Sailing the East Santa Barbara Channel in a Near Gale

[Kings Gambit]

The Bavaria 38E sloop King's Gambit on a broad reach in the East Santa Barbara Channel on July 23, 2014. Wind gusts to 34 kt; combined seas 4 to 6 ft. Should she be carrying some headsail as well?

 

[Calif. Ted]

Not in my opinion, seems like you are doing fine, unless you were getting hammered to a standstill by waves and felt you needed a little more power to punch thru.

 

[kloudie1]

I agree.. if you were comfortable and boat was sailing well and fast enough, then ya got it.. if you wanted to change any of those parameters, you could start rolling out some headsail; might change any or all of the aforementioned parameters!

 

[Scott T-Bird]

It looks like you were running nicely balanced ... no need to put any headsail out just to get stuffed in the backside of a wave. If you were heading upwind, you would want some headsail for power and balance, I think.

 

[Jackdaw]

The two worst case loads you can put on your rig are 1) full headsail only, and 2) deep reefed main only.

The second is worst when the head is mid-between two supported points on the mast (masttop, hounds, spreaders). It looks like your sailhead is not too far below your hounds.

Note that Lloyds uses this for worse-case rig failure planning; there is lots of safety margin built into modern rigs. Your boat can easily stand up to gusts in the low-mid 30s like that.

 

[Kings Gambit]

Thanks.

It was a relatively short (10 n.mi.) run to "turn the corner" of Santa Cruz Island into the sheltered lee. Another sailor (the one who took the pic) motoring along in a cruising catamaran who I chatted with later at another anchorage seemed astonished that we were not carrying headsail; i.e., sailing under main only. Some of the quartering seas were much higher than what appears in the picture, forcing the boat toward weather at times, after which it came back down to course after the sea passed, etc. I suppose if the seas rolled the boat enough to weather and then down again she might jibe accidentally, as we were reaching w/o preventer. I got the impression he might have thought that reaching on the headsail only, or main + some headsail, would be safer in those conditions. But since he was an engineer, maybe he had Jackdaw's perspective on it! Actually, the conditions in the Channel were stronger than I thought they would be when we left our sheltered anchorage that morning When it did come time to jibe the boat to make the turn, we did "the "chicken."

 

[rfrye1]

Hi Gambit,
Looks like it was quite a ride! Yes as Scott mentioned boat looks balanced. But at 34kts (I assume True), I would have considered just using the head/jib sail. Easier to handle/reef/jibe with. Did you have a preventer rigged? An accidental jibe in 34kts would be horrifying.

I have never had my Hunter 376 in anything above 25-28kts (true). I, like you, was going mostly downwind so the apparent was much less.

Glad your crossing was good.
Bob

 

[Kings Gambit]

Yes, true wind gusting to 34 kt to the degree that the electronic apparatus could calculate it accurately [calibration]. By that, apparent wind probably 25 to 26 kt as the speed log reported occasional boat speed over 8 kt, but mostly in the high 7's. True wind calculations shouldn't be too far off since NOAA weather was forecasting occasional 30-35 kt gusts in our zone that day, but the expectation was for afternoon. This ride started at 0900!! Forecast strength had been edging up with each new 6-hr update. By afternoon two inner water zones [East Santa Barbara Channel & Pt. Mugu to San Mateo Pt.] were under gale warning.

No preventer. Wife is helming; I've got the mainsheet and have my eyes "glued" to the Windex and to insure that no by-the-lee sailing got started. Boat sailing behind me had partially furled jib out. I think they were yawing a bit more than we, however.

 

[Joe]

I would carry a little jib, just to counteract the mainsail and keep the bow down when a gust hits. Think of an apple on a stick... upside down.... if you tilt the stick over(boat heels), then put a little forward pressure on it (such as being hit by a gust) the stick moves forward at the top, but the apple, because the stick is firmly attached, will rotate... the stick acting like a lever. This is a round up... which can lead to a broach if the rudder breaks loose.. However, if you have some jib opposite the main... the boat will heel but the forward motion on the mast generated by the main only will be counter acted by the jib pressure... thus lessening chance for a severe round up.... Hard to explain without a visual .... but try it.... the stick in an apple scenario... it'll make sense then.