The Paranoid Sailor

[Hafa]

To add to the great advice already posted, spend as much time as you can under more favorable conditions practicing sailing to weather, doing tacks and reefing. Get to the point where doing these 3 things under various conditions becomes second nature, then when things get rough, it will all be a lot less intimidating.

 

[sesmith]

If we are healed over enough, will we avoid the spray or would we still get soaked? Something tells me that we would still get soaked with every wave, so motor-sailing may not do very much to make it more comfortable.

That will obviously depend on the boat (ours is usually pretty dry), but it will make for a much more comfortable ride. We recently did have to resort to this one day on Lake Champlain. I did get splashed with a wave or two. What surprised us more was when the inboard prop came out of the water several times due to the waves. It was a pretty rough day.

 

[RussC]

Good addition! Still get wet, but at least you can see where you are going, sort of.

I seem to recall the Volvo Ocean Race sailors using ski googles in the Southern Ocean and high latitude sailors use goggles and masks.

Plus they just make you look SO COOL.

 

[Daveinet]

You know I've seen comments about motorsailing but never thought through the end result. Seems to be a common practice in Oz, where my boat is very popular - particularly when coastal ocean sailing. It is stated that you end up with much better control, with less heeling. Somehow this information has never sunk in till now. Knew it, but never took it to heart. So thanks SESMITH for bringing it up in this context. I think it is something I could have done to leave that extra margin of safety to feel confident in the conditions.

My fear is not so much surviving the conditions or fear of heeling as much as it is fear of getting blown where I don't want to go. My first monohull instilled that fear, and I've never really got fully past it. (even though at one point I thought I was)

 

[litrenta1]

Back in the 70's when I was young and foolish I sailed a catalina 22 with the navy sailing club on Guam making trips to palau (around 600nm) We would get hit with squalls with winds above 50 knots pretty regularly from may to november. Like T-storms you can see them coming standard was to drop the headsail and sail on a broad reach keeping the wind off aft quarter to prevent jibing fairly stable in 50 knots .