairly large diameter
> pipe, open at both ends under each hull. The pipes were, of course
> fully flooded, but they contained flapper valves which prevented their
> draining when lifted out of the water.
> The upshot was that the boat had to suffer the drag of the pipe's
> volume, their filled weight as an impediment to acceleration, and the
> increase of wetted surface drag that the pipes surface area represented.
> I remember reading the book about his voyage but I don't remember his
> saying that those factors added up to a significant loss of speed at sea.
>
> However, the tubes weight was matched by the weight of the water
> displaced by the (filled) volume of the tubes. When she was level, the
> tubes slowed her down a little. When she heeled, the tube that was being
> lifted out of the sea, full of water as it was, was no longer supported
> by its displacement. As it came up it added an increasing amount of
> righting force. When fully out of the water, the tube was arranged to
> provide so much righting force that only a hurricane blowing into
> unreefed sails might have carried her over.
>
> As ballast, lead wouldn't have worked as well. The leeward hull's tube
> only weighed her down as far as the weight of the pipe alone might have.
> But when the weather hull pulled its water filled pipe up out of the
> water the weight of the included water was introduced as new righting
> ballast.
>
> Maybe we could make the pipes out of some resilient material and attach
> them to the chines of a Superbrick and in addition to their stabilizing
> utility gain a second use as a form of fendering. ( Another reason to
> build one)
>
> Jim

Just a few years ago an old one-legged sailor by the name of Tristan
Jones sailed from the US to Phuket, in Thailand, on a catamaran donated
to him in order to demonstrate that a physical handicap like that
shouldn't keep a sailor ashore.

Old Tristan was, in addition to being one hell of a sailor, a super
story teller and a very bright guy. He was a good man too, and he gave
up his sailing in order to improve the lot of a group of orphans in
Thailand whose physical handicaps had reduced them to the level of
India's untouchables within Thai society.

As said, he was clever too. He figured out a way to make that catamaran
almost completely non-capsizeable. He attached a fairly large diameter
pipe, open at both ends under each hull. The pipes were, of course
fully flooded, but they contained flapper valves which prevented their
draining when lifted out of the water.
The upshot was that the boat had to suffer the drag of the pipe's
volume, their filled weight as an impediment to acceleration, and the
increase of wetted surface drag that the pipes surface area represented.
I remember reading the book about his voyage but I don't remember his
saying that those factors added up to a significant loss of speed at sea.

However, the tubes weight was matched by the weight of the water
displaced by the (filled) volume of the tubes. When she was level, the
tubes slowed her down a little. When she heeled, the tube that was being
lifted out of the sea, full of water as it was, was no longer supported
by its displacement. As it came up it added an increasing amount of
righting force. When fully out of the water, the tube was arranged to
provide so much righting force that only a hurricane blowing into
unreefed sails might have carried her over.

As ballast, lead wouldn't have worked as well. The leeward hull's tube
only weighed her down as far as the weight of the pipe alone might have.
But when the weather hull pulled its water filled pipe up out of the
water the weight of the included water was introduced as new righting
ballast.

Maybe we could make the pipes out of some resilient material and attach
them to the chines of a Superbrick and in addition to their stabilizing
utility gain a second use as a form of fendering. ( Another reason to
build one)

Jim