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posted to rec.boats.cruising
Jukka Aittola
 
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Default Ocean Crossing on a Trailerable Unsinkable Corsair 36 !

sherwindu wrote:
I'm not concerned because I sail a monohull. Multihulls have two stable states, upright
and upside down, whereas most monohulls have only one stable state, upright. The
monohull has a heavy keel suspended like a pendlum, so when knocked down or over,
the natural stable state is for the boat to right itself.


Strictly speaking, this is not the complete truth. Even monohulls have a
limit heel angle, called the angle of vanishing stability, above which
the boat has a stable state upside down, the mast pointing downwards.

In most modern monohull yachts the angle of vanishing stability is well
over 110 degrees, so that getting capsized is pretty unlikely. In the
conditions required for a capsize, most boats will probably eventually
right themselves from the upside down state when being thrown around in
the waves.

Regards,
Jukka