About 4 am on Saturday, June 17th, 2006 Sarah and I went out at the Venice, Florida inlet aboard my 79 Hunter 33 bound for Sikes Cut through St George Island near Apalachicola some 245 miles away. Since she is not a sailor, we had stayed an extra day at Venice to get the conditions as right as possible for single handing and on this day we had them, a forecast for E winds 10 kts with seas no more than 2-3 feet through about Monday of the following week. With a course almost NW, this meant a broad reach all the way and I planned to spend the night in the cockpit rousing up occasionally to check on George, the WP 5000 open belt autopilot and admire the stars and the glowing phosphorescent wake. The first part of the day delivered as forecast with seas 2-3 feet and winds easterly. Late in the afternoon though, the wind moved almost north, making us close hauled and finally with a dying wind forced the engine on in order to keep up the speed needed for arriving at Apalachicola mid afternoon on the 18th. As sunset neared, I went below to get some sleep, telling Sarah that I expected the conditions to continue. She woke me up 20 minutes later saying we were going too fast. Coming on deck the sunset still showed. The wind had moved back toward the east and was blowing greater than 15 mph. As darkness fell and for the next several hours, the wind continued to increase and following close after, so did the sea. Gradually overpowered, Sarah and I worked together to furl the 110 genoa with the Streamstay 1 furler and I incrementally depowered the mainsail letting the traveller down and easing the sheet and boom vang till only the lower quarter or so of the sail was doing much. Even so by 10 pm or so, George began to groan with the burden of steering and then to screech as the belt slipped with the load till I had to manually steer. Solid spray more and more often pelted the dodgerless cockpit and my eyeglasses, leaving me pretty well blinded. By this time, about all I was looking at anyway was the compass heading, the masthead wind indicator lit by the anchor light and the lower part of the mainsail lit from time to time with a led head mounted light. Toward midnight I began to realize that it was going to be a long long time til daylight, that conditions weren’t improving at all, and that I was getting very very tired. Then, Sarah took a very bad fall, hitting her head and shoulder on the cabin sole. Luckily, nothing broke. At the time, we were just about in the middle of the big bend, (see figure) and about in the middle of our crossing. Though I had never tried to heave to with just the mainsail, it seemed the time to try and so I headed up, sheeted the mainsail in hard with the traveler down to port, and with the boat effectively stopped, spun the wheel all the way starboard, locked it in place and sat down to see what would happen. With a little fine tuning of the traveler position, the effect was close to magic. As the forward motion stopped, so did the spray. The mainsail stayed filled with wind coming over the starboard bow enough to keep it from seriously luffing at any time and the boat was almost upright, heeling perhaps 5-10 degrees to port. After watching this for several minutes, I went below, lay down on the starboard main cabin bunk wet clothes, safety harness, offshore life preserver and all and went sound asleep in just about 30 seconds. Though I certainly didn’t think about it at the time, the much reduced motion and heeling of the boat let me stay on the bunk, something that would have been impossible just a few minutes earllier. It seemed to me that I at once dreamed that I had tied up to someone’s pier and that I needed to find them to pay them for the privilege. After an hour or two, I woke up, went topside and saw that bay horse continued to lie within about 30 degrees of the wind source, the mainsail stayed filled, and now instead of solid spray flying, there was just a slapping on the hull that did sound like the slapping water on a boat moored. I went back down, took off the life preserver and harness, changed into dry clothes and went at once back to sleep, dreaming the same dream of being tied up to some pier and wanting to find the owner to pay them for the shelter. When I opened my eyes again, light was showing in the east and the wind had moderated to perhaps 15 mph even though the sea was still rough. The track during the time the boat was hove to showed that we had gone to leeward only about 4 ½ miles during the four or five hours we were stopped. Later in the day, I saved the active track on the Garmin handheld GPS V but by that time, the gps feature of deleting the oldest track points in favor of recent points after the memory is full had deleted most of the first part of the hove to track. Enough remained to document the drifting course during the night. (See figure). I really don’t know what would have happened if I hadn’t been able to get some rest. I think it likely that my steering would have continued to deteriorate with increasing tiredness and that with steering mistakes, damage to the boat could easily have resulted. As it was, I woke refreshed and impressed once more with the design of the old Cherubini H33. The rest of the trip was uneventful though Sarah stayed below the entire day of the 18th with mal de mer. Seas continued to moderate during the day while winds were moderate and easterly. Though we lost 4 or 5 hours sleeping in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, we lost almost no distance during the hove to time since our drifting track was just about at a right angle to the intended course. (See figure) I noticed when getting underway again that the bearing to the Sikes cut waypoint south of St George Island changed only a couple of degrees during the hove to period. Coming in on Sikes Cut in the late afternoon, a dolphin jumped completely clear of the water just ahead between the bow and the waypoint. I took it as a sure sign that our luck had changed for the better. Sure enough we made Scipio Creek Marina at Apalachicola and were tied up to a real pier just before dark. Though we couldn’t find the owner to pay him until the next day, he didn’t seem to mind. Sarah said she was sorry she missed the jumping dolphin but if that crossing experience was the price for seeing it, the price was too dear.
Heaving to on main alone
- Thread starter Terry Arnold
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Thanks, Terry
Thanks for sharing your experience. Reading those kinds of things can be helpful to all of us. Peter Bruce's book Heavy Weather Sailing speaks frequently of people who successfully hove to under deeply reefed main alone in storm conditions. I think most of our fin keeled boats tend to get blown too far off the wind with much of a backed jib up. Sounds like you had a good plan. Were you worried at all about traffic while you were hove-to? Gary Wyngarden S/V Wanderlust h37.5
Thanks for sharing your experience. Reading those kinds of things can be helpful to all of us. Peter Bruce's book Heavy Weather Sailing speaks frequently of people who successfully hove to under deeply reefed main alone in storm conditions. I think most of our fin keeled boats tend to get blown too far off the wind with much of a backed jib up. Sounds like you had a good plan. Were you worried at all about traffic while you were hove-to? Gary Wyngarden S/V Wanderlust h37.5
Traffic while hove to
Gary, I wasn't worrying about traffic as I had the anchor light on and visibility was perfect. Though I believe that the wind got to 30 mph or so and seas to perhaps 8 feet or better, it was certainly not storm conditions. I hove to to get some rest when the weather turned so different from the forecast. I have a 1968 version of the Heavy Weather Sailing by Adlard Coles alone and also the Pardey Storm Tactics book and I believe it is because of these that I decided to try the main alone. When I tried it I really had no idea whether it would work or not with the H33 and to see the immediate and drastic improvement in conditions while being freed from the wheel was sort of like a miracle at that stage. Without a backed foresail to blow the bow off the wind, I think that sheeting the main well down on the traveler was important in helping assure that the boat did not come about. At any event in the conditions under which I hove to, it stayed just as I left it for a number of hours, never even seriously luffing during all the time.
Gary, I wasn't worrying about traffic as I had the anchor light on and visibility was perfect. Though I believe that the wind got to 30 mph or so and seas to perhaps 8 feet or better, it was certainly not storm conditions. I hove to to get some rest when the weather turned so different from the forecast. I have a 1968 version of the Heavy Weather Sailing by Adlard Coles alone and also the Pardey Storm Tactics book and I believe it is because of these that I decided to try the main alone. When I tried it I really had no idea whether it would work or not with the H33 and to see the immediate and drastic improvement in conditions while being freed from the wheel was sort of like a miracle at that stage. Without a backed foresail to blow the bow off the wind, I think that sheeting the main well down on the traveler was important in helping assure that the boat did not come about. At any event in the conditions under which I hove to, it stayed just as I left it for a number of hours, never even seriously luffing during all the time.
H-33
Hi Terry, I also have a 79 33. Is yours a 4' or 5'3" keel. Was your main reefed? Sounds like a good trip and a good learning experence. Thanks for posting it. Kevin
Hi Terry, I also have a 79 33. Is yours a 4' or 5'3" keel. Was your main reefed? Sounds like a good trip and a good learning experence. Thanks for posting it. Kevin
Hey Terry...
That was my pier you tied up to during your hove to... don't bother to put the check in the mail, just put it in your book jar... for the book you will write when you decide to gather your experiences all together for publishing. Hey, can I direct the movie? Seriously, glad you managed that situation so well. Let's be thankful our Hunters are Cherubini design. Seems the only salt I'll get is in my eggs. Still sailing Lake Lanier and dreaming about the ocean. Keep posting. David
That was my pier you tied up to during your hove to... don't bother to put the check in the mail, just put it in your book jar... for the book you will write when you decide to gather your experiences all together for publishing. Hey, can I direct the movie? Seriously, glad you managed that situation so well. Let's be thankful our Hunters are Cherubini design. Seems the only salt I'll get is in my eggs. Still sailing Lake Lanier and dreaming about the ocean. Keep posting. David
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