I think it should be mentioned that capsize is a risk in any boat. There have
been some comments that suggest that a Potter with it's keel locked down is
uncapsizeable - I wouldn't count on that. Isabelle Autissier recently
capsized her 60 plus ft. "Around-Alone" race boat after an accidental jibe
and subsequent broach. Given the right combination of the wrong things
happening, boats go over.
If I understand the lingo correctly, "self-righting" indicates a behavior
like Harry described: If the boat is knocked flat, the ballast/buoyancy
relationship will cause it too want to return upright. I actually believe
that the manufacturer's claims of self-righting are true, but with one caveat
- The boat is only self righting if there aren't several hundred lbs. of
sailors clinging to it. Those 70 lbs of centerboard (up, down or
in-between) will be quickly overwhelmed by 200 lbs of sailor clinging to the
gunwale or shroud.
I look at the P-15 as a dinghy, a very stable dinghy actually, but it is
primarily ballasted by it's occupants. The P-19 is on a larger scale, the
boat's ballast weighing as much as two grown men, making the "moveable" human
ballast less significant in big picture. I think this makes the P-19 more
tolerant of mistakes. However, if a 19 was to be capsized or turtled,
getting it back up may not be as simple as standing on the dagger board. That
which goes over more easily, comes back more easily as well, right?
I've never capsized our Potter, but I did capsize our old boat (a 14 ft
"Sesame") and I've capsized more than once in Lasers and El Toros. The most
frequent offender is a cleated mainsheet with jibing in windy conditions
right behind. I've read at least some of the accounts of capsize in Potters
that Harry suggested and most of them mention a cleated mainsheet as one of
the contributing factors. These days I usually sail with mainsheet in hand
and have become a master of the "chicken-jibe" (coming around 270 degrees to
bring the bow through the wind rather than the stern) as I'd rather not get
dunked.
I rigged a shock cord tie down for our centerboard using some Ronstan brand
shock cord hooks I bought at West Marine. The hooks are fastened to the aft
end of the centerboard trunk and a loop of shock cord runs from one hook up,
around the cb arm and back to the other hook. I put a piece of clear tubing
about 2 inches long over the shock cord where it contacts the centerboard to
keep the cord from being cut or pulled down into the slot. Total cost was
about $5.00. We have run aground with this arrangement and it let the board
go to about 45 degrees before the boat stopped (under power).
If it would ever stop raining, we could think about going sailing.....
Dave Kautz
P-15 #1632 Tilly Lucy
Palo Alto, CA