Should the righting line go over or under the top hull?

Greetings, Today it finally happened-- the wind gusted, got under the tramp and lifted us like a kite. This is the first time I've flipped the 16, and I couldn't believe how hard it was to get it back up.

I have the righting line called the Easy Up in the catalog (the one that retracts with the shock cord). We rotated the boat like in the Hobbie manual, and uncleated the sheets. My son and I together easily weigh over 300, yet we could hardly get the boat up. We tried putting the righting line behind us and leaning back, but couldn't get enough leverage. Next we held on and leaned back as far as we could. After holding this position for what seemed like a long time with little or no effect we both started jerking or lunging backwards to put more weight into it. This caused the mast to slowly come up. After repeating this exercise a couple of times due to the boat blowing on over, we finally tried lunging for, grabbing, and hanging onto the hulls as the upward one came down into the water. I lunged for the downward one and my son hung on to the upward one. Finally we were able to clamber back on.

QUESTION ONE:
Now it occurs to me that maybe we should have reached over the upper hull to pull the righting line. It didn't seem like it woudl be long enough at the time, but now I wonder if it would have made it easier?

QUESTION TWO:
How can you tell how windy it actually is (other than experience which I don't yet have)? Does anyone use a wind speed meter like in the Hobie catalog? The reason I ask is Accuweather said the wind speed was 17mph. After we got back in a ranger told us the wind was closer to 25mph with gusts to the mid 30's. Being new to sailing I knew it seemed windy but had no idea it was that windy. I would not have gone out had I known. Any other suggestions for accurate judging of wind speed for newbees?

Pull the line over the hull. It'll give you a little more leverage.

There are small wind speed gauges on the market. When the water starts to white cap that indicates the wind is blowing at about 11 knots. The caps will grow in size as the wind increases. If dogs are being blown off their chains, it's time for a beer. On shore.

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Thanks for the tips about wind speed and the line over the hull. I checked my righting line and it is attached to the rear frame pylons, rather than the rudder pins like it the Hobie catalog. Could this be the problem?

Probably not. Mine was through a hole in the lip inboard of the rudder.

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I have a Hawaiian righting line set up that has never been used--yet. To get it over the hulls, I will have to make sure that when I hook up the shrouds that I pull the righting line outboard of the shroud attachment points. Is this correct? Otherwise when I would go to grab the line over the hull it would be stopped by the shroud, or at least limited in how far you could pull it out. I have not been doing this up to this point and I just realized while reading these post that I could have really been in trouble trying to right my boat. Just last night I was out on the lake flying a hull on every tack and got close to flipping several times. Would it be a good idea to purposely turn it over in a controlled situation and right it as a practice? If so, how would I get it over? Will it turtle if the mast is water tight? Should it be in deep water in case it does turtle?

correct

excellent idea

do a search on righting and read the Hobie publications, basically mast and bow 45 degrees to the wind and have enough weight. Good to have assistance available if necessary.

Probably not unless the wind is blowing very hard, then the tramp itself will take it over to turtle position.

Not a bad idea, if the tip does get stuck, swim and drag stern or bow "away", towards downwind, to release the tip from bottom. Mast tip will be pointing downwind when it initially goes over, right?

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HCANA Class Member

I agree with what Big Jib says (great name, BTW!). However, I'm too short to easily reach (over the skyward hull to) my line when it's outside the shroud, so I run it inside and pull from under the hull. The engineer in me knows it must be better to pull from the top, but in practice I've noticed no real difference. Just make sure you can readily reach it!

Also, the pins in your shrouds need to be protected (adjuster covers, rigging tape, or both). I've seen lots of ring-dings disfigured (and two dismastings) from getting hung in the righting line run outside the shrouds.

Jerome Vaughan
Hobie 16
Clinton, Mississippi