GUNBOAT Dismasting

[Jon Eisberg]

Originally Posted by clockwork orange

I wonder Nearly every beach cat in the world (except my P cat) has no fwd beam, oh, and the big cat Pete Goss was going to sail in The Race but that one didn't work out too well as a bow broke off, so not exactly an innovation. I don't think its fair for anyone to be pointing to the carbon mast as a cause for failure, we just don't know but what we do know is that rigs can come down from the failure of just one realativly inexpensive fitting so there is no point in speculating until more is known. What I would like to know is if they had a suitable sea anchor to deploy or did they just think they can sail around a storm. Assuming the boat was not sinking or at risk of breaking up being tethered to a large parachute could keep the boat head to wind and waves and even if they did get taken off it would be a lot easier to locate as its drift would be far less and more predictable. Another thought for me is this habit people have of getting off the boat and leaving it floating as a hazard to shipping. Skip Allen scuttled Sunflower when he was taken off, even Rebel Heart was scuttled, its the responsible thing to do, should this not be a part of the decision making process when deciding whether to go or stay. To me its about thinking about others instead of just yourself. So you get rescued to save yourself and crew but you leave a floating boat for someone else to run into and possibly lose their lives. Now I doubt a commercial ship would even notice it but there is bound to be other small cruising boats out there that if they ran into it at night in bad weather could be sunk. My personal feeling is that if you choose to be removed from the boat you should scuttle it for the safety of other small craft, if your not willing to do that then stay aboard and tough it out. This brings up the problem of scuttling a boat that has built in floatation, I wonder if anyone makes provision for flooding the buoyancy tanks.


Steve.

Yeah, that's the problem... How do you scuttle an "Unsinkable" boat?

Unsinkable
Six water-tight bulkheads, and a carbon reinforced underbody make flooding very unlikely. The composite laminate’s foam core acts as the ultimate reserve buoyancy. Even with the unthinkable, it remains unsinkable.

I've wondered whether they carried a para-anchor aboard, my hunch would be that they may well not have... Peter Johnstone says that RAINMAKER wound up being only 240 kg over her designed lightship displacement, so with such a priority placed on performance, the additional weight of a chute and 600' or more of dedicated rode might have been left off the list, wouldn't surprise me at all... Perhaps even for a North Atlantic passage in late January, that boat can just "sail around storms", after all... ;-)

One possible downside of the lack of a forward cross beam I can envision. My understanding how it's generally done, is that a cat lying to a sea anchor will do so to a bridle led from both bows... When put under an extreme load, such a bridle would exert some force that would want to 'pinch' the bows together, no?

Of course, given the immense strength and rigidity of carbon fiber construction, I suppose this has likely been engineered to be a virtual non-issue. Probably less of a consideration than the similar loads imparted by the support of the longeron/sprit by the rig, but it's just something that occurred to me when thinking of such a boat lying to a para-anchor...

[GoingWalkabout]

Originally Posted by tomfl

Some random thoughts. If the standing rigging parted close th the top of the mast that may have been what fouled the props. Not sure how long the mast and running rigging would stay close to the boat in a windy seaway but the standing rigging would be attached to the chain plates and drag under the hulls.

Also wonder if some wind blown debris could have hit the mast and/or rigging and damaged or weakened them prior to the forces that brought down the mast.

Lots of times there are multiple causes of a disaster.

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I agree. Especially concerning multiple causes or to be more correct what is called the cascading effect from the initial cause.

[Sailingcouple13]

Our boat is one complete bridge deck, helm inside with Stata Glass in aft, to enclose. Built in 2004

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[colemj]

Originally Posted by Jon Eisberg

One possible downside of the lack of a forward cross beam I can envision. My understanding how it's generally done, is that a cat lying to a sea anchor will do so to a bridle led from both bows... When put under an extreme load, such a bridle would exert some force that would want to 'pinch' the bows together, no?

I don't think this would be a problem. A proper sea anchor bridle has long legs and a small angle where they meet the main anchor rode. Ignoring that the forces on such a setup are rarely distributed evenly between the legs, and that much of it is spent in stretch, the magnitude of the "squeezing" force of the two hulls together that this angle can generate is very small.

I would suspect riding a sea anchor in a storm would present less of that force on the bows than normal anchoring with an all-chain anchor rode and a shorter bridle in heavy wind.

Mark

[colemj]

Originally Posted by Sailingcouple13

Our boat is one complete bridge deck, helm inside with Stata Glass in aft, to enclose. Built in 2004

No it's not. Gunboat invented that this year and is the first to do so.

Mark

[smj]

Originally Posted by colemj

No it's not. Gunboat invented that this year and is the first to do so.



Mark

And why? Because Peter Johnston told ya so.

[malbert73]

I know it's human nature to obsess over the boat and design. In my opinion this is easy- they were overcanvassed when a 70 kt white squall hit. If they hadn't lost the rig likely they would have flipped. Cats can't depower by heeling suddenly. When the puff hit they stuffed into a wave instead of translating the wind into forward speed. Rig loads up and appropriately fails.

Cats are great but you can't get caught overcanvassed. Have to reef conservatively which they didn't do.

I don't think this has anything to do with construction. Maybe an issue with general design- if one really wants to head directly out into a nasty winter storm off of hatteras, maybe better in a valiant or west sail or something like that. either that or depower early and downshift, so to speak.



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[clockwork orange]

Originally Posted by Jon Eisberg

Yeah, that's the problem... How do you scuttle an "Unsinkable" boat?

I've wondered whether they carried a para-anchor aboard, my hunch would be that they may well not have... Peter Johnstone says that RAINMAKER wound up being only 240 kg over her designed lightship displacement, so with such a priority placed on performance, the additional weight of a chute and 600' or more of dedicated rode might have been left off the list, wouldn't surprise me at all... Perhaps even for a North Atlantic passage in late January, that boat can just "sail around storms", after all... ;-)

One possible downside of the lack of a forward cross beam I can envision. My understanding how it's generally done, is that a cat lying to a sea anchor will do so to a bridle led from both bows... When put under an extreme load, such a bridle would exert some force that would want to 'pinch' the bows together, no?

Of course, given the immense strength and rigidity of carbon fiber construction, I suppose this has likely been engineered to be a virtual non-issue. Probably less of a consideration than the similar loads imparted by the support of the longeron/sprit by the rig, but it's just something that occurred to me when thinking of such a boat lying to a para-anchor...

Yes, i suspect they did not have a para anchor either but im not sure I would want to be out on the nets setting it without a forebeam and the longeron flopping around anyway.

[Poozer]

Originally Posted by malbert73

I know it's human nature to obsess over the boat and design. In my opinion this is easy- they were overcanvassed when a 70 kt white squall hit. If they hadn't lost the rig likely they would have flipped. Cats can't depower by heeling suddenly. When the puff hit they stuffed into a wave instead of translating the wind into forward speed. Rig loads up and appropriately fails.

Cats are great but you can't get caught overcanvassed. Have to reef conservatively which they didn't do.

I don't think this has anything to do with construction. Maybe an issue with general design- if one really wants to head directly out into a nasty winter storm off of hatteras, maybe better in a valiant or west sail or something like that. either that or depower early and downshift, so to speak.

Exactly, and the problem is that at least some of the people that buy into the Gunboat legend that they are the highest-tech, fastest, safest, awesomest catamarans that money can buy, are not prepared for the reality of heavy weather sailing. Kind of like buying a racecar but not being able to keep control of it in a turn. When it crashes, who's at fault? The driver or the builder?

[downunder]

Originally Posted by Poozer

Exactly, and the problem is that at least some of the people that buy into the Gunboat legend that they are the highest-tech, fastest, safest, awesomest catamarans that money can buy, are not prepared for the reality of heavy weather sailing. Kind of like buying a racecar but not being able to keep control of it in a turn. When it crashes, who's at fault? The driver or the builder?

Have to agree with you that it is a crew decision making issue rather than boat design unless we hear that there was a rig failure as alluded by some.

I can't however agree with malbert that being in a valiant or westsail was the solution.

[Poozer]

If we follow the theory that it was a crew decision error, then perhaps some lessons learned and best practices can be determined.

These are conditions where a monohull would likely experience a knockdown, and such conditions are not uncommon when crossing the world's oceans. So in these conditions what should they have done?

a) Dropped the mainsail and continue on staysail or storm jib?
b) Dropped all sails and use some engine to keep the boat as much on course as possible?
c) Drop the sails and run under bare poles?
d) ???

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by clockwork orange

Yes, i suspect they did not have a para anchor either but im not sure I would want to be out on the nets setting it without a forebeam and the longeron flopping around anyway.

You don't. You "pre deploy" a para-anchor, before setting out on a passage. It's already secured at the bows, all assembled and ready to go. The actual anchor is in the cockpit, just needs to be thrown overboard.

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by malbert73

I know it's human nature to obsess over the boat and design. In my opinion this is easy- they were overcanvassed when a 70 kt white squall hit. If they hadn't lost the rig likely they would have flipped. Cats can't depower by heeling suddenly. When the puff hit they stuffed into a wave instead of translating the wind into forward speed. Rig loads up and appropriately fails.

Cats are great but you can't get caught overcanvassed. Have to reef conservatively which they didn't do.

I don't think this has anything to do with construction. Maybe an issue with general design- if one really wants to head directly out into a nasty winter storm off of hatteras, maybe better in a valiant or west sail or something like that. either that or depower early and downshift, so to speak.



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Yeah, and if they hadn't flipped they'd have broken up... yada yada yada...

[Seaslug Caravan]

Originally Posted by 44'cruisingcat

You don't. You "pre deploy" a para-anchor, before setting out on a passage. It's already secured at the bows, all assembled and ready to go. The actual anchor is in the cockpit, just needs to be thrown overboard.

The problem with this approach is:
A/ Do you set up for a port or starboard deployment?
B/ chafe on the attached lines after days of ploughing into nasty stuff needs to be managed. ( yes I know one can use cable ties etc but all this has a definite cyclic life)
and
C/ Is hanging a parra-anchor of the bows really the best option

[Polux]

Originally Posted by svHyLyte

And therein lies the weakness of the catamaran. It's inability to heel to the wind and relieve the strain on the rig...

Originally Posted by Jon Eisberg View Post
This is how:

Posted Today, 08:38 AM
This morning's update: Sustained winds were 30-35 knots. Squalls had been in the 40 knot range for most of the day. A full whiteout squall hit that initially looked no different than the other squalls. Sails were up as there was no indication of squalls with winds above 40 knots. A wall of wind hit at up to 70 knots. There was no opportunity to get the sails down. The mast came down with the wall of wind. Am simply relieved these guys are all safe.

PLEASE SAY A PRAYER FOR RAINMAKER'S CREW - Multihull Anarchy - Sailing Anarchy Forums

Yup, sounds like the North Atlantic, 200 miles off Hatteras in late January, alright...
.

Losing the mast was the best that could have happen to them: With a 70 knots wind wall and sails up, if the mast would not have broke they would capsize.

I still don't understand why the Mayday or abandon ship: they cut the mast off, the hull was sound and it seems odd new engines having a problem. Surely they had enough diesel, they were near the coast on a seaworthy boat with a big tankage.