I
Mark,
Let me preface all of this by saying that it is always easy to give good
advice while sitting in the calm behind a computer. You are correct about
this
being a discussion that needs to happen.
Let's start with the bear away. It's probably good that you failed since the
round up in 40 knots when you had to turn back upwind would likely have
thrown you head fist into the mast at the spreaders. When sailing alone in
strong
winds we really need to be wearing a helmet.
The load on your rudder is really high when the bow goes down and the boat
heals to leeward in a bear away. The obvious things are to heal the boat to
weather and get as far back as possible before initiating the bear away. The
prudent thing would have been to go head to wind and to have taken down the
main. This is where the friction of grip tape in the tiller extensions
really comes into play. It will act like auto pilot for that short time when
you
need both hands for something else (like taking down the main).
As far as the rudder goes there are a couple of things. First, I think you
use a spartite gasket? If so, there is little that could be done other than
using more material in your rudder of by installing a rib in the rudder at
the thickest point. The rib could be built out of eight layers of hybrid and
installed by running the foam blank through a table saw to make a single cut
from two inches below the top down 18 inches. Be sure to cut a deep V in the
end of the rib to eliminate point loading at the bottom end (you'll be
cutting the blank off at the top when it's done down to the rib). Before
inserting
the rib into the saw cut, rough up the outer edges to make it look like a
wool sweater. The rib should be cut about 1/8" (3mm) narrower than the blank
and installed centered with a few small dabs of epoxy / silica. After the
epoxy goes off, use a utility blade to cut a small V in the foam about 3mm
wide
and 3mm deep on each side of the rib (both sides of the blank).
At this point you'll lay up the rudder like normal except you'll use thick
epoxy/silica to fill the V on both sides just before laying up the rudder
(while it's still wet).
I'll lay one up this way next week and post a PDF.
I hope this helps Mark.
Bram
n a message dated 8/20/2007 7:22:32 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
mwhite@xxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
To all,
I made the mistake of misjudging the wind speed yesterday. I left the shore
where it was fairly well protected from the wind, thinking the wind was
blowing around 20. I knew it was in deep dodo as soon as I hit the wind about
200 yds off shore. The wind was not steady, it was like rolling, or twisting
constantly. My heading was constantly shifting 20 degrees or so, just trying
to maintain a straight course. The battens kept popping from left to right,
while I bounced in and out of the water. The only thing I could think to do
was to bear off, run down wind, gibe, and come back to my starting point on
the beach. I tried 3 or 4 times to bear off but the boat refused to do so.
Every time I tried, the bow went down to the gunwale and would start to heel
over. The last attempt I tried as fast as possible. The boat heeled, and I
heard a breaking sound, like wood tearing. I thought I had broken the
transom, or the transom bar. After capsizing I couldn't find any damage.
Luckily
someone was there and helped me get the mail down while capsized. Thinking
all was well, I started heading for shore under the jib, and noticed the boat
steered very sloppy, that was when I noticed what broke. The rudder was
kicked off to starboard. It lasted about 3/4 of a minute, and broke off
behind
the boat. Needless to say the boat without a rudder just spins in circles.
The ride out lasted about 1 minute, the tow back in lasted about 20 minutes.
I had left my wind gauge at home and the one at the marina was broken, but
the folks that run the place thought the wind was blowing 35 gusting to 40, I
didn't think it was that high, but I really don't know.
So it appears that the rudder was the weak link. I still can't imagine the
rudder could have had enough pressure on it to break. The question is do you
make the rudder stronger, then possibly breaking the next weaker link, or
let the rudder be the weak link? Obviously the best solution is to stay on
the
shore on days like this, but you can still be caught in big wind while out
on the water. I think now it would be a good idea to have a hand held VHF in
my PDF. If I had been farther out, or out of sight of the marina and this
had happened, and no one right there to assist, it would have been ugly. I
believe I would have been ok, but the boat would have eventually wound up on
the
rocks. I now have a new found respect for the wind, and the need for a new
rudder blank.
I'm not sure what else I could have done, but it would be good to know what
to do if found in this situation in the future. In hind sight, I think I
could have tacked, and maybe tried to stall the boat and drift back to shore,
but if it wouldn't stall, and drift, I would have headed towards the floating
piers. I just knew I didn't want to get any further away from shore. I don't
think I could have gotten the main down and kept the boat up-right. In a
one man boat the options seem limited.
I think this is something that should be discussed, here or on the website,
since anyone could end up in a situation similar to this.
Mark
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