Personal tools
You are here: Home → Boats → Ovni FAQs → Questions About Heavy Weather Sailing
Navigation
 

Questions About Heavy Weather Sailing

Reading the OVNI faq Jimmy says that the best way to sail an Ovni in bad weather is keep her sailing and not use drogues and parachute anchors. We would like to have advice about the best way of keeping her sailing with a small crew in 40/50 knots and more. Is he steering the boat himself at that moment? Which course to the wind and waves is the best to steer when you have space enough? Do you still lift the centreboard when you are downwind reaching in bad weather? Do you always try to avoid sailing in bad weather? How much is using as less sail as possible? Is there something published in a book or article about sailing this kind of modern boats so we can read about it?

First of all I need to make two important points:
  1. I speak entirely from personal experience, and am not prepared to make general statements on this, or any, subject;
  2. The most important aspect in anything to do with sailing is the personal experience of the skipper and his crew. Nothing can beat that!

I will now deal with your points in order:

  1. Drogues or parachute anchors: I have no personal experience of either, have considered both, and decided that a medium light displacement boat as an OVNI could be handled, in heavy weather, without such aids. The maximum wind I have experienced on my current OVNI 43 was 60 knots, but that was in gusts. The highest sustained winds I have had to deal with were 50 knots, with corresponding seas. This was in Le Maire Strait (off Argentina) and the seas were quite confused and high. We continued to sail the boat, as far reefed down as possible, and survived with only some minor damage.
  2. Sailing an OVNI in 40-50 knots. I have been in 40+ knots on several occasions, and - fortunately on most occasions - the wind was from such a direction that I could continue to sail more or less in the direction I wanted to go. Usually I would have 3 reefs in the mainsail (I have a 4th reef as well, but have used it only once), and the staysail rolled up to about half its normal size. Broadreaching at about 150 degrees is the best for the boat and steering. Under such conditions I normally let the autopilot do the work: I have a powerful Brookes & Gatehouse hydraulic pilot. Occasionally I take over by hand, but it is hard work... and I am not doing such a good job as the pilot! The pilot is an ATP2 hydraulic system - identical to the one used by Ellen McArthur on her recent circumnavigation... so you can see why it works so well on a 43 foot cruising yacht!

Returning from Antarctica to Chile in 1999, we had to heave to in about 45 knots as the winds were from NW and we expected higher seas once we reached the continental shelf. With 4 reefs in the main, and a well reefed staysail, the boat hove-to well, and was quite comfortable. We spent the night like this, and by morning the wind had gone into the north and we could lay our course.

  1. If you have enough sea room, the best way, I believe, is to try and broadreach (around 150 degrees). If you have no sea room, then heaving to is probably the answer.
  2. To avoid bad weather, I do try and sail - whenever possible - in the safe seasons in the tropics, so as to avoid, as much as possible, being caught by a tropical storm. Avoiding bad weather at other times (on long passages) is virtually impossible, so one has to be prepared for it.
  3. Books: I think Adlard Coles "Heavy Weather Sailing" (in its latest edition) is the best on the subject.

Going now back to the two points I made at the beginning, I want to encourage you to get yourselves (and the boat) as well prepared as possible... and go sailing. It is certainly not as dangerous out there as you think, especially if you are reasonably cautious... and the experience that I also mentioned will come with time!

Document Actions