Max Wind Speed / Conditions

Just curious what your "cut-off" is as to when the conditions/wind speed is too powerful to warrant taking the TI out for a day on the water?

I often hear the "20 knots" or maybe 25 knots, being the point where it's getting too strong to be going out on the water in a TI...is this a good rule of thumb, or can you go out in stronger winds and just have the sail furled a lot more? Is this a standard wind speed figure but if it is gusting beyond that, should still be OK to go out (being careful to keep hold of the main sheet to release the tension if there is a big gust or furl the sail in more)?

Today for instance I contemplated taking my TI out but was worried the winds might have been too strong. They were constant 20-25 knot wind speeds but gusts were going up to 30 knots, maybe slightly higher at some random stages throughout the day.

I believe that once the winds reach 20+ knots, the sea state becomes the determining factor. If you are in sheltered waters, where the waves are minimal, you can handle higher winds. However, if in the open, or there has been sustained winds which have been able to build up the waves, you will tend to be more limited. ( Of course, if you are in the unique position of being able to do a one-way downwind run without needing to get back up wind, you can probably manage more.

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

Here in the US the coast guard issues a small craft advisory where all small craft are pretty much ordered off the water. Of course everyone is captain of their own vessel and can do as they please. Small craft advisory is around 21mph sustained winds I think, I think there is also something figured in about wave height as well. In our area if the winds are over around 20-25mph we get 3-4 ft washing machine chop that gets very uncomfortable.
On a stock TI it gets increasingly difficult to sail up wind, meaning if it's an offshore wind you can go out but would be unable to get back to shore.
The rudder on the ti is very small, in winds over 25mph maintaining direction becomes very difficult and if hit broadside by a 4ft vertical wave you will likely capsize. At that point you are in survival mode.
Keep in mind the boat was not designed for such conditions and just the force of the water is enough to break the plastic AKA pins, and the plastic rudder pin (i have broke plenty of both in such conditions).

Personally my limit is around 15mph max sustained winds. I sail a lot offshore and have been out in much worse but never on purpose or intentionally (we get a lot of sudden unforecast storms around here (sometimes daily in the summer). Our coastline is very shallow here and with onshore winds the waves have a thousand miles to build so we get pretty difficult breakers, I have seen several 60 footers broke up on Lido beach trying to get in our passes, not fun for me anyway. Of course everywhere is different and everyone can do as they please, I just know first hand our area is darn dangerous in winds over 15-18 mph and not worth the risk to me.

In contrast we just spent a couple weeks on lake hartwell in Georgia (a giant 40 mile long inland lake). Many days the sustained winds were over 20 mph, I had no problems going out in that because there were not the giant waves and chop we normally see in the Tampa/Sarasota bay areas, so it was heaven for me.
In other words the sea conditions (waves, chop, etc) are more of a limiting factor than the actual wind (with these boats anyway). Hey if you can find a sheltered area go for it, just keep in mind the boat itself is not very strong. As I always say make sure you fully understand your boats real capabilities (not imagined (by someone else)) when you go out.
FE

Bay or ocean?

So far, I have avoided the ocean - not so much for the ocean itself, but for the unfriendly lee shores (waves breaking hard on sandbars) and the extreme tidal currents on the routes into the ocean and back from the ocean.

I sail the bays behind Atlantic City NJ (USA) where 90% of the lee shores are friendly and the tidal currents aren't too bad as long as I use a little common sense in the vicinity of bridges and piling-mounted channel markers.

After a day of sailing, I always check the local iWindsurf chart to see what the anemometer near where I do most of my sailing was reading.

Experience with my AI2 (not a TI) on these protected waters so far has been:

• Averages in high teens, gusting into low-twenties: These are the optimal 'FeelGood' conditions for me and my AI2 with the main fullly-deployed.
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  I often stow the Mirage Drive because it makes the boat noticibly less of a pig.... Or use the Mirage Drive to get to an upwind destination, keep using it to surf some big boat wakes, and then stow it for the downwinder home.
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  I tend to gybe, but have a single-blade paddle holstered on the tramp for if/when I decide to tack.
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• Averages around twenty, gusting into mid-twenties: About the same fun factor as above except that the boat sails better with one turn of reef...... At this point launching off of a beach where the wind is blowing directly onshore becomes a little problematic.....I can usually do it without resorting to the Mirage Drive by paddling hard dead into the wind to get far enough offshore to deploy the sail and get under way before getting blown back onto the beach...... Push-comes-to-shove and I will install the Mirage Drive, walk the boat out to waist-deep water, jump on, and pedal hard until I am comfortably far from the beach before deploying the sail/centerboard and locking the rudder down...... But then I am stuck with the Mirage Drive and I try to avoid that in those conditions...... Usually the paddle does the job - especially since I have gotten better/faster at plopping my butt into the boat, flipping the rudder down, deploying the main, and deploying the centerboard.
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• Averages in mid-twenties, gusting near thirty: I might re-install the Mirage drive because, as somebody observed, it goes into the wind like a beast......Depends on the wind direction and lee shores..... At this point, the fun factor has diminished from the first two scenarios and sailing the AI becomes more "Interesting" than fun.
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• Averages in high twenties, gusting into low thirties: "Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.".... I would probably not choose to go out.... but if I am out there and conditions deteriorate to this state, I'm starting to think of my position, the relative friendliness of the lee shore, and the best way to get back to my launching point....... I am also watching the sky, staying not too far from shore, and am ready to just make for shore, fully reef the sail, pull the boat up on the beach, and seek shelter by laying on the sand under bushes or trees...... Which I had occasion to do earlier in the summer when a 50+ mph squall materialized out of nowhere.
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  Late in my windsurfing career I realized that, once it starts gusting into the thirties, it's more pleasurable to sit on the beach in nice warm dry clothes (prefereably with the hot or cold beverage of one's choice) and watch the other sailors tack out, do a survival gybe, pinch back in to where there's less wind, do another survival gybe...and repeat.... and then come in to the beach going on about "How great it is out there...."..... Yeaaaahhhh, riiiiite.... I was watching pal and you were not having fun.....-).

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At some point in the high teens/low twenties, aka shear pins start to break if/when the ama hits some chop "Just So".

I discovered this a couple of weeks ago and it has inspired me to install a righting-line system that doubles as an aka-collapse mitigator on both sides - even so my little home-made tramp on the starboard side prevented complete aka collapse/capsize the one time I sheared a pin on that side......

You still want the pins to shear and you still want some collapse.... but you want to mitigate the collapse enough so the boat does not capsize.
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Semi-tangentially, I have logged some practice time sailing with the rudder completely up and steering with the single-bladed paddle.... but not all that much, and the jury is still out on whether I can control the boat sufficiently in 25+ conditions with just the paddle....... I lost my outrigger canoe steering paddle a couple of seasons ago, but I am thinking of buying another one and using it as my single-bladed paddle just in case....

Also semi-tangentially, I have modified my non-inflatable life jacket so that it doubles as a harness and almost always sail with a tether attached to the boat and quick-release shackled to the life jacket/harness..... I am not 100% sure that this is such a great idea because of the possibility of entanglement in the tether..... but blowaway in the middle if the bay is pretty much a certainty if I manage to get thrown into the water without it so I am staying with it for now and mean to practice a little more when winds are strong enough,

_________________
2015 AI in "Dune" - "The Grey Pig"
2017 Trailex 450 Trailer
Pre-September 2015 cradles
(anybody want to buy a slightly-used AI SpinKit?)
eMail: [email protected]

Your area must be quite different from ours.
It's not so much the wind here it's the waves that make things extremely difficult.
In any wind over 12 mph around here we get intense washing machine chop that makes it very difficult to make headway with such a light boat (we have a TI), pretty much every wave stops the boat.
In winds 20 and over the waves are vertical and sometimes 4-5 ft. With a stock TI I found it near impossible to sail upwind at all. For example quite a few times I was offshore trying to get in the passes, I couldn't do it. Maybe I just really suck as a sailer, the boat was going plenty fast, but the closest I could get to the wind was around 60 degrees. Meaning my vmg into the pass was negative 3-4mph.
I have been out in 30mph plus winds around here, and the vertical walls on the 6-8 ft waves are enough to capsize a Ti, and because of the tiny rudder, I have zero control of the boat. It must be different areas are different. Around here taking a stock TI out in winds over 20mph, you are putting your life at risk in my opinion.
Actually around here they post small craft advisories, and any small boat seen out is ordered off the water.
Actually that happened at I think it was last years Everglades challenge (http://www.watertribe.com), the CG had to rescue about ten of the boats in the race, then ordered the rest off the water and shut the race down.
We also sail a lot down off Key West, up here is a cake walk compared to down there.
So I guess every area is different.
FE

Sounds very different.

Here, when the wind gets up, we just get nice even chop similar to small swells on the ocean.....quite friendly.

My impression, after quite bit of wake surfing (ocean-going sport boats coming into the bay and speeding through a "No Wake" zone) has been that if/when I manage to capsize my AI2 without shearing an aka bolt, it will be because I have the boat in the wrong attitude on the right-sized wave and it will be more of a pitchpole than a capsize.

Even with the new larger rudder, I get periodic episodes of zero rudder control. ..... Dunno for sure what's behind that, but can imagine either weed on the rudder or hitting the right combination of chop/swell/gust so that the stern lifts the rudder out of the water enough that it stalls.

I also get uncontrollable lee helm every so often - but, so far, that has always been cured by sheeting out the main and I suspect it is brought on in the first place by an over-sheeted main bending the mast enough to move the sail's CE way forward.

_________________
2015 AI in "Dune" - "The Grey Pig"
2017 Trailex 450 Trailer
Pre-September 2015 cradles
(anybody want to buy a slightly-used AI SpinKit?)
eMail: [email protected]

Pete, have you fitted a " new larger rudder" which I don't recall you mentioning before?

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

Well.

I went out in my old 2007 AI with undersized rudder, etc.....

20 knts gusting to 30, maybe 35.

WHAMMM! BAMMM! See ya later! No chance of going upwind even with the sailed furled in 50%. I gave up and enjoyed the ride into a local marina, and got a lift back to my truck.

I got caught in a couple gusts that were crazy. Acceleration was nuts. But you better have a plan for picking up your boat downwind if you want to try this.

Toronto. Warm water thank god!

I rammed the thing into a tree on the beach.

First time I've almost been thrown overboard on a boat with no boom. The clew just snapped me on the side of my head in a gybe.

Downwind, it's worth it, absolutely.

Otherwise, well, it's an experience!

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2007 AI - starting to fall apart

I am running the stock rudder for a 2015 AI2.

Are larger rudders available?

Tangentially, FusionEng has me spun up on those extra-large Mirage Drive fins used on the Eclipse SUP.

_________________
2015 AI in "Dune" - "The Grey Pig"
2017 Trailex 450 Trailer
Pre-September 2015 cradles
(anybody want to buy a slightly-used AI SpinKit?)
eMail: [email protected]

No, the up-and-down rudder fist seen on the TI is now standard or both Islands. It was your reference to the larger rudder that piqued my interest.

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

Get them out of your head, my TI has two sets of pedals, one regular and one eclipse, My mirage drives are not my primary propulsion. If peddling around the harbor I use the regular mirage in the back seat. Once underway and I'm traveling around ten mph, then I can pedal the eclipse drives and still get positive propulsion (beyond the speed range of the regular mirage drive). Unless you have a tri-power setup like mine, it's just not worth it (way too hard to pedal, and likely excessive strain on your cables and drive). My regular mirage drive has to be pulled when going faster than ten mph or it self destructs. I've tested my eclipse drive up to 15 mph now, and it doesn't flutter ( I'm pretty impressed anyway). I retired my spinnaker and hydrofoils and no longer take the boat 'all out' anymore, just too dang dangerous.
I'm perfectly happy sailing in 3-5mph winds and flat water (mostly because of my broken back, and I'm older than dirt (lol)), let the young guys play with this stuff.
FE

Would that be from fluttering - or something else?

Typically I pull the Mirage Drive when the wind gets into the mid-teens unless I need to get to some upwind destination.

But, until you said that, my SOP has been to re-install the Mirage Drive if/when things get really crazy - against situations where I have to move the boat with the sail furled, like when launching directly into a 25 mph wind.

Unless Hobie hardens the Mirage Drive for use on the Eclipse SUPs, I still think I need to try the big fins - because one of my gripes about the Mirage Drive is that it's too easy to pedal..... i.e. it doesn't allow for a certain satisfying level of effort and I wind up thrashing away when I want some speed........ FWIW, on bikes I'm a masher not a spinner.... even after 50+ years of trying....

_________________
2015 AI in "Dune" - "The Grey Pig"
2017 Trailex 450 Trailer
Pre-September 2015 cradles
(anybody want to buy a slightly-used AI SpinKit?)
eMail: [email protected]

I pedal 100% of the time always, and at the speeds I go it's terribly hard on the fins, they get stretched out and begin to flutter pretty badly, which I can't imagine is a good thing. I just tend to push things too hard, I doubt Hobie ever intended any of their stuff to be abused so much.
FE

I'm a long way from the ocean...

On the lakes I frequent 12-15 MPH is just getting into the "fun" range. Lake surface stays reasonably flat and the TI can fly along. 18-20 MPH is the upper end of "fun" for me, it starts becoming WORK!

I generally won't go if it's going to be over 20-22 MPH, especially if the gusts are exceeding 30 MPH. I've been out on the water up around 25 MPH or so, it wasn't really a problem - just not very fun, but handling the TI at the boat ramp was a cast-iron pain in the butt.