Risk of capsizing a Lagoon 380 and reefing

[Chotu]

Side question. A couple months back a Marina was asking to see my manual regarding hauling out. I had a good laugh.

So how do you sail by the numbers when you don’t have the numbers?

I can ask my sister ship who has figured it all out on his own. Seems to be getting by pretty well. But the closest official numbers might be a gunboat 48. I don’t seem to see those published anywhere. they only made 6 of those boats anyway so they probably don’t have an official manual.

Sailing will start this coming season, so it’s good to think ahead

[Snore]

Originally Posted by Chotu

Side question. A couple months back and Marina was asking to see my manual regarding hauling out. I had a good laugh.

So how do you sail by the numbers when you don’t have the numbers?

I can ask my sister ship who has figured it all out on his own. Seems to be getting by pretty well. But the closest official numbers might be a gunboat 48. I don’t seem to see those published anywhere. they only made 6 of those boats anyway so they probably don’t have an official manual

The recommended reefing points on a cat should be based on BOTH the sailing characteristics and the loads on the standing rigging. In your case, I would reach out to the person who designed the rigging to ask about wind load on the standing rigging. Once I knew the max load for the rig, then it becomes a 'seat of the pants'. How does she sail, is she balanced? Is she being driven too hard and banging?

When I moved older cats that did not have a manual, I would suggest to the owners reefing at AWS's of 15, 19, 25, and bare poles at 30. Regardless of AWA. Owner would have to agree, or amend, as I didn't want to own a failure.

Once I went to downloading weather twice a day, I was always able to avoid over 22-23 kts. It is bad for business to break a new owner's boat!!!

[Cheechako]

You'll just have to learn to read the wind and strength, always reef well before it's too much. If you can find something in a manual or other places it would be good to have it posted near the helm for a while.
The problem is you get little warning in a cat. Everything's great.... then you're upside down. You are gong to have to go by numbers not feel now. In a Mono you feel it, as you mention.

I got caught temporarily between islands in my Lagoon 42 in 35 knots of wind with full sail and it never seemed close, even though there were some big rollers nearly abeam, the windward hull hardly lifted at all.. But that was scary because I knew there was a lot of force going on, had green crew aboard, and it was rough enough reefing would have been difficult. Fortunately it was a short trip and only like that for an hour.

[Cheyne]

From the 380 manual.


CLOSE HAULED TRIMMING (between 75 and 50° to true wind) Wind force given in apparent wind

- From 0 to 16 knots: full sail ; main sail traveller 30 cm above the boat centre, main sail trimmed with a slightly opened leech (boom centred).
The genoa jib is trimmed to near the spreader, the genoa traveller is placed so that the angle of the genoa sheet forms a straight line with the clew and the luff, at 40% of its height.

- From 16 to 20 knots: full sail; the main sail traveller moves up to 60cm above boat centre, main sail trimmed with a slightly more open leech (boom still in line: so the sheet will have to be slackened).

- From 20 to 26 knots: 1 reef, full genoa; the main sail traveller comes back to 30cm above boat centre. The genoa traveller does not change position but the sheet is slackened slightly so that the leech is 20 cm from the spreader.

- From 26 to 30 knots: 1 reef, 75% of the genoa, the main sail traveller goes to 60 cm above the boat's centre. The genoa traveller remains in place or moves slightly forward but it is adjusted so that the leech acts as a propeller, the upper part dumping air out in strong wind conditions.

- From 30 to 36 knots: 2 reefs, 60% of the genoa, the main sail traveller returns to the 30 cm above centre position, the boom is slackened to fly 50 cm leeward. The genoa traveller is moved slightly forward, the adjustment remains the same.

- From 36 to 45 knots: 2 reefs, 40% of the genoa. The main sail traveller is dead centre and the boom veers 1 metre to leeward.
The genoa traveller moves forward slightly, the sheet is slackened to open wide in strong wind conditions.

- From 45 to 55 knots: 3 reefs alone (either storm sail or lie to), traveller in the centre, main sail out by 1meter. The boat will be more at ease scudding in this weather.

- Over 55 knots: lie to, drag anchor or, preferably, scud bare poles.


CLOSE REACHED TRIMMING (between 75 and 130° to true wind)

- From 0 to 23 knots: full sail; the traveller is positioned between 1 meter from centre up to the end of the track depending on the wind angle, the sheet is slackened so that boom is veering out anything from 50 cm in calm weather to 2 meters when the wind is forcing. In every case no more than one batten should be allowed to chafe the shroud at the fastest speeds.
The genoa jib is slackened so that its average attack angle is head on to the apparent wind.

- From 23 to 28 knots: 1 reef, all the genoa. The adjustments are identical.

- From 28 to 33 knots: 2 reefs, 80% of the genoa. The adjustments remain identical.

- From 33 to 38 knots: 2 reefs, 60% of the genoa. The adjustments remain identical.

- From 38 to 45 knots: 3 reefs (or main sail lowered and a little more genoa), 40% of the genoa. The adjustments remain identical.

- From 45 to 55 knots: main sail lowered, 40 to 30% of the genoa, sufficiently trimmed so as not to flap.

- Over 55 knots: scudding, depending on the sea conditions the mooring lines can be looped round behind the vessel and attached on the opposite side to act as a brake.

[Tin Tin]

Sailing by the numbers means having a reliable wind instrument and water speed instrument so TWS can be calculated. We always carry a hand held anemometer (there ones now that plug into a cell phone) - the Beaufort scale paper chart with descriptions of wind ranges is also handy. SOG can come from many sources such as smart phone, ipad etc, there is a TW app calculator as well - all this stuff is for fall back position after a Pelican cleans up your wind vanes. Some cassette tape on the shrouds is good too.

[CarlF]

I moved from 25 years on monohulls to now 3 years on a cat (Leopard 50). The simple answer is to put in the first reef unless the wind is really light. In many cases the reef will give better speed as the boat is more balanced. I sometimes go a week without ever shaking out the first reef.

It’s especially important to reef a cat’s main early when the wind is behind you. If the wind comes up or a squall appears astern, you can’t reef more without turning into the wind — and this turn will cause the apparent wind speed to increase a lot. It can be dangerous.

And don’t use “lean” to trim your sails. That’s monohull thinking

[thinwater]

These threads crack me up.

• If the rig is not strong enough to capsize the boat it is very poorly made indeed. Suggesting that something will break before a cat can be capsized is dangerous, uninformed talk.
• A cat has plenty of feel, it is just DIFFERENT from and more subtle than the feel of a monohull. In fact, an experienced small cat sailor does not need "the numbers" to know where the edge is. To them, it is obvious. It is more the impact of a gust and the way the boat lifts coming off a wave. Also, cruising cats have a way of feeling sluggish when over pressed, since the mini keels and small rudders become overpowered. Again, there is feel, just different from monohulls. Which brings us to ...
• Learn to sail small cats first. Then you will understand multihulls and how they behave when pushed light and pushed hard. Or sail by the numbers and never actually understand multihulls. You'll be fine, as long as you never get into bad weather and need that experience and those skills.

And what do you do if the wind instruments fail? Just motor? Hysterical.



I liked Chotu's post. There aren't going to be numbers for every weather situation.


---


I also find it interesting how the "numbers" vary between manufacturers. Some are very conservative, some far more aggressive. Which is right? That depends on the sailor and how skilled and engaged he is.

[Lee Jerry]

Originally Posted by Tin Tin

Some cassette tape on the shrouds is good too.

Dude, you're showing your age!

[Tin Tin]

Originally Posted by Lee Jerry

Dude, you're showing your age!

I was at a beach cat regatta the other day and a "dude" was selling old music cassettes for $1 to be used as telltales. VHS tape is good too.



I once chartered a Fountaine Pajot in Belize 20 years ago, and the wind vane had broken so removed a few of feet from a cassette tape (cut off a bit of Neil Diamonds intro to Hot August Night i think) and all was good with the world. No chart plotter back then, just black and white photocopied charts, and compass forward and back bearings.

[Sos]

Unlike a mono always reef to the gusts!

[The Yacht Rigger]

Originally Posted by schilke

Hi cruisers,
We've just purchased our Lagoon 380 S2 catamaran and gaining our first experiences with her. I've got ample experience om a monohull but literally no whatsoever on a multi hull. One thing that keeps me up at night is the risk of capsizing (I have my family aboard). On a monohull I have a good feeling on where is too much (pressure on rudder, luv yawing, heeling, etc.). I'm missing those signals on my cat (or I don't feel them yet). How do you assess when to reef? Is capsizing a thing on a L380 one need to be concerned with or is it just theory (I'm not talking of surfing down large waves and flipping over but capsizing from wind and normal seas)? Thanks for your wisdom!

If you want to spend the money (in your case probably around $3500) there are some very accurate and reliable load sensing turnbuckles you can buy now that will send load data directly to your plotter. This will let you not only very accurately tune the rig, but also show you live feedback when sailing and allow you to reef (or sheet out) based on actual numbers.
They also log load data for approximately 10 years, so you can keep historical load data and look back at different situations over time and see how/when the rig was loaded up.

[Tupaia]

Originally Posted by thinwater

I also find it interesting how the "numbers" vary between manufacturers. Some are very conservative, some far more aggressive. Which is right? That depends on the sailor and how skilled and engaged he is.

The numbers will vary according to sail area (reefed areas), beam, displacement, etc etc. If they didn't vary then there would only be one set of numbers applicable to all cats.


It is interesting that no account is taken of payload however. But manufacturers don't want to get sued so chances are the numbers will all be conservative to some degree.

[Chotu]

My last Catamaran didn’t even have numbers. As a matter of fact they would pay you if you could flip it. Ha ha ha.

Now I will be sailing the polar opposite. (Pun IS intended)

Probably a rough guide would be nice. I would rather feel and get to know the boat instead, but for the first few runs it could be nice to have some numbers to go by.

Also since the entire rig has not been sailed before, I think I need to load it up in increments just to make sure everything is good. Apparently you’re not supposed to just go all out the first day with a brand new rig

[Factor]

The best thing you can do is go out sailing and put a reef in on really light days. On any DECENT cat you will be amazed how little speed you lose in light airs, this can give you encouragement to reef early when it's simpler and safer. Another reason to reef earlier is that if the boat is overdressed the sail shape gets worse (if like me you have tired sails :-) ) and the leeward hull depresses and you go slower. If you go faster after you reef you waited to long. Fundamentally get out and reef often in all wind conditions.

[JustMurph]

Originally Posted by Chotu

Side question. A couple months back a Marina was asking to see my manual regarding hauling out. I had a good laugh.

So how do you sail by the numbers when you don’t have the numbers?

I can ask my sister ship who has figured it all out on his own. Seems to be getting by pretty well. But the closest official numbers might be a gunboat 48. I don’t seem to see those published anywhere. they only made 6 of those boats anyway so they probably don’t have an official manual.

Sailing will start this coming season, so it’s good to think ahead

Most performance oriented cats will have plenty of feedback. I generally reef mine about 5knots lower than what's recommended for the design, as that's when it's telling me that it's starting to get pressed a bit hard. It's always nice to know that I can push her a bit further up the wind range without needing to worry though.

The main feedback I'm looking for is feel on the helm and the motion of the boat through the water. When pressed hard, the helm loads go up significantly and she doesn't feel "light", like she's dancing over the water, and more like she's plowing through it. As soon as I reef, the helm and the motion of the boat are much lighter and more comfortable.