Tropical Storm Vicente taught us a thing or two about safety on beach cats recently. The storm warnings and high winds had cancelled the planned Commodore’s Cup at Cheung Chau, but a few of us decided it would still be a good day to get in some heavy wind practice before the upcoming regattas. Three boats left the beach and headed toward Peng Chau. Conditions getting out of the Bay were challenging but not extreme and we felt reasonably confident heading up towards Disney, then across to get in the lee of Peng Chau and Hei Ling Chau. Calmer conditions gave us a bit of a break so we headed back out on the eastern side of Peng Chau across towards Disney. Heavy winds and swell made it challenging to get across without burying the nose of the boat and risking a pitch-pole.
Going behind one of the ferries, we were suddenly hit with a combination of wake and swell which completely buried the nose of both hulls, knocking both crew and helm into the middle of the boat. With the stern still up in the air and as we were sorting out our lines and positions, we were hit again by a large wave throwing the crew into the water. She held bravely onto the trapeze line and a toe strap. Unfortunately, though, we were still moving at speed and the crew could not haul herself off the back of the boat. What’s more we could even turn, because she was hanging onto the rudder! She final gave up and realeased. No problem, it’s a standard ‘man-overboard’ drill, right? Well, it turned out to be more difficult than that.
As the helm headed off at a reach without crew, the boat was far more difficult to handle. He managed to tack (after several failed attempts) and head back to the crew, but could not quite get the right angle to get back. After a couple more attempts to tack, he tried a gybe. It wasn’t pretty, but he made it around. Still the wrong angle to get there though. On the third gybe, he lost control and capsized, a good 50 metres from the crew and was quickly pushed downwind farther away.
Ok now this may be a problem. Unfortunately, he capsized directly above an island of rocks and was moving very swiftly towards them. No time to try and right the boat before he would hit them. First, he thought to push the nose around to lessen the windage and slow the boat. He tried to swim under the sail towards the front. The boat was still moving very swiftly, and he could feel lines and wires starting to wrap around him as the boat continued to drag him downwind. After a brief moment of terror, he gave up on that idea.
Instead, he attempted to aim the boat away from the rocks by angling the trampoline slightly (by pulling on the back of the boat and creating drag with his body) and using the wind to push it away. Amazingly, it seemed to work just well enough to miss the main mass of rocks. As he breathed a sigh of relief, he noticed another grouping of rocks well to the left and realised he was heading right into the middle! The tide was very high which added a few inches of water above most of the rocks in the middle and he managed to get across them with only minor scrapes to himself and the boat was unharmed.
Once on the other side, the helm attempted to right the boat himself. He almost had it up too, but quickly became fatigued after several minutes of trying. Eventually one of our companion boats was able to come around and pick up the crew. From there it headed over to the capsized Dart to help with righting the boat. It dropped it own, heavier crew in the water upwind of the capsize to help get the boat up faster. Unfortunately he had to swim a bit farther than we intended and the helm of the capsized boat had to swim the nose into the wind to ensure they were able to get together. With that extra bit of help the boat was up in no time and safely sailing back to the beach, albeit with a different crew entirely.
Lessons learned:
- Always sail with at least one other boat in the area. They could end up saving you or your boat if you get in trouble.
- Always sail with a mobile phone and your club’s safety boat number on speed dial.
- NEVER swim under the boat or the sail, the possibility of entrapment is immediate and real.
- Keep the boat in between you and major dangers (e.g. rocks), and stay with the boat.
- In heavy weather, the helm may not be able to easily handle the boat by himself and get back to the overboard crew for a pick-up. In that case, capsizing the boat quickly and intentionally may be the best alternative. Doing it just upwind of the crew in the water is a good idea as that will help them stay together and possibly right the boat.
- The best option in this scenario, once the crew had fallen off, may have been to control the boat by keeping it close to wind. Then signal the companion boat to help pick up the crew and return her to the single-handed boat.
- If you have done all the usual things to de-power your sails, you can also release the down-haul and pull the foot of the sail out of the slot. Going further, you can take the main sail down while on the water and sail on your jib alone. Taking your main down while on the water does require some thought and coordination as you’ll have to be on the correct tack (starboard for Darts) to successfully unhook the sail and get it down.
- To reduce the possibility of a pitch-pole in heavy conditions, release the jib early and keep it more slack than normal. You do not need to optimize for speed, but you do need to reduce the downward pressure on the front of the boat which is what enables the bows to dig into the water.
