Shut up and listen

5º 51.355s 130º 50.332w

Fri May 03 2019

Does your boat talk to you? Can you hear what she’s saying, understand what she’s asking for, respond in kind?

Catamarans feel a lot different at the helm than a nicely balanced monohull. Isabel and I crewed a Swan 82’ for a passage from Newport RI to Antigua several years ago. Nine million dollar sailboat, only about 6 months old. Amazing experience. Somewhere East of Bermuda the weather got “interesting” with a stiff breeze and big big following seas. The autopilot simply couldn’t manage the boat, so we took shifts hand steering for about 12 hours until things settled down.

Steering a well balance monohull is a joy, because the boat tells you what she needs to be happy. At the helm stataion you can feel and hear her telling you if she’s out of balance or if the sails need trimming, etc. It’s really quite something, and she’ll smack you across the face if you don’t pay attention. Sticking the boom in the water on a boat that big is an extremely dangerous event that could lead to a catastrophic failure. Imagine a giant carbon fiber spar breaking loose and raking the deck. Towards you. At the helm station. No thanks.

Well, the autopilot (it was not a cheap piece of kit) stuck the boom in the water twice, what with the yawing and rolling, hence the hand steering. Poor bugger simply couldn’t anticipate what those big swells coming up on the stern were going to do to us. While we hand steered we swept the seas with our eyes abeam and abaft, and led the rudder a bit to dampen the effects of the big swells, minimizing the yaw rate and magnitude and keeping the boom clear of the water when that big girl rolled. It was nuts, and a total blast to be in the moment. I’ve got a picture of Nicola and Isabel together at the helm station; was trying to capture what those big stern swells look like but just couldn’t do them justice. Anyway, you can see this look in their eyes and faces; extreme excitement mixed perhaps with a little terror.

Sailing JollyDogs is little more like flying a complex airplane; things are done more by the numbers. A cat doesn’t heel like a monohull, and it’s a bit difficult to tell when things are getting overpowered. We’ve got a chart applicable to the original sail plan that tells us to reef #1 at 20 knots apparent, #2 at 24 and #3 at 28. Our new Zoom main sail (thank you Jamie Gifford) is set up a bit differently, so we technically we should reef at slightly higher apparent wind speeds.

Those numbers have a bit more to do with loads on the sail and the standing and running rigging than they have to do with ride quality. It’s all good on flat water, but throw in some beam seas or those mixed with following seas (what I think we have now, it’s really dark out there) and things begin to get a lot more interesting.

Technically, we have just brushed the apparent wind speed suggesting we should put in reef 1, but iti’s been in there since yesterday. We just had a gust that briefly brought the apparent wind up to 25 kts, and in these seas that was a bit too sporty. With the jib about half furled and a fisherman’s reef in the main (what Thad calls a Point Loma reef) things have settled down, and it looks like the effects of a small squall are about past us. I’ll shake it all out in a few minutes, but I’m also betting that later today we’ll be seeing gusts to 25 and maybe even up to 30, so reef 2 will likely get some action. We don’t REALLY have to get to Nuka Hiva on Monday, just hoping. . .

I never even hand steered for a moment to feel the helm; Chevy the autopilot worried about that while I scampered around messing with winches and strings. Kinda busy here. Besides, the helm on a cat just doesn’t feel the same as a monohull.

Doesn’t matter, JollyDogs just talks to us in different ways. Our job is to shut up and listen.