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West Wight Potter Mailing List maintainer
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Scott Pack [mailto:scott.pack@pictureiq.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2000 3:32 PM
> To: SolarFry@aol.com; panache426@hotmail.com
> Cc: wwpotter@tscnet.com
> Subject: Re: terrifying the uninitiated... <EBG> or [N] Capsize Value
> [N] -
>
<<snipped>>
>
>
> Anyone see the recent Dateline show about the French woman sailor who
> capsized between Australia and South America a couple of years ago? Dang
> can't remember her name or the race.
Maybe you're referring to Isabelle Autierre (or something like that), a
famous single handed woman racer, who capsized during the Round Alone race
about a year ago in high winds (too much sail!!) and pretty calm water.
There wasn't enough wave action to right the boat.
She was napping comfortably inside the upside down hull when the Italian
racer(name sounds something like Sabatini) work her up by tapping on her
hull with a wrench and stayed with her till a recue crew came, helped to
turn the boat right-side-up and towed her to port for rig repairs.
>
> Judy, what does 'recover' from a capsize imply for anything larger than a
> dingy? How realistic is this?
In a dinghy, you climb up on the centerboard and use your body weight to
flip the boat upright. In a keel boat, you depend on waves to roll the boat
over enough so that the keel weight does the job of righting the boat. The
heavier the keel and the narrower the hull, the less wave action you need to
perform the task.
It's pretty realistic for ocean-crossing yachts (with good watertight hatchs
and lockers) with sufficiently narrow beams and modestly heavy keels. It's
not unusualy for racing yachts to get rolled 360 degress going around Cape
Horn. It's not hard to keep the beam narrow on a 40 foot boat and still
have a useable cabin for the racer to navigate, sleep and eat in.
I remember one racer who wrote in his log about rounding the horn "had a
pretty good day today. Only got rolled three times."
>
> I've read quite a few books on shipwrecks on the Great Lakes. There have
> been several instances of large (300-400 foot) freighters going over in
> storms. The Edmunds Fitzgerald supposedly buried her bow into a wave and
> never came up. Scary.
If I recall correctly, the theory is that Fitzgerald rose up on a wave, dove
down the backside, poked her nose through the front of the next wacve and
hit her bottom, smashing her hull to pieces. Lake Erie is very shallow in
places, causing huge waves when gale winds are blowing across an open fetch.
A very dangerous place to be in a storm. .
>
> Just curiousities that have no relation to Potter behavior at all. So
> don't freak out!
>
> -Scott
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Feb 29 2000 - 03:27:09 PST