"Roger Long" wrote in
:

Something to thing about with a big sausage of rolled genoa on the
headstay.


Genoas don't stay rolled up on headstays in that kind of wind for long....

60 knot winds of several passing hurricanes cleaned many headstays firmly
rolled in Charleston marinas through the years....tearing them to shreds in
the process with no wave action at all.

"Roger Long" wrote in
:

Build a tripod on an inner tube or life ring type float and hang a
pendulum in it. As a wave goes by, the pendulum will always point to
the center of the float, even if the ring goes upside down inside the
tube of a breaking wave. There are videos of this in a wave tank.
The pendulum can point straight up. It's the same kind of motion that
lets you sweep a glass of water upside down without spilling.



Hmm...I got a campfire kettle tripod and inner tube. This sounds like a
great spring project to set afloat and test this spring, especially for the
kids to watch and wonder.

Thanks, Roger!

Larry! We gave away the Panama Canal? When did we do that?

**** ,, this is BIG.



"Larry" wrote in message
...
"Roger Long" wrote in
:

Exactly, if you are going to sail down there, you should be prepared
to either sail (or die) in 60 - 80 knot winds while recognizing that
25 - 30 knots can produce seas of a size only seen in major Atlantic
storms. You need to be prepared to accept the conditions that sank
Barnes as basically routine. I'm not implying though that he was
unprepared or deficient in skills or equipment. Just about all days
are dangerous in that part of the world.



All this just to avoid a few weeks waiting and a few thousand dollars in
bribes at the Panama Canal we STUPID Americans just gave away....

Dumb, really dumb.

Roger Long wrote:
mr.b wrote:
On Sun, 07 Jan 2007 15:59:41 -0800, Razzbar wrote:

yo Razzbar... "Roaring 40's"... a fair day there is _not_ a good day
just about anywhere else!

Exactly, if you are going to sail down there, you should be prepared to
either sail (or die) in 60 - 80 knot winds while recognizing that 25 - 30
knots can produce seas of a size only seen in major Atlantic storms. You
need to be prepared to accept the conditions that sank Barnes as basically
routine. I'm not implying though that he was unprepared or deficient in
skills or equipment. Just about all days are dangerous in that part of the
world.

This is in fact not true. I have done many, many trips from Australia
to Antarctica over the last 10 years. The conditions can be extreme but
there are also plenty of times where the Southern Ocean can be a
millpond. We routinely deploy moored bouys into the ocean, leave them
down for 12 months or more and then recover them. Some of the
instrument strings are over 4 km in length and are in close to 5000m of
water. We can't recover them if the wind & waves are too great, and
every year we manage to get most of them back, service them and drop
them again.

You definitely need to be prepared for really, really foul conditions
but it is a gross exaggeration to say that just about all days are
dangerous. They're not. Probably less than 20% of the time, in fact.

PDW

- who lives at 43 S and sails a daysailer for light entertainment when
not at sea. A fair day here is a good day anywhere. In fact I'm going
sailing again this afternoon and next week am heading down to 55 S yet
again, on an oceanographic research vessel.

On Mon, 8 Jan 2007 08:10:41 -0500, "Roger Long" wrote:

William Longyard wrote:

Geraldo Rivera said the other night that he was unable to furl his
sail(s?)

Even if he was having sail problems, this probably wasn't a wind driven
accident unless the rig had developed some fatigue weak points. Given the
extent of his preparations and expenditure, that doesn't seem likely.

A knockdown, even with too much sail, shouldn't have taken the rig out of a
boat like this; certainly not to the extent shown in the pictures. Being
rolled by large wave action with the full weight of the boat dragging the
rig, with it's enormous hydrodynamic drag, through the water is what
dismasts boats. Where inability to get the sails off factors in is their
drag making them virtually unmovable in the water. Turn the boat upside
down, bury the masts in the ground, and then expect it to withstand an
earthquake. Those are the kinds of forces we are talking about.

Boats occasionally withstand rolling without dismasting but seldom with
sails up. Minimizing drag is important if rolling is a possibility.
Something to thing about with a big sausage of rolled genoa on the headstay.

Size works both ways. The waves are relatively smaller as the boat gets
larger but, when you get into really big seas like the southern ocean, there
isn't much difference. The motion of the larger boat will be less tiring
but it takes a lot more energy to do anything on deck. When energy is
critical, managing the small boat will be much easier. When you are just
steering or hunkered down, the larger is better. If one person is pumping
by hand after flooding due to a roll or being swept, it will be a lot less
work in the small boat. Scale effects make smaller boats inherrently
stronger.

Donna isn't as crazy as it might seem to be down there in her 28 footer but
it's like climbing Mt. Everest, some are going to die. Did anyone see the
"Everest - over the limit" on Discovery Channel? Big strong guys in perfect
physical condition don't make it and old, weak, people with recent
operations do. Sailing is like that.

Speaking of being rolled:

Back when I was researching sailing vessel accidents, I read an account of a
60 foot racing sloop being delivered across the Pacific in the winter by a
professional crew. They were rolled and dismasted and limped in with a jury
rig. The timing and account of the roll didn't make any sense with the
physics until I put it into this possible scenario.

Build a tripod on an inner tube or life ring type float and hang a pendulum
in it. As a wave goes by, the pendulum will always point to the center of
the float, even if the ring goes upside down inside the tube of a breaking
wave. There are videos of this in a wave tank. The pendulum can point
straight up. It's the same kind of motion that lets you sweep a glass of
water upside down without spilling.

The description of the roll over made perfect sense if the boat went up
inside the crest of a large breaking wave. The crew, hunkered down and
focused with tunnel vision on the compass and water's surface ahead were
inside the curl of the wave with mast pointed down and still thinking they
were in a normal attitude. Then, the mast hit the water changing the
physics as it dragged and stopped the wave acceleration that was creating an
artifical sense of "down". Down instantly shifted back towards the center
of the earth and the wave collapsed on top of them. This was a 60 foot
boat. Think of the scale of this event. Waves big enough to do this have
been confirmed on their route and time of year.

A wave of similar size rolled a ketch named Tz Hang (I think) in the same
part of the world as Barnes and Lange are sailing in. These mega breakers
may also be associated with as yet undiscovered sea mounts that are way, way
deeper than would be a concernt to ships as far as hitting them is concerned
but which can break the huge waves that can develop on these large oceans.

If you are thinking about the Smeetons with Tzu Hang, I seem to remember that
they pitch-poled rather than being rolled. Happened twice if I remember
correctly, then they made a third attempt some time later and made it ok.
Perhaps that is what this Barnes chap did, pitch-pole, that would account for
the damage.

Jan
"If you can't take a joke,you shouldn't have joined"

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

Peter wrote:

This is in fact not true. I have done many, many trips from Australia
to Antarctica over the last 10 years. The conditions can be extreme
but there are also plenty of times where the Southern Ocean can be a
millpond.

Thanks for the good info. I was actualy speaking more of the mindset for
preparation than describing the weather conditions anthough that wasn't
particularly clear. A mill pond day that far from anywhere in an ocean with
that kind of fetch and weather systems is dangerous. It's like being far up
on Mount Everest on a calm, warm, day.

I posted a while ago about the people who have gotten into trouble in the
Southern Ocean due to not realizing how many calm days there are and that
many periods are characterized by the extremes. The big clipper ships would
hook on to a low and stay with it for hundreds of miles. The small yacht
has to hunker down in the heavy weather and doesn't have the speed to stay
with the system. Then come the calms and little progress is made until the
next big system comes through and beats them up again.

Pretty impressive passage from New Zeland to Cape Horn Donna Lange made
though in her 28 footer.

--
Roger Long

Roger Long wrote:
Peter wrote:

This is in fact not true. I have done many, many trips from Australia
to Antarctica over the last 10 years. The conditions can be extreme
but there are also plenty of times where the Southern Ocean can be a
millpond.

Thanks for the good info. I was actualy speaking more of the mindset for
preparation than describing the weather conditions anthough that wasn't
particularly clear. A mill pond day that far from anywhere in an ocean with
that kind of fetch and weather systems is dangerous. It's like being far up
on Mount Everest on a calm, warm, day.

You are quite right there. Last year I had a dream run from Hobart to
Antarctica and back again to Fremantle. Later in the year I went down
to 55S to retrieve some moored instruments and ran into 3 gales in 3
weeks. Anyone venturing there must have their vessel and at least as
importantly themselves prepared for days of very bad weather while a
front blows through. I'd say that the ability to make sail in marginal
conditions with safety for both vessel and crew was more important than
carrying the largest sail area possible. Personally I'd prefer a
relatively low aspect rig, heavily stayed, and a steel hull.

I posted a while ago about the people who have gotten into trouble in the
Southern Ocean due to not realizing how many calm days there are and that
many periods are characterized by the extremes. The big clipper ships would
hook on to a low and stay with it for hundreds of miles. The small yacht
has to hunker down in the heavy weather and doesn't have the speed to stay
with the system. Then come the calms and little progress is made until the
next big system comes through and beats them up again.

Quite right. We use those calms to get work done. With satellite
weather recievers and good comms, we can & do work around the fronts,
heading north or south to keep working while one blows through, then
dealing with the hole in the transect after the front has passed. These
days we lose far less time than we used to but a powered ship isn't a
small sailboat; we have a lot more options open to us.


Pretty impressive passage from New Zeland to Cape Horn Donna Lange made
though in her 28 footer.

I agree. I'd need to consult my library but memory says it's been done
before in similar sized vessels, which takes nothing away from anyone
doing it now. She is both a better sailor and a braver person than I
am.

PDW