Heaving to

[whgoffrn]

Just curious as to how many people out there have used this storm tactic in our boats and how effective is it for our style of boat ...... I kinda 1/2 purposely aimed towards a storm while on vacation this last week about 5 miles off islanorada to test the boat and found out quickly that while it did ok had the winds picked up another 20 or 30mph I may have been in serious trouble without a 3rd reef and gets me wondering if heaving to is an option many of you all have used in any seriously bad conditions and how well our boats do

[gabid]

Too light and too much freeboard to heave-to in a storm. I heave-to for lunch or to make a coffee, if a storm is around just go home.

[kadet]

Too light and too much freeboard to heave-to in a storm. I heave-to for lunch or to make a coffee, if a storm is around just go home.

Agree, we are not crossing oceans and are not going to be caught in a storm for hours or days on end. We are day sailing or coastal cruising we do not normally have a lot of sea room and even heaved-to these boats will drift downwind at 2 or more knots. A thunderstorm is normally over and done in 30min to an hour.

My storm tactics for a thunderstorm are;

• 1. Go home before it hits.
  2. Anchor up with a lot of scope.
  3. Secure all sail and motor slowly into the wind and waves.

[whgoffrn]

That's my usual storm tactics is avoidance and anchor ....but lately I've been considering a trip to the exumas with 2 passages being fairly long passages and leaving the possibility open to get caught 20-30 miles or more from land....gulf stream crossing and bahama banks crossing leaves you pretty exposed..... I have a drogue already I may just use that...or I guess I could anchor on the bahamas banks as it's shallow..... having had my engine die on me once before while idling into the storm I won't do that again as it immediately turned beam to the waves and got real hairy real quick so just looking for options ty

[Seapup]

I had a tiny third reef on my main, it was a nice heavy North brand sail of an Erickson used off ebay. I also had a small heavy flat cut high clew hank on storm jib. I flew it form a dyneema line permanently attached at the spinnaker tang & only attached at the bow when needed.

We used the 3rd reef for normal sailing in heavy winds, I really liked it, and would do that again. I also had the mast basically vertical, I never had rounding up or weather helm issues.

We only flew the storm jib in moderate heavy winds to test it, I would probably pass on it for the My normal jib was was the 110 furling.

For actual pop up storms on open water my default was always drop all sail and motor just enough to hold position/steering until it passes. When I have been caught in them there is no amount of sail that I felt would steady my

[Sumner]

2. Anchor up with a lot of scope.
3. Secure all sail and motor slowly into the wind and waves.[/list]

#2 is by far the first choice if going home isn't an option.

#3 would be and was my option crossing the banks when caught in a squall. I'd use that before a drogue and I don't have one anyway. With the outboard you still have choices like not running directly into the wind/waves, as it is not the best option. Angle into them. A quickie drogue for our size boat could probably be made from a tarp or something else in the event of outboard failure. On that note I'd try to take every precaution to have a good running outboard before going to the Bahamas.

Correct in that you can put the anchor down on the banks, but as mentioned not so on the leg to Bimini or from the Berrys to Nassau. I'd try not to do any of those legs if there was major chance of squalls during the day. Saying that I did make legs of the trip when there were squalls but most were of short duration and I only got hit by the middle/full force of one,

Sumner

============================
1300 miles to the Bahamas and back -- 2015

The MacGregor 26-S

The Endeavour 37

Trips to Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Canada, Florida

Mac-Venture Links

[whgoffrn]

I dunno why but I hate the thought of using the engine as a means of self preservation.....maybe due to the one time I put all my eggs in that basket and the engine died and the boat immediately went beam to seas and I was in serious trouble then
Prior to leaving for the keys I made an impulse buy on a drogue yet never got to test it out and now in retrospect wonder if I should have purchased a sea anchor..... the sea anchor is meant to virtually stop the boat where the drogue just slows you down
Not sure how effective a drogue would be if used from the bow in place of a sea anchor
Good to know though that heaving to is not effective in our boats before I tried it during a storm

[kadet]

I dunno why but I hate the thought of using the engine as a means of self preservation.....maybe due to the one time I put all my eggs in that basket and the engine died and the boat immediately went beam to seas and I was in serious trouble then
Prior to leaving for the keys I made an impulse buy on a drogue yet never got to test it out and now in retrospect wonder if I should have purchased a sea anchor..... the sea anchor is meant to virtually stop the boat where the drogue just slows you down
Not sure how effective a drogue would be if used from the bow in place of a sea anchor
Good to know though that heaving to is not effective in our boats before I tried it during a storm

Never put all your eggs in one basket these are all back up plans, anchor ropes can chafe and snap or the anchor drag, engines can quit, sails can rip drones or para anchors can tangle etc.. If all else fails running under bare poles is a good last resort if you have sea room and no breaking waves or even just battening down and lying ahull.

I would not use a para anchor on a Mac without significantly beefing up an attachment point and even then they would probably not work so well as Macs don't have a keel. A far better choice would be a specialised drone like a seabrake or jordan series. Due to the hull shape and freeboard powerboat storm tactics would be far more useful in an or than traditional sailboat tactics.

[whgoffrn]

https://youtu.be/t4l3CbgUCU8

I know that video is made by fiorentino to advertise their product but it lead me to get the shark made by then.... the reason I chose theirs over a jordan is several reasons but mostly the Jordan series sinks deeper and considering places I may try it if forced to (bahamas banks) I wanted it to stay a little closer to the top....also the Jordan does it's job a little too well in that it slows the boat down dramatically to the point you may not be able to steer if using it as a drogue and the shark drogue is quite small when wrapped up
I had considered attachment points also in mentally imagining riding out the perfect storm (lol jk) from the bow I use a bridle i use the trailer hook along with both cleats and since my cleats are the cheap plastic (soon to be stainless) I secure the cleats via wratchet straps to the mast base plate to relieve some of the tension .......
If using as a drogue from stern ..... I have stainless cleats already at rear and backed up to winches and also mast base plate if I felt it still was too much stress placed on them. My weakest attachment point for now is those plastic cleats up front but the majority of the pulling force would be on the boat hook ....if I'm anchored or my drogue rips all 3 of those out well it must be my time to go lol

I'm not sure if the shark drogue truly is the best out there but I tried to imagine several failures that could happen on the boat and rudder failure seems to be a common failure on ours so I thought it could serve as an aid in steering if I was forced in that position
I also considered the Jordan series for a long long time but they wanted 1100 for a jordan vs 600 for the shark and Jordan took up a lot more room which I'm running out of so the shark barely nudged out the jordan