We went sailing in 40 knots to see what we could learn! | Yachting Monthly

[Music] if you sail for long enough you're going to get caught in some rough weather we've come out today to have a play in some rough weather to find out what you're meant to do when it happens and 20 30 years of sailing I've managed to avoid a proper blow and I've never set a storm storm jib in anger well today we've got a storm jib up and boy do we need it [Music] any sensible person when the forecast is 40 knots plus is going to stay at home and have a cup of tea here at yachting monthly though we want to go out and find out about heavy weather sailing techniques it's not something I've done a lot of because I normally do staying at home and having a cup of tea when it's really rough but it's blowing 40 knots plus today sorry gusting 40 knots plus and the forecast is for 25 to 35 knots of wind consistently which makes it the perfect day for yossi monthly to go out and try heavy weather sailing on this boat it's actually been really well set up there's a few things you might want to change um but anything that's going to come loose if you get knocked down or hold even or just in rough weather as you're bouncing over waves so you can have a look at the Soul boards cockpits all boards these ones are wedged in quite nice and tight and they're only small little hatches so you're not going to lose the whole floor way to get some water in here it's not all going to be floating around you could have a clip to hold it down most of the lockers have got nice catches on which hold them secure over here we've got the fridge cool box and that's on a hinge it doesn't have anything to hold it completely closed so if you did roll stuff would come out of there and make a bit of a mess but it has got hinges which is more than a lot of boats do sliding hatches behind the galley and over here these are just simple wooden lockers here with a little sort of Pop closed and then a little wooden Peg comes down there so it's just a really small thing that you can add but they're not going to fly open if the boat's knocked down to one side really importantly the batteries and under here you've got four batteries and they're all lashed down with lashings across the battery to eyes either side um you're also going to want to look at what else could fly open so the chart table full of lots of charts and bits and Bobs as it always is could do with being a little bit more secure in there you want some Secure Storage for deck gear there's a good cubby hole down here where the winch handles can live and anything else that's loose on Deck ideally comes down below and gets secure unless you absolutely need to be using it and then a nice little touch just things that you can add to your boat to make things more secure like here we've got these pouches for Flags gloves hats all of those are really useful and then around the companion where you can see that the owner's got everything that they need close to hand there's a full rigging set here with spanners shackle keys and knives there's another knife in there and then a couple of torches on that side so you've got all of the bits and then a flare pack here just behind me so it's all below deck but reachable from on Deck you just reach down through the companion way and it's all to hand um so on the whole this boat is is pretty well set up for rough weather um I'm just going to go forwards and there are two things I want to check forwards one is that the four hatch is properly closed and locked and there's only one opening hatch on this boat and then I'm also going to go into the heads and check the seacocks for the toilet and sink are closed I'm going to do the same in the galley as well so this boat's been set up with a removable inner four stay which is really nice for heavy weather sailing because it means that you can set a storm jib completely independently of your furling Genoa which we've still got rigged now here we've got the wire and I'm going to bring this forward and that's taken to a point about a foot below the Mast head and this is a Masthead rig boat so we don't need any additional back stays or anything like that the first step is this I've got a high field clip and this lives below decks normally it comes onto the four deck pin goes in there and I lock that off right now I'm going to go and get the inner four state that lives here so there's just a simple two to one purchase with a clip and that comes off you can just stay on Deck check them all clear right I bring that forward to the high field clip now we've already let the back stay off a little bit so there's no tension on the rig right now once we put the back stay on that's what really tensions this up all right we've got in there and you go that's it drop nose pin goes in let's turn that over drop nose pin goes in and that's got a little retaining cable so you can't lose it okay I bring the locking ring up this is a tricky bit that snapped into place really positive snap and then that ring goes down so that it can't accidentally Come Undone and you can see here we've already got a good amount of tension on it and that's before we've done the back stay and now I'm ready to hang on the Storm jib onto this shroud here and just to say if you're going to rig one of these you've just got to make sure that where this goes is secured into the boat you've got proper reinforcement under the deck ideally all the way down to the bow or through a bulkhead which this boat does this is a storm jib now we're shooting this in Harbor where you can hear the wind in the background Maybe but it's uh dry it's calm the boat's not heaving this is why it's a really good idea to rig up any storm cells you think you might need really early because once you're out doing this on the water it gets a lot lot rougher so we start with I'm just going to do this loosely it's a fairly simple system on this boat get that through there it's just a lashing to hold the tack of the storm jib down I'm going to pass that through two or three times and there you go so that the bottom piston Hank I want the sail nice and low like that but I want the Piston Hank to clear the clip here there you go I do that once more if you're using this on a regular basis might be a nice idea to um have a strop or a long soft shackle or even a wire strap with a little clip that you can just clip on at the right length the simpler that you can make the process the better early because imagine doing this in these conditions out there today well I'm going to have a go but it's probably not going to be fun right piston Hanks really important make sure you go up the love tape here up the bolt rope and all the Piston Hanks go on the same way because you do not want a Twist because that's going to stop the sail going up now the chances are if you've ever used your storm jib and most people's mine included just live in a locker for their entire life and never come out if you've used it once and then put it away and bring it out 10 years later you've got to check for corrosion because these are notorious for getting corroded up might be a reason you could go for a soft clip but the Piston Hanks are really solid and reliable because if that's flogging away in a force 10 you don't want it giving away and then I'm going to bring a halyard forwards onto here but a good pre-season check take those out wash them with fresh water spray them with a bit of silicon lubricant right and then the clue and on this boat we've got some nice new sheets if the old ones weren't quite long enough so you're just going to rig up some new sheets so this one's a single line and it's just been the right the rigger has just done some really secure lashing there it's going to pass that through the clue and then through itself and I pull the rest of the sheet through right rigging the storm jib sheets on this boat uh we're in the nice position of having a Genoa track with two cars on it so what I'm doing is just taking the generosity out of the forward car and I'm going to lead it back through the AFT car only and I can't move that car right the way forward so I still get a good seating position that just means that I've got a car it's good I've got a car clear here and then in a second I'm going to go forwards and just bring the storm jib sheet aft as well right so now I'm going to take this sheet aft um this isn't my boat I believe that the sheets are going to go outside the shrouds but we'll see if that works when we're out on the water we might have to re-lead those checking that's outside everything through the Genoa car track oh and then we can lead that okay it's all the little things like this when you're out on the water in rough conditions a little Jam like that it can make your life a real pain that and that can sit there ready to go on Deck there's a number of things to check obviously better if you do them in Harbor before you set off and you should be doing them every season anyway but as you're coming into the weather uh it's worth having a quick check that you've got your Man Overboard equipment that's ready to go this one's a little bit faded so you could do with it replacing with a nice bright one you've got a bathing ladder here that's tied up so that it can't fall down accidentally that's fine if you've got crew on board if you're sailing solo you'd want a clip that you can pull that down from the water um on Deck we've got our guard wires coming aft here and you can see that they're lashed at the AFT end which means that with the knife that's just inside the companion way if I have a Man Overboard and I want to get somebody back on we're really planning not to do that today given the conditions in the sea water temperature um it's about seven degrees today you can cut those there's also your jack stays so that's for clipping on with your tethers when you go forwards and these are last to an half point and you really want to check the backing plates behind here the bolts those lashings and ideally you take these off over winter make sure they're clean not going moldy and that you're protecting them from UV and the stitching here check this stitching can't come open it's a new V that will deteriorate and that would be lethal if that comes undone I'm going to have a look at the cockpit lockers as well and you want to make sure that those clip down so if you don't want them flying open so you want closing latches that one takes it there they snap down nicely that one's for a padlock I don't want it padlocked but I'm going to put all of the catches on here make sure they've got the Snapchat and then they can't come open and I'm going to check for any other loose deck gear now if we're going to be hitting some serious weather and we're going to be having green water over the deck the spray Hood gives you nice shelter but I don't want to lose the spray Hood so we're going to put that down and just put a sail tie around the canvas to make sure it can't get damaged or washed away and you do the same if you had spray Dodges on the side they give you shelter in moderate conditions but actually cause more windage and more damage and severe conditions and then we're going to go forwards and we're going to check the life raft is ready to go as well right we've got the life raft here it is serviced uh it's in date and it's for an adequate number of people on board it's in these really solid chocks so that's not going anywhere and it's held down with four really big anchor points and that comes to the AFT end here with a pelican hook the skipper has got a hydrostatic release for when he's doing offshore races but there's a pelican hook here there is a slight possibility that a life raft could get damaged on the coach roof either here or after the Mast if you're dismastered or there's a sail flogging and a sheep catches around the life raft it could put it at risk a little bit it is safer probably on the push pit on the back of the boat but then that is weight higher up further aft and has an impact a little bit on how the the motion of the boat and its performance as well so this is a pretty good compromise but there are a couple of things to be aware of so we've got the tri-sale rigs I thought I'd just show you a little bit about how the system on this Boat Works we've taken the Mainsail down and that is lashed really securely all the way along the Boom on this boat we've only got one Mainsail track um you can actually see it used to have a tri-sale track when it was owned by Willie Kerr for going up to high latitudes um but now they've got a a Tides track which is a low friction track for the Mainsail with sliders but we have had to take out all of the Mainsail sliders to make space for the tri-sale now that's not going to be a particularly fun task when you're in a force eight so we've got a little ring here that's got a split ring a drop nose pin would be a lot easier the bottom casing then comes off that's what stops them falling out and then you have to slide the sliders in one by one and those can all go up like that and we've got a lashing down to the gooseneck fitting here so you can control the height as well which actually for sorting out your sheeting position it's really good to have a bit of adjustability there because you might want it higher up the Mast so you've got a better sheeting angle after the cockpit and then once we're sailing with this we need to drop the Boom Out down to one side and lock it in position so that it's out of the way now I've just got to set up the sheet this is going to be bent on in the same way as the storm jib it's got an eye that I'm going to pass through itself and then it goes down to a cockpit and we're actually going to use the Spinnaker blocks to go down and there's one on either side so sheets like a head sail does rather than onto The Boom Like A Mainsail and then from the Spinnaker blocks it goes onto the secondary winches in the cockpit to try out these heavy weather sailing techniques we've come to Livington and we are sailing on a Contessa 32 with kit Rogers of Jeremy Rogers limited who build the contesters and this is one of the older boats in the fleet so to speak this is ascent and she was actually took part in the 1979 fastnet race and completed it successfully she was then owned by Willie Kerr who also took her to both the Arctic and the Antarctic so this boat's got pretty good pedigree for some heavy weather sailing right so we are helming along now we've got a little bit of Genoa unfurl and we've got currently got uh yeah 30 knots across the deck so it's early Breezy and we are doing six to seven knots over the ground so we're flying along uh we're sort of cutting across the tide anyway uh we're still in relatively flat water here um sheltered from the land as we are we just looking for some waves and steering over these waves as we're rolling along and what we're trying to do is we don't want to get caught Beamon particularly by a breaking wave and there's two ways of housing that depending a little bit on your course there we go sorry they just Sterling heads our flogging about yeah so as a as a wave comes in we're just going to let the boat head up a bit and then as it passes we're going to bear away again that the bow just follow down the back of the wave and you can see that acceleration that we get there and then you're gonna head up a little bit over the way the better way again I mean really this kind of techniques probably designed more for sort of Open Water Swirls and we're not that we're in pretty sheltered Waters today yeah even though we've got uh yeah that's just over 30 knots of wind now yeah it's uh getting a bit Lively now as we're getting out into the middle of the uh so we're just inside um not far inside Hearst Castle let's sort of see where we're going okay here's a wave coming so we're gonna head up into it and bear away down the back of it now if you're on a bit more of a broad reach course you might actually pay sometimes to do the opposite so you could um bear away down the back of the wave turn the stern towards any breaking water and as you would as if you were running and sort of surf the wave a bit more and then you would come up towards the wind on the back of the wave and try and make your make your course to Windward a little bit on the back of the Waves here we go so let's try that now here's a wave turn down it there we go and then point up again after the crust is gone right well it's time to put a the storm jib up if we're going to make progress to Windward so we're just running before the wind which makes it a little bit easier to do the four deck work without getting laughed with spray so we checked this in Harbor we've got a halide on that's not Twisted that's Shackled on the hole let's tie down with the sail tie which is coming off now right Holly is free to run it's good all right I'm going to duck under the sail so I don't get caught on the leeward side okay right I'm clipped on there fine right tanks all done nicely and the tack is lashed down to the bottom of the four stay here in the fourth stay so we're all good to go okay kit right we're going to hoist now right and we're good to go back into the cockpit we've got the storm jib setting out so we are back on the wind right now I'm steering at about 60 degrees to the wind but hardening up a little bit about 45 degrees on the Wind and actually you can see the helm is pretty light we're pretty well balanced we've got three reefs in the main and the storm jib and currently we've got 30 32 to 34 knots of wind across the deck sorry that's true wind speed so we've got a bit more than that across the deck [Music] [Music] well now we're back downwind time for a hot drink for everybody some chocolate some sandwiches uh to keep everybody's morale and energy levels up keep everyone going on a cold and windy day it's amazing how much Karma things feel going downwind I don't know if the breeze has dropped off but it certainly feels like that um so it's very nice but uh yeah going downwind the major risk for us really is jiving so we've got to prevent a rigged to keep the boom out to one side and we've been quite careful just about the course that we're steering keeping slightly to one side of dead downwind and that keeps the um storm jib full we did try Goose winging it but it's a little bit close to the uh close to the edge close to a jibe when you're rolling down big Seas as we were in these conditions what you see is that you're working really hard to keep the boat on course even just to keep your balance so stopping the boat either to whether out a Squall or a particularly strong bit of wind or to give yourself a break to go down and cook some food if you're in open water or even just to put the kettle on heaving too is a really good thing to do now we are on starboard tack running downwind at the moment and we're going to go into a Hove two position so I think probably the easiest way of doing that is if we uh jibe the storm jib onto starboard side so that we're Goose swinging um and then we can yeah let's say let's do that she so Stu Stu's just going to pull the jib over we're going to Jive it on to starboard side let me just head downwind a bit more that's it there we go so storm jibs on starboard side and then to Hove two all I'm going to do is head up towards the wind on starve attack and it's always ideal to um Hove to on starve attack if you can because then you have right away over any other boats around and as soon as you've done that the boat starts slowing down now the head sails pushing the bowels away so I oppose that by pushing the helm down to leeward side and holding it there I don't actually have to steer anymore I just keep that locked down to port side that's right um and then I can adjust the angle that we're sitting to The Wind by how much I shoot the main in the mains got a little bit of wind in there at the moment and we're almost exactly Beam on stew if we just seat in the main a little bit there there you go and that's just bringing the bowels up slightly because ideally we want to be right now we're at about 70 degrees to the wind the bowels are 70 degrees for the wind um which is quite nice because you you want to be heading into the Seas if possible means that if there are any breaking waves they don't hit you beam on yeah so there we've settled down at 60 degrees for the wind the boats slowed down we're making two knots one and a half knots over the ground now so we slowed right down and we're hardly healing at all and the motion's Really steady and there's no spray coming over the boat so it's a really good way of slowing things down calming it down and having a little break right we've got the storm try sale up at last say storm storm try sale and the winds back up at 36 knots and we are doing six and a half knots over the ground so we're still making pretty good speed and it's working a lot better than I thought it would it's a really small handkerchief of a sail but we're absolutely not over canvassed and we're going along really well and she's quite light on the helm however getting it up was a real fast on this boat we don't have a separate track for the sliders so the Mainsail had to come off there were two people up at the Mast had to take all of the sliders for the Mainsail off and lash it to the boom and then we've lashed the boom out to windward side away to keep it away from the tri-sale and then you've got to feed all of the new sliders into the track for the Mainsail hoist it lash down the tack and get it up and then you've got these two sheets both of which cut across the cockpit so it is not an easy sail to use if you're thinking of using one it's much easier if you have a separate track running up the side of the Mast next to your main track and then potentially you could even keep it at the Mast inner bag ready to go if you think's done heavy weather's on its way that said we've got the sale up now and it is working much better than I thought it would foreign motoring back about to go back into the river at the end of a successful day out on the water now I don't often go out in conditions like that and I expect most of you don't either but it's been a really informative experience it's been great because we've got this sort of playground here where we've got relatively sheltered water and some really rough water that we can go and play in for a little bit as well which has given us the opportunity to try Sailing In Waves and it's given us the opportunity to try sailing in some really strong winds of force eight and gusts of nine the interesting things that we've learned are all the little details that you only get to find out if you come and do this for real and for that reason if you're a cruising sailor and if this is the kind of thing that you do it is worth doing not that I'm recommending everybody just to rush out into serious weather because we've been really careful about safety today you've noticed that we've all got life jackets on we've got tethers on I've been really careful about Man Overboard the sea is cold today so that's been a really critical issue so let's talk about the things that we've learned um crew comfort and crew safety life jackets and tethers absolute must now this boat is pretty well fitted with anchor points we've got three anchor points in the cockpit and Jack stays down either side we could have actually done with a fourth one basically you can't have enough anchor points particularly if you're sailing with crew we've had three people on board today and we've needed all of those anchor points at different points having crew itself is a really important thing had kitten I've Been Just the Two of Us it would have been quite full-on one person helmeting the other person doing all of the lines halyard sheets winching rigging sails on the four deck we've had Stu on board with us today and that's been a real help to get some of those jobs done and just an extra pair of hands so Stu's been helming while we've been doing things and we've taken turns it also gives you a chance that one person can go below make a cup of tea that kind of thing um so it's really good having a third Pair of Hands on board a cup of tea uh is useful as well we had that in a flask we've had sandwiches we've had chocolate bars and those have really helped keep us our energy up it's early March it's still not that warm and it's been really physical just keeping balance moving around and pulling on some pretty highly loaded lines so it's been quite a full-on day physically and you need to keep your energy up to do that you also need to keep yourself warm and protect protected now we had thought about keeping the spray Hood down and last because you don't want it getting damaged or washed away by big Seas you'd have to be in pretty extreme conditions for that and actually the additional comfort that the spray hood has given us has been huge particularly going upwind and then there's the personal comfort as well so we've got waterproofs on and thermals on underneath and keeping warm is really important and you need some decent waterproof that are going to keep the water out because as soon as you get wet you're going to get cold one thing that you do get wearing all of this Clover is it you notice that it's harder to move around physically it takes more energy to move and communication also gets harder when you've got your hood up you can't really hear what everyone else is saying so you have to shout and you have to be really clear and make sure that people have heard what you're saying because it also uh impacts on your situational awareness that you can quite quickly get into your little shell huddle up try and stay warm and dry and you don't spot the ferry coming up behind you or the boy coming up from underneath the sail or you don't see what the rest of your crew are doing so you have to make a real effort to be up looking around and putting in lots of energy we had to go at putting the try sail up at the end and that took us all a little bit of uh extra motivation to to do that I'm really glad that we did but it just really saps your energy being in strong winds and cold weather um a few other little things that we've noticed maybe to do with technology so we've had the washboards in today to keep the water out from down below and the fixed VHF is down below which basically puts that out of action you can't hear it you can't reach it you can't get to it very easily at all so we've been relying on a handheld VHF today if you want to be able to use your Masthead antenna then you need a speaker and a mic on deck or a command mic lots of brands do quite nice little command mics you just plug in now when you want to use them or even Wireless ones and that makes a difference because you can hear your proper VHF on Deck and then finally maybe um touch screens we've got touch screens phones I've had my phone out it's in a completely waterproof case which is brilliant but as soon as it's wet I can't really use it the same to some extent with our chart plotter it's a fully waterproof top end chart plotter but when it's covered in spray and rain and you've got wet gloves on or even knock gloves on you press it and it thinks you're pressing somewhere else and the same with our cameras all sorts of stuff and Technology relies on touchscreen so much these days that you've got to be prepared that your touch screens are not going to work when you're in these conditions so there's loads of details loads of little things that you learn by going out and doing this kind of stuff for real you've got to build up to it build up the experience but it is the only way to find out if your equipment and your plans for these kinds of conditions actually work [Music] thank you

Channel: Yachting Monthly

Views: 334,922

Keywords: sailing, skills, yachts, yachting, cruising, boat, expert advice

Id: v1W5wW2CybA

Length: 32min 47sec (1967 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 02 2023