Having just capsized my Hobie 16 and not being able to right it, this incident is of interest to me. First off, they did the important thing right. Everybody walked away.
First mistake was they didn't think this could happen. Having not thought through getting my cat up, I know this was one of my problems. But I'm wondering if they hadn't thought about how to get their boat up. And I'm wondering if they're doing some serious thinking on this subject now. Not only is eight million dollars of boat toast, they don't have a boat for several months. So I'm sort of hoping they invest some of their money into figuring out systems on how to right a cat or a trimaran that capsizes. Because although the scale is vastly different, they've got a lot more resources then the rest of us, but couldn't figure it out.
Question whether the righting bucket (maybe with the model from the catalog who shows off plenty of skin but isn't wearing a life jacket) would have worked. Is the best way to right a cat just adding more weight, same as a bigger hammer will solve more problems? Second part of this question is whether the shroud extender idea would work? Getting the high hull on the right side of the weight equation seems like a good idea.
I'm guessing that getting a rope over the high hull and pulling while lifting the mast didn't work. I'm further guessing this was due to the weight and wave conditions.
Obviously, the net result was they didn't come up with a successful idea. Question is whether there was one, and whether they're going to figure out something better that will help the rest of us.
Next question is whether, at some point, you do better dumping the rigging and mast overboard. Would they have done better to do this, and tow the hulls in a turtle position? I noticed the boat turtled because of the failure of the mast to survive the stress of being capsized. If you capsize in surf, for instance, do you do better to dump the mast and save the hull (providing you can do this safely)?
Ultimately I'm wondering, with their discovery of the extent of the problem, whether some serious study is going to be done with capsizing. Maybe some work with computer simulations. Oracle has the money, and it's clear that brute strength doesn't always work. Of course, when we're out in our smaller cats, not weighing enough to right our cats, it's also clear that brute strength doesn't work all the time for us, either.
It's going to be interesting seeing what comes from this.
Best of luck,
Jim Clark-Dawe
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