Offshore sailors....on a low breeze low swell day do you ever sail with your hatches/ports open or are
you always buttoned up tight including your cockpit hatch and storm boards in place. I'm asking this in
response to the cat accident and the possibility they were caught out by a sudden change.
Not being an offshore sailor I'm not sure if this happens although I have heard of rogue waves of course.
Can you relax on really 'quiet' days, or doesn't it work like that ?.
G'day Sam.. I always shut all the hatches. Even on calm days you can get water come over the deck and it's a lot quicker and easier to close the hatches then it is to clean and dry out the boat.
Personally I've never put the storm boards in, but that's not to say I wouldn't if I felt in necessary. Only once (well twice but on the same day) have I taken enough water in the cockpit that filled it up, but having a fairly open transom, it's gone as quick as it came in.
Hatches and vents closed.
Storm boards only if very ugly or raining before I had a dodger.
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A ROUGUE WAVE PEOPLE.
JUST THE BIGGEST WAVE OUT THERE THAT DAY WITH YOUR NAME ON IT.
Rogue waves are some not some supernatural force bent on human destruction
FFS
It is just that some bastard has written my name a lot!
Otherwise, hatches and vents shut but not stormboards in.
Stormboards is just judgement depending on design.
Thanks guys, as I was wondering if having a dodger may lull you into a false sense of security whereby you
leave the hatch open and then you cop an unexpected big wave over the stern that dumps water straight into your saloon.
Another good reason to shut hatchs especially when sails are up is to avoid getting them damaged by that rogue sheet that manages to hook on it.
we very rarely put the boards in and when we do it will be 3/4 running in confused seas anything over 20 in these conditions pagan kicks up a quaterwave at the 8 to 10 knot boat speed the following sea stands up on this and occasionally fills the cockpit to the coaming scaring the living daylights out of who ever is asleep in the quarter berth to the great humour of all on deck . interestingly in stronger breezes the quaterwave falls away and she runs dry again at plus 12 don't know about faster than 17 as haven't experienced that .we have a piece of plastic which rolls down off the hatch to cover the companionway in spray and rain conditions the skylight stays open till plus 10 upwind and plus 25 downwind forehatch always dogged unless very light and flat
they were very likely caught out but I would be surprised if they were swamped more likely stuck the bows in and tripped over
Select to expand quotelydia said..
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A ROUGUE WAVE PEOPLE.
JUST THE BIGGEST WAVE OUT THERE THAT DAY WITH YOUR NAME ON IT.
Rogue waves are some not some supernatural force bent on human destruction
FFS
It is just that some bastard has written my name a lot!
Otherwise, hatches and vents shut but not stormboards in.
Stormboards is just judgement depending on design.
Do you seriously not believe in rogue waves? I have never experienced a rouge wave out of the blue come and smash me. Only a big set of 3m waves when other waves where about 2m off Mooloolaba. I wouldn't call this a rogue but there's a fair few stories and a couple very rare videos of rogue waves. Like this
Maybe re-read what Lydia wrote and try your argument again. You can't compare an average day in Mooloolaba with a sh!ty night on the Bering Sea. Especially when it's from a dramatised fishing show..
Select to expand quoteToph said..
Maybe re-read what Lydia wrote and try your argument again. You can't compare an average day in Mooloolaba with a sh!ty night on the Bering Sea. Especially when it's from a dramatised fishing show..
That's what I meant by "have not had a rogue wave before just a set of 3 m come at me out from Mooloolaba". You gotta admit that's the description of a rogue wave that video. You can't really dramatise the episode so the boat lays in its side can you? Without it looking fake anyway. It was from season 3 (2007 or 2008) I think which wasn't really dramatised that much in my opinion.
Regards,
Mick
Select to expand quotesamsturdy said..
Offshore sailors....on a low breeze low swell day do you ever sail with your hatches/ports open or are
you always buttoned up tight including your cockpit hatch and storm boards in place. I'm asking this in
response to the cat accident and the possibility they were caught out by a sudden change.
Not being an offshore sailor I'm not sure if this happens although I have heard of rogue waves of course.
Can you relax on really 'quiet' days, or doesn't it work like that ?.
I sometimes open up the boat fully on quiet days, but that is because you keep an eye out for a sudden change even when relaxing.
Rogue waves exist. As a piece in the Journal of Contemporary Physics says, "Rogue waves are giant waves appearing erratically and unexpectedly on the ocean surfaces. Their existence, considered as mythical in the ancient times, has recently been recognised by the scientific community and, since then, rogue waves have become the object of numerous theoretical and experimental studies."
www.tandfonline.com/action/cookieAbsent
also
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4914928/
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/07/040721084137.htm
www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170510-terrifying-20m-tall-rogue-waves-are-actually-real
ec.europa.eu/research/infocentre/export/success/article_707_en.html
www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/9789812567840_0011
www.researchgate.net/publication/228912600_Evidences_of_the_existence_of_freak_waves
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draupner_wave
www.nature.com/articles/srep44124
www.ifremer.fr/web-com/stw2004/rw/fullpapers/walk_on_haver.pdf
Hi Sam,
Yes, all hatches are dogged shut. I don't need to be offshore, even sailing around the bay hatches are closed before sails go up.
On really light air days I may open the two rear cabin hatches that are well behind the mast, but the foredeck hatches are never open.
As Joelene referenced, my lazy sheet will always find the open hatch and get jammed into the hinge as you tack, even at the first detent position.. If you can't pull it out by brute force, you have to cut it , as opening most hatches wider to try and free it will only jam it more.
The washboards are different as the guys have mentioned. The regulation for Cat1 (Hobart) to Cat5 (bay race) states that the companionway hatch should be blocked off up to the 'local' sheerline. This is what your washboards are for, to bring the water ingress level up to the sheerline.
So washboards are dependent upon the boat. They are more of a trip hazard getting in and out, so most people leave them out.
I have a Cat1 rating but don't have washboards as my bottom sill where the hatch closes to is really high to start with.
Crossing a bar, everything gets shut and dogged, seacocks , companionway, everything. I never cross a bar with an orifice open.
AND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A ROGUE WAVE AND THE BIGGEST WAVE OUT THERE THAT DAY WITH YOUR NAME ON IT IS?
So you drown two people because a big wave smashed you.
So you drown two people because a rogue wave smashed you.
Still killed two people!
Rogue waves are not an excuse people.
And I have being swimming in a few of them.
Now if I can just find the ****er that put my name of that wave about 100 miles east of Flinders Island in December 1999.
But it was such a wonderful scene when it got light, it was just beautiful.
Life changing.
Select to expand quoteBlueMoon said..
Look at the gun barrel before and then after the wave
Yes, it looks like the gun enjoyed it.
Select to expand quotelydia said..
AND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A ROGUE WAVE AND THE BIGGEST WAVE OUT THERE THAT DAY WITH YOUR NAME ON IT IS?
A huge amount. You don't get rogues most days, and when they do arrive they can be more than double the size of "biggest normal wave out there".
Probably none of us have been swimming in a few rogue waves. They are extremely rare. But the fact is that they do exist and they must sometimes (although very rarely) affect a yacht in a seaway.
Select to expand quotelydia said..
So is the wave at 14s a rogue wave?
Nope. The Otago has about 6m of freeboard at the bow and seems to have taken about a metre or more of green water so let's say that was a 7m wave. A rogue can be 3 1/2 times that big, or more. The Otago is designed to survive (not operate, but survive) in a significant wave height of 14m plus - rogues can be 25 metres plus, which would not put them over the bow as in the vid but near or at Otago's masthead.
What could have been a rogue wave hit HMS Sheffield in WW2. A Town class cruiser of 10,000 tons (over 5 times the size of the Otago in the clip) she was heading to cover a Russian convoy when she met an extremely severe gale. To protect the guns and blast shield from the waves coming over the bow, the turrets were trained aft.
A wave coming aboard squeezed the side of the front turret in, so hard that the steel roof of the turret came off and flew over the side. The Sheffield's turrets were made of 1 inch thick armour plating, which (IIRC) is about 2.5 times as strong as mild steel, and the framing was built to withstand shell impact. Imagine the force required to bend and pop that out!
The point is that rogues aren't just really big "normal" waves, but things that don't seem to follow the normal laws and are vastly larger.
Select to expand quotelydia said..
So is the wave at 14s a rogue wave?
No . that is just a set wave . Rogue waves are rare but as Chris said they do exist . Must be true ,saw it on the ABC ! Hahahah
But seriously yes they [ you know "they" ] have studied it and its when two different direction swells meet and freakishly link up forming a tremendous swell gets bigger as it travels and will swallow up other smaller swells . Ultimately becoming your rogue wave . COWABUNGA
The racing rules for this 22 foot class of yacht provide for a maximum mast height of 40 feet and NO WASH BOARDS ALLOWED.
www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11223985
/\And there were some terrible accidents on those "Mullet boats" or similar boats, because they could capsize and fill so easily. But a modern mono should have all hatches clear of the waterline, even when heeled to 90 degrees.
Tragedies do happen because of open hatches, Waikikamukau being involved in possibly the worst, but that was a small boat in an extremely heavy and messed-up seaway and therefore isn't really comparable to a bigger boat in a calm sea and light winds.
