On Fri, 19 Mar 2004 05:50:50 GMT, "Matt/Meribeth Pedersen"
wrote:


I'll second that one. Forgot about the Viking 33 but it is a good boat too.

I stumbled on a bit of a deal, despite the extensive restoration and
refitting I am gradually doing. I only found out after I learned to
sail it that it's a bit of a hot rod, and yet built "old school"
enough to take pretty brutal conditions. Or, at least, the blessedly
brief, but still significant seas Lake Ontario can generate. A line
squall here is as bad as anywhere, and you want a tough boat if you
decide to stay out for the filling-in wind that follows.

The advice given later in the post is right on. I've never laid under bare
poles except as an experiment on deliveries, and the boats I've done this
in all seemed to end up lying abeam to the seas (they've all been fin
keelers of differing aspect ratios).

It's appropriate for the kind of boats that are pretty rare these
days. I would lie abeam in a Contessa 26 if I thought it would help,
because it's got a hull like a fortune cookie. Fin keelers get slapped
around too much and if they are carrying sail, they can tip brutally.

Bare poles always seemed to be a technique used only in desperate
situations. Whether a boat lies bow to the wind (this being a relative
term, I think you mean something above maybe 60 degrees or so) is
mostly a function of windage. More windage aft and you will lie closer to
the
wind, but I can guarantee that if you have a roller furling headsail or high
freeboard at the bow and low freeboard aft you will never do so.
Way too much windage too far forward.

I agree. I prefer active sailing with a reefed staysail (ideally) or a
storm jib tacked low or on a short (3-5 foot) pendant. For my boat's
design, this is a good tactic. For others, it would be wrong. I find
reading old cruising narratives (Hiscocks, Roth, Moitessier, etc.) and
even racing stuff from the '60s (Chichester, Rose, Knox-Johnson,
Taberly) has helped to shape my heavy-weather ideas. I carry enough
line for warps off the stern, but have never had to slow the boat down
that much. Which I count as a Good Thing.

I think the current thinking is that laying under bare poles is a pretty
risky technique. Most boats tend to lie beam to the seas and this is
the most vulnerable position (Van Dorn says if you are beam to
a breaking wave approximately the beam of your boat you are likely to
be capsized and tank testing has confirmed that). I think the choices
are either active sailing (many boats can actually sail upwind in
big wind and waves under autopilot if the waves are relatively
consistent and the wind doesn't fluctuate too much), or using some
sort of drag device. The Drag Device Database is a good place to
read up on that - lots of good true stories about what works and
what might not. I think the author has a web site at www.dddb.com

Thanks. Even in theory, this stuff gets filed for future reference,
and I do intend to world cruise one day. Odds are, if I recall, only
circa 5-10% that I'll encounter 40 knots plus sustained in any given
passage (I forget where I heard this), and some people cruise for
years and years without ever getting seriously whacked by weather, but
I remember the Scout motto when I am at the tiller...G

R.