Island Storm Tactics

Curious what other plan to do if caught miles offshore in an unexpected storm and no longer able to make forward progress back to shore. It's a given that we check weather and avoid taking risks to begin with. But Mother Nature can surprise. I'm curious how others might answer the follow questions. Assume your by yourself or you have separated from the others.

1. Do you continue sailing slowly into the wind with a severely reefed sail?
2. Put out a sea anchor or drift sock at the bow and lay a-hull?
3. Completely reef sail and use the mirage drive to maintain bow to wave?
4. Run with the waves- +/_ drift sock trailing the stern and let the storm take you further out to sea?
5. When do you say "it's time now" to set off the personal locator beacon?
6. Other suggestions?

My current plan would be to tether to the boat, set a sea anchor at the bow, bring up the rudder and daggerboard, and wait to set off the PLB until I am either sinking or separated from the boat.

Love to hear what others have planed or experienced.

Vetgam

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Greg

2016 AI - Spinn & Jib

“Out of sight of land the sailor feels safe. It is the beach that worries him.”
– Charles G. Davis

We have been caught in that kind of stuff too many times and it can be life threatening. Florida is kind of known for sudden storms in the summer (sometimes every afternoon) and you don't want to be out there miles from shore when they hit.
Since we are offshore a lot I have always carried an emergency outboard engine on my boat. There have been times that even the outboard was no help.
Key west is a tiny dot where if you miss it next stop Cuba. We almost missed it once when a sudden storm came up behind us from the north along with 35 mph winds and 5 ft waves. My wife has a store down there and knows many of the captains on the sebago cats, one day we were chasing down their biggest cat (supposedly the biggest cat in the keys) just so we could pull along side and say hi (dumb reason). We were flying north to south and chased them down probably 2 miles south of key west, said hi and were turning back when the wind began picking up. We struggled our way back to key west and were unable to make headway in the channel against the 6 mph current driving south in front of Mallory square. As we were being driven south by the strong winds we decided to run for shore at the navy station at the south tip of the island. Our target was a 50 ft wide beach area with giant rocks on each side. Going in thru 5 ft breakers I dropped the anchor about 100 ft from shore and had my wife let the line out as we approached the beach (to keep boat from going sideways) with the sails furled and the motor wide open and me pedaling my heart out. We beached and waited the storm out. If we had missed the beach we would have been pulverized on the rocks or worse if we missed the island we would have been blown south of the island (next stop Cuba). We only got in a little trouble with the navy.
I feel the stock TI is a great boat in protected and close to shore waters in good weather. But the currents around key west are brutal and pedaling as hard as you can, and sailing to the best of your ability you cannot generate enough speed and power to get yourself out of trouble. And worse yet once your exhausted you can't pedal any longer (this has happened to us too many times in open water). My advise to anyone is know the limitations of your boat and avoid situations like this.
I always carry at least 200 miles worth of fuel aboard (2 gallons). We have a boat us membership, and alway keep a waterproof cellphone and fm radio on board.
Hope this helps
Bob

Here is my take. While i appreciate fusioneng's suggestion to fit one or two outboards, there are still other alternatives that might mitigate a potential disaster even if you don't have a motor.
1 and 2 are in the right place
3. If conditions are too strong for #1, pedalling will be futile, even just for mintaining bow into the wind. I was out in a true 20 knots yesterday on lake water (eg no swell), and it was almost impossible to pedal the bow through irons. yet once on the tack, boat speed with a couple of rolls of reef was 5 1/5 knots or so. So pedal = no good.
4. Very hesitant about this one. If the wind is an offshore one, too strong to sail into, allowing yourself to be blown down wind could very quickly magnify the scale of the mission to retrieve you.
5. That is something your gut will tell you!
6. You haven't mentioned another possibility. Instead of trying desperately to sail up wind, you might gain some thinking time by reefing well down, and then sailing more across the wind, tacking (or bearing away) to travel a reciprocal course. This has a few benefits
a) you are no longer smashing into the waves
b) you buy think time, so you can ensure all your gear (and your panic level!) is in order
c) this course keeps you relatively close to potential rescuers
d) in any lulls in the wind, you can sneak up a bit closer to the wind, bringing you closer to shore.
e) obviously, if there are large hills close to the shore, there is the possibility that the offshore wind might be less powerful downwind from them, so it might be worth favouring that direction. You never know, this might bring you close enough to shore to find manageable wind strength to get you home again.

But well worth contemplating while sitting in front of the computer, to help with decision making when the proverbial hits the fan later.

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Tony Stott
2012 Tandem Island "SIC EM" with Hobie spinnaker

Would you consider dropping your stick?
I've done this several times inshore when the wind was too strong for me to paddle into and I needed to get home. No big wave hitting me though.

I am not really physically mobile enough to remove the mast while out on the water, but I would suggest that nobody would be advised to attempt to lower the mast in the worsening conditions mentioned above. It would seem to me to be a recipe for a swim, which could be a real disaster in the conditions. Besides, I am not so sure that having a furled sail wrapped around a vertical mast is going to be such a threat to safety.

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Tony Stott
2012 Tandem Island "SIC EM" with Hobie spinnaker

I am not a fan of reefing down and continuing to sail or using the mirage drive itself because when the waves really kick up and the wave period shortens, it can be almost impossible to maintain the bow to waves. The boat wants to turn sideways when blown backwards. A capsize is likely.

I have a sea anchor but I have some questions about it's use. I read that the line to the anchor should be about 1.5 the wave interval smooth out the jaring effect on the boat. I have tested leaving the sea anchor at 6 feet in front of the bow too. Both work well in 15-20 mph but I wonder if I'm asking for trouble with the 6ft distance when the waves and winds are higher.. Anyone have experience with a sea anchor?

Vetgam

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Greg

2016 AI - Spinn & Jib

“Out of sight of land the sailor feels safe. It is the beach that worries him.”
– Charles G. Davis

Published instructions I have read suggest a sea anchor should be in at least the second swell out front. In a shorter wave interval, this logic still applies, as you want the sea anchor to be "grabbing" green water at the moment a wave is putting maximum pressure on the bow. I therefore tend to think that your short line is best kept for lunch breaks rather than strong conditions.

Incidently, any anchor (sea or ground) will work best if pulling directly via the bow. I tie off my line to the front crossbar, and then lead it through an "O" shackle attached to the bow fitting (eg, no pull on the bow, just diagonal leading). In order to be able to retrieve, I have another line attached to the crossbar, leading to another "O" shackle on the anchor line >outside< the bow shackle. Pulling on the retrieve line brings the asnchor line back to me so I can then retrieve the anchor rig over the front aka.

_________________
Tony Stott
2012 Tandem Island "SIC EM" with Hobie spinnaker

Tony when winds no longer give you option 1, aren't option 2&4 essentially resulting in the same drift out to sea with an offshore wind. If so, wouldn't a sea anchor or drift sock accomplish the same thing whether it's run off the bow or the stern? Personally, I think i'd rather see the waves coming rather than going though.

Vetgam

_________________
Greg

2016 AI - Spinn & Jib

“Out of sight of land the sailor feels safe. It is the beach that worries him.”
– Charles G. Davis

I believe option 3 is futile, unless you are an Olympic standard athlete, and even then seems to me to be just a waste of energy, which would be far better reserved for survival. I personally have never been able to make any real progress by pedalling into a 20+ knot wind.. Maybe I am a wimp...

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Tony Stott
2012 Tandem Island "SIC EM" with Hobie spinnaker

Actually when it gets really rough and windy (over 25mph winds) my TI with the wing jib and at least one motor running I always furl my main sail completely and sail only with the wing. I'm still able to maintain 5-6 mph into the wind and it gets me back to launch. I'll be honest, I do not want to be out there in those conditions, being tossed around in the waves really puts a strain on my bad back (sucks being old lol). I never go out in those kind of conditions on purpose, and never go offshore with an strong offshore wind.
However those kind of conditions happen sometimes without notice and we need to be able to know what to do. In the US they issue a small craft advisory if the winds are forecast over around 21 mph that's always my cue to stay home. I wouldn't feel safe on a stock TI offshore in winds over 15 mph. I don't think it was designed for those conditions. I would hate to have people read about some if us hard core very experienced sailers talking about our exploits, then go out with a false impression of the boats real capabilities. A good example would be of people reading about my exploits and getting a false sense of the stock TI's capabilities. My TI which is very hardened and modified and I have lots of offshore experience in my home waters which is a very different boat from a stock TI.
I'm on my 3rd TI now and have been sailing mine pretty much every weekend since early 2010 and know where the weaknesses in the design are and know how to mitigate them. I cringe when I see some of the videos some of the guys post on their stock TI's.
I don't want anyone to get hurt out there going out in adverse conditions with a false sense of security after reading about others exploits.
I'm a big fan of Hobies stuff and this forum and it's wealth of knowledge.
Bob

Just curious, since I've never even been to the ocean let alone been on it on a boat. What exactly is "offshore"? A mile? Three? Ten?

Also wondering about the wind speed limits some have for themselves. I've been out on our "sailing lake" many times in 15-20 MPH winds, and occasionally even higher, with my Outback. Up to 20-22 nothing but fun plowing through waves, and certainly no trouble at all making headway with the pedal drive. Above that it's just not much fun - thus why I don't usually go then, but still I never felt like I couldn't get where I wanted to go, even straight into the wind. (For that matter, several times I've towed other paddle-powered yaks by grabbing the bow handle while pedaling along because they weren't making any headway!)

Is an AI or TI significantly more difficult to drive into the wind than an Outback? Certainly, there's more surface area but I'd always gotten the impression thanks to the hull shape they were more efficient. The mast, of course, would be an extra wind load, but how much when it is furled?

Or maybe this is another of those times where there's just a world of difference between lakes and oceans?

Frankly, one of the reasons I wanted an Island in the first place was for the windier days! It really surprised me when I started reading lots of AI/TI threads and saw some people say they'd never go out in anything over 15 MPH - or even lower!

I was more responding to the chap that was saying he couldn't make headway into the wind peddling. I think I remember rightly that a furled sail affects wind around it to 7 times its diameter which in 20+ knots is a significant pressure.

RandomJoe those of us on the Texas Gulf Coast have a limit of about 9 miles offshore. My personal wind limits are 17 mph offshore and about 14 mph for lakes.

Vetgam

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Greg

2016 AI - Spinn & Jib

“Out of sight of land the sailor feels safe. It is the beach that worries him.”
– Charles G. Davis

When I mention 9 miles offshore, I don't recommend that to anyone. The further out, the more risk you take. i wouldn't want to have a medical emergency that far out. People do it be cause the fishing gets better further out. I prefer to stay within 5 miles of shore and don't see the draw to go futher out. Some of my best fishing has been within 3 miles of the shoreline.

Vetgam

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Greg

2016 AI - Spinn & Jib

“Out of sight of land the sailor feels safe. It is the beach that worries him.”
– Charles G. Davis

You may well be correct about the amout of windage caused by a furled sail, but there is no way on earth that I would consider that the risks of attempting to remove the mast in 20+ mph wind conditions was worth taking.

The conditions I was in on Saturday were wind of 20+ knots (ie over 23mph), and while there was no swell, it was very lively on the water.

BTW, going to windward in those conditions, spray generated >just by water hitting the little handle on the bow< had enough force to hit my face.

Sure when stopped, with the sail furled, cobditions calmed down considerably, but it would take a far more athletic person than me to be able to lift up and stow the mast.

_________________
Tony Stott
2012 Tandem Island "SIC EM" with Hobie spinnaker