This past Friday I (unintentionally) found out how my 05H36 behaves in a knock-down. The answer is - pretty well. I was coming back from the Isles of Shoals when I saw an impressively dark nimbo-stratus rapidly approaching the coast and about to come out and meet me. It had lines of rain hanging down from either end and its radar image was as solid yellow as the shoreline's (and blotting out the shoreline's return). I hadn't sailed Persephone in winds much over 30kts, so I thought it might be a good chance to see how she'd do if I kept some sail up and feathered her into what I expected to be higher gusts at a distance sufficiently off shore to give me some sea room. I triple-reefed the mainsail, and sheeted-in both main and jib sufficiently to keep me making reasonable way on a port tack with an apparent wind angle of 28 degrees When the wind hit, it was pretty impressive. However, Persephone feathered well and stayed on her feet up to the point when my wind machine registered 48kts of true wind. I believe she'd have kept doing fine, except that her dumb skipper over-feathered in response to one of the (small) beam seas. This allowed her to lose way and come through the eye of the wind, at which point the jib backed. Unlike my doing so intentionally in order to heave to, the winds just grabbed her by that backed jib and spun her off to a starboard beam reach before I could even think of reacting, let alone react. All of which brings me to how she handled the situation in which I'd placed her. She was pinned over at some large angle greater than the 60 degrees at which my clinometer pins, but less than 90 degrees. I'd guess 75 or maybe 80 degrees. She stayed that way until I could let go the traveler (on the arch over my head), which let her up a little so I could inch forward to release the mainsheet at the starboard cabintop winch, when she got back on her feet as if nothing had happened. She was incredibly stable in that pinned over attitude, even in the face of even higher gusts. More importantly, the water came over the port rub rail only to about the middle of the side deck. She took absolutely no water over the coaming, and I kept a completely dry cockpit. Once again, she handled more than her skipper could. She's a real lady, who takes very good care of me. I thought those of you with H36s or H356s might like to know of yet another benefit of the "too wide stern" compared to traditional designs whose cockpits would most certainly not have been dry. Thank you Glen Henderson.
