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(no email)
Date: Tue May 09 2006 - 13:01:03 EDT
It was Richard Woods a well known catamaran designer
http://www.sailingcatamarans.com/
There is a link somewhere on his tale of the abandonment of the boat, which was found recently several months later still afloat and upright.
HJ
----- Original Message -----
From:
Date: Tuesday, May 9, 2006 8:06 am
Subject: Re: [world-cruising] Re: Circumnavigating in a Power Boat - impressive passages
>
> In a message dated 09/05/2006 16:14:03 GMT Daylight Time,
> writes:
>
> I don't remember where, but I read an article about a couple
> recently who
> had to throw out a parasail on a 40 or so ft Catamaran, and
> eventually needed
> to be rescued.
> I wish I remembered the details. WHne I read it, they were looking
> for their
> boat. It was somewhere close to the GOlf of Mexico ?
> It happened a few months ago Anybody remembers ?
> Ahmet
> www.sailnomad.com
>
>
>
> Richard Woods
>
>
>
> January 2006
> Many of you will have read or heard in the papers or television
> about
> Richard Woods dramatic rescue from the Eclipse, here below is the
> true report from
> Richard himself, having just been rescued by the US Navy.
>
> Richard and Jetti aboard the frigate
>
> "As some of you probably now know, we are no longer on board
> Eclipse but on
> navy frigate USS Ford where, apart from saving our lives,
> everyone has been
> really friendly and welcoming.
> We left Nicaragua on Friday 13th, which probably didn’t help
> matters, and had
> a very frustrating sail along the coast of El Salvador and then
> Guatemala.
> Frustrating, as the weather was really changeable. For example we
> went from
> motoring to sailing under reefed genoa alone in under 2 minutes.
> But we did
> have some nice sailing for a couple of hours each day – then
> followed by several
> hours of motoring. So it was taking longer than we wanted to get
> to Mexico
> and we were both getting tired, but Jetti, as always, was
> preparing good food.
> There was a time constraint as we knew there would be a bad gale
> coming
> through the Gulf of Tehuantepec on Wednesday afternoon, and we
> had wanted to get
> past that area by then. Sadly we didn’t quite make it.
> The wind got up very quickly from south 7-10 knots to north west
> 30. As we
> got away from land the wind increased more. There are several
> proven, accepted,
> techniques for handling bad weather in a catamaran. If the wave
> and wind are
> not too severe, one can just heave to or take down all sail and
> lie ahull.
> But as the wind increases and especially as the wave height
> increases, this is
> no longer a safe option. So the next stage is either to run
> before a gale
> towing warps, or to lie to a sea anchor. The problems with the
> former are that
> a) you are going with the weather system so you stay in it longer
> b) if the
> wind increases you eventually cannot go slowly enough so you
> begin to surf and
> overtake the waves ahead c) you end up a long way downwind, at
> say 50 miles
> a day d) it would mean that I would be hand steering all the
> time, as Jetti
> is not experienced (or in the event as we found later, strong
> enough) to steer
> in big seas. So I have always preferred the sea anchor streamed
> from the
> bows. However, in 45 years of sailing and around 70,000 of
> offshore sailing, I
> have never had to stop sailing because of bad weather. So it had
> all been
> theory for me, until now.
> Anyway, at 8pm we decided to stop sailing and use our parachute
> sea anchor. I
> had first got this when we did the Azores race in Banshee in
> 1987, but had
> only ever used it for practice. This was the first time for real.
> It took
> sometime to sort out the bridle so that the boat would stay head
> to waves. It
> tended to swing 40 degrees each way and was scary (or so I
> thought at the time)
> when we got near-abeam of the waves. Also, from time to time the
> parachute
> would collapse, and we’d drift backwards until it reset, which
> was even more
> worrying.
> We spent the night like that, with no sleep of course. Next
> morning the wind
> and sea was much worse. Certainly a full gale, but not so bad that
> I thought
> the Eclipse was in real danger. Tests, theory and practice have
> shown that a
> catamaran can only capsize if it beam onto waves that are as high
> as the beam
> of the boat. So we are 100% OK in waves under 20 feet high, and
> these were
> 10 feet.
> I kept checking the warps and bridles but as the boat swung, the
> loads on the
> bridles were very high and eventually first one and then the
> other 12mm
> anchor warp bridle broke. Apart from holding the boat into waves
> the bridle also
> spreads the load onto 3 wear points. Now, all the load was on one
> bow roller
> and the parachute warp was beginning to chafe. I rigged up a
> second line with
> rolling hitches, which was rather wet to do on the foredeck. At
> some stage
> the forward trampoline started to tear but was still useable with
> care. (I had
> planned to get a new one this year as they have about a 5 year
> life). The
> wind and sea state had been steadily increasing. Every hour we
> said, “It can’t
> get windier can it?” By now it was probably a steady 40 knots and
> 10-15 foot
> seas breaking over the boat every 10 minutes or so. Our safety
> depended on
> our parachute sea anchor holding. But in case it failed, I set up
> the 2 main
> anchors to be used as drogues behind the boat.
> Surprisingly it was not the warp that broke, but the parachute.
> This was a
> 10ft cargo-style parachute specially made for use as a yacht sea
> anchor. I
> pulled it on board, the boat drifting beam on at this stage, and
> on quick
> inspection found it had shredded and that several parachute lines
> had pulled out.
> As I said earlier, I had only used the sea anchor in calmer
> conditions for an
> hour or so, just to practice. It seemed an excellent idea, the
> boat would
> just bob up and down, just like being on a conventional anchor,
> but in a real
> gale the loads were much worse, and the boat was being pulled and
> jerked as the
> waves passed. I didn’t like it, and I don’t think I would
> recommend a sea
> anchor again.
> We threw the anchors over the stern and also added the shredded
> sea anchor.
> It was very difficult to steer, but eventually I got the boat
> moving downwind.
> We were sailing at 5-6 knots despite the drogues. We let out more
> warp which
> helped slow us to 3-4. I think that might have still meant
> surfing down some
> of the bigger waves which would have the potential for a
> disastrous broach.
> However the real problem was now the following waves could catch
> us up and
> break into the cockpit. For the first time ever on any catamaran
> I’ve sailed we
> had to close the companionway door. The first wave broke into the
> cockpit.
> The second wave was much bigger and swamped the cockpit. Even
> worse it filled
> the dinghy which we keep in davits. The water weight broke some
> of the
> straps, and we had to cut the dinghy loose and so lost it.
> Clearly running downwind
> was not an option.
> So we now decided to try towing the anchors from one stern. This
> would allow
> the boat to lie at a 45 degree angle to the waves. Despite this
> temporary
> arrangement it actually seemed to work better than the sea anchor
> had done. Of
> course all the time the wind was increasing. We went below again
> to recover
> and see how the boat was handling the conditions. An hour later
> the wind
> suddenly got up even more. It was now screeching and the rig
> began vibrating which
> I had only noticed once before, when tied up in a marina during a
> 70 knot
> gale. The waves were now often over 20 feet so it was definitely
> getting to the
> dangerous, life threatening stage. We began to discuss the option
> of
> abandoning ship. Unfortunately our Raymarine wind speed indicator
> was obviously only
> designed for inshore sailing because it was still reading 32
> knots. So I don’
> t know how windy it really was.
> By 1pm the waves were now consistently over 20 feet, maybe
> occasionally 30
> feet. I know I tend to underestimate wave heights, partly because
> everyone
> normally over estimates. For example when sailing in Alaska in the
> summer I
> thought we were in 2-3 ft waves, but our skipper wrote 6ft waves
> in the log. It
> was getting more and more serious as there didn’t seem to be any
> limit to how
> high the wind and waves could get. By 1.30pm the wind really got
> up. The sea
> state changed and the whole surface was covered in flying spume,
> all the wave
> tops were blown off. It was much the worse conditions I have ever
> seen, even
> when standing on a beach looking out at 100 knot winter gales.
> When I went
> outside I couldn’t stand up except by holding to a tether line. I
> could feel
> the skin on my face distorting in the wind. I guess there is a
> known wind speed
> when that happens, but I’d never felt it before.
> That was when we decided to send out a Mayday, as we knew it would
> be several
> hours before any chance of rescue. Of course it was particularly
> hard for me
> as Eclipse is not insured. And of course no one likes the idea of
> abandoning
> a boat – usually boats are picked up later undamaged. I can
> always build
> another boat, and I had earlier said to Jetti that we might not
> survive.
> Accordingly we set off our EPIRB but also called Pip using our
> satellite phone. He
> gave us the UK’s Falmouth Coastguard phone number, and we called
> the
> Coastguard direct. We called back every hour to check on progress
> and to give a
> weather update and position check. We heard that Mexico was
> sending out a launch to
> stand by.
> By 6pm it was dark so we could no longer see the waves. We could
> still hear
> them crashing onto the boat, but so far, apart from the lost
> dinghy and torn
> but useable trampoline there was no other damage. The inside was
> beginning to
> become a mess. Normally on a catamaran one can leave cups on the
> table; there
> is no need for fiddle rails, etc. Now everything was being thrown
> around.
> There seemed little point in putting everything back in place, so
> most just
> stayed on the floor or was put on the bunks. The inside stayed
> dry though, no
> water had got below except for the one wave when we were running
> downwind and
> lost the dinghy. So it was dry and warm below.
> But all the time a wave/wind squall could have our name on it. We
> wouldn’t
> survive a capsize. We were still expecting the Mexican coastguard
> to call up on
> the VHF to say they were enroute. So it was a great surprise to
> hear a
> female American voice at 11pm saying she was in a helicopter and
> 10 miles from us.
> This was the first we knew that the US was involved. We kept in
> radio
> contact as they flew in and then set off a flare and made visual
> contact, although
> I suspect the pilot had seen us long before through their night
> vision
> equipment.
> The last book I had read was Perfect Storm, so I knew all about
> the skills
> and training of naval rescue personnel. We had earlier prepared
> some dry bags
> which we filled with passports, money, ship papers. All those can
> be replaced,
> so what else? What I really wanted to take was my computer with
> all my work
> on it. But I felt it was too big. So Jetti took her makeup bag, I
> took our CD’
> s. In hindsight we could have taken more. We tied the bags to
> each other and
> put on shoes and inflated our lifejackets.
> The US navy helicopters have a SAR (search and rescue) swimmer who
> jumps out
> of the helicopter and swims to the stricken vessel with a lifting
> strop. It
> looked very scary to me. A brave man. Eclipse was still moving
> around quite
> violently in the seas, but the conditions were fortunately not
> nearly as bad as
> they had been when we put out the Mayday. Ironically we probably
> were over
> the worst of the gale. Jetti was the first to jump into the sea
> and into the
> swimmer’s waiting arms. Five minutes later it was my turn. As I
> was hoisted
> out, I looked down and back at Eclipse and hoped I would see it
> again.
> I had not flown in a helicopter before. They look big on the
> outside, but are
> cramped inside and very noisy. Our flight back to the USS Ford
> lasted about
> 10 minutes. We watched the in-flight movie: the night vision
> viewer of the
> frigate as we approached was fantastic. Jetti was shown the
> weather radar and
> saw that Eclipse was right in the centre of the storm.
> We landed on the ship and faced a welcoming party of apparently
> the whole
> ship’s company, despite it now being 3 in the morning. A quick
> debrief, medical
> check, shower, and then into a set of navy issue jumpsuits. Next,
> a massive
> breakfast. We are not sure if it was put in front of us as a test,
> but it was
> the biggest meal I’ve ever eaten. Jetti finished her plates as
> well. But then
> neither of us had eaten anything for 36 hours except a few slices
> of bread.
> Then a 3 hour sleep.
> In the morning we had discussions with the crew. The helicopter
> pilot said
> she had great difficulty controlling her helicopter as she was
> flying at 50
> knots to stay in position and going up and down 20ft to stay with
> the waves.
> Independent confirmation that it was still a full gale, if not F9.
> Even so, it
> was far less severe than earlier in the day. She also said it was
> her first
> real sea rescue. She, like the swimmer, had only done simulations
> in weather
> this severe. She also admitted that her helicopter had not been
> airworthy the
> day before as the rotor blades were being changed. We met the
> captain who said
> he had been steaming his frigate away from the area to keep away
> from the
> bad weather. He considers this area worse than sailing round Cape
> Horn. Even
> now as I write on board USS Ford, it’s hard to keep in my chair
> as the ship is
> rolling and pitching. Yet, looking outside, the sea state looks
> relatively
> flat compared to what we had been in yesterday.
> We have 24 hours before getting to port. We are desperate to see
> if we can
> salvage Eclipse. It is undamaged and will probably float for ever.
> Currently it
> is only 50 miles from a big fishing harbour, and we hope to find
> a salvage
> operator there to tow Eclipse in.
> Despite all that happened, I was very impressed with the
> seaworthiness of
> Eclipse. No real damage (we didn’t like our dinghy anyway), and
> the boat had
> survived a major storm without capsizing. Certainly life would
> have been much
> more uncomfortable on a monohull, and ultimately I think had we
> been on one, we
> would still have put out a Mayday, as did the yacht in the
> Perfect Storm.
> I’ll finish this by thanking all the crew on USS Ford. There will
> be more
> about them later.
> We don’t know what the future holds now. In a few days we will
> know about
> Eclipse. If it is salvaged, clearly we have to sort that out. If
> not, we will
> fly home.
> That’s it for now.
> Richard and Jetti, no longer on board Eclipse"
> one more
>
> _http://www.news4jax.com/news/8594374/detail.html_
> (http://www.news4jax.com/news/8594374/detail.html)
>
>
> regards
>
> David
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
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