Probably not as bad as this guy:



This happened at a long distance race on the lake today, about halfway a big storm came through with 40+ knot gusts and did quite a bit of damage (broken masts, sails, egos, etc).

The wreck is tied up with a string to the pole on the street.

Was it still blowing that much?????????

But seriously, what can you do when you are catched in gusts of 40 kts?

My experience would say: go as closed hauled as possible and free your downhaul! It would stop the hard swinging of the mast (in a gust the winddirection changes always).

Heaving to seems impossible to me.
Let it capseize on purpose with the risk of total upside down turtle?????
(But assuming that the water is deep enough and that you know how to upright from a complete turtle, it seems also a solution!)

Does anyone have experience with this type of horror?????????

Several years ago we raced Wave at Lake Eustis in 45 mph winds.., most survived, but it was tough.

Rick, I don't want to be disloyal to you but 45mph (40- kts) seems impossible to hold with a cat.

As it happens, I was out at sea this afternoon windsurfing in 30-40 kts and I could only do that because of a sail of 4 square meter.
Which is about two/third of the sail with 20 kts.

Not to speak of the waves which I encountered far out, they were 5-6 meters and even breaking far out.

With a cat I have had several times gusts of 30 kts but I needed to open my traveller completly then. So 40 kts seems impossible to me.
Perhaps one short blow, but not the weather mentioned here in this thread by Tony.

To make my story of this afternoon complete; there were also kitesurfers with me on the beach and they finally switched to 5 meter kites at the end.
One guy returned from the sea stating that it was impossible for him to go further. He was very frustrated, shouting that he had once kited in 50 kts.

So, I know that in the sailing world there is a difference between the actual windforce and the one you are perceiving or hearing later by the radionews.

finally, a cat I can afford

Are all the pieces there?

Yes lots of people have experience in these conditions on modern beach cats. I personally do not, only once having been caught in squalls with puffs to 35 kts, in the middle of the night though. Those with experience have usually gone full turtle and waited out the storm, and/or dropped the main.

I have been in something like 35 Kts, I missed some thunder heads that were hiding behind a tall dyke.
We had room to run so we first tried to match the wave speed by steering a broad course (surfing!) to and fro. Needless to say the room ran out on us and the scheduled ferry was out there... somewhere. We couldn't see anything (actually it must have been about 60 yards (20m)for all the flying spray and rain.
I didn't want to ditch because of the damn ferry. No way he would have seen us if we were upside down. I headed up as much as possible and we managed to hang on there somehow as the lightning struck left and right. Plan "B" by this time was to ditch on the slowly shelving lee shore of an island to get out of the way of the ferry, which then passed by us like a wall of grey iron, cutting off part of our already small circle of visiblity. The worst was over quicly after that and we had a blast getting back to the rental place. They were really happy to see us (and their boat) in one piece, (well almost, we tore out a trapeze bungee and a footstrap) it obviously wasn't the outcome they had been expecting...

Got caught in a thunder storm down draft last summer. The storm formed right over us, so there was no ominous dark sky warning to the west like we usually get. Hard to say exactly, but we guessed wind speed at about 35-40kts at the time. Water was nearly dead-calm before the blast. We traveled out, sheeted hard and tried to stay in a semi-parked position at an angle to the wind. Rig shook like I've never seen - the boat oscillated vertically a couple times too. Lasted about 2-3 minutes, shifted about 180°(that part sucked) and then stopped as quickly as it started. I'd give Rick's story some credence if it was something similar.

Most wind I've ever sailed in was H20 Nationals in Yankton SD. Sustained 29kts, I think the gusts were almost 40kts. I was one of the few boats that managed to stay upright, but I have no clue how. We were going so fast downwind that the rudders wouldn't stay down. Scary sh!t losing one, then the other rudder when you're not really in the mood for something to go wrong.

Most wind I've ever seen on the water is debatable. The closest weather station recorded 60mph winds, but I don't think it ever got that bad. Though it was facking scary for a while there.
















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The top shot, hat flying, is a classic. You should blow it up and have it framed.

At the 2005 Hobie 17 North American Championships held at Dewey Beach, Delaware; we had a squall come through between races. It looked like a black wall speeding over the water at over 40 knots (measured at the Yacht club). Over 30 competitors had just enough time to park our boats and ride it out. No one capsized. Racing continued as soon as the squall passed. Matt Bounds can corroborate this story (he won).

The intention was to participate in this race. Due to a family weekend from my wife I couldn't go. After hearing all this stories, looking at the news, and seeing all the damage which was done, I suddenly enjoyed that weekend ;-)

Realy a lot of damage... next year the insurance fees go up again after this race :-(

looks like a typical summer day here in the gulf of mehico

On sunday, the wind crapped out and it was a very low tide around 3pm. My buddy and i stopped for the day but i left my cat on the beach thinking i might get a few hours in on monday.

Within 20 minutes of getting home i saw a line of storms coming across the state. Before i could drive the 15 minutes back to the beach, it was blowing over 40. Got to the beach just in time to put some tie downs in the sand. The boat was already wanting to fly away.

Max storm winds were around 55 that day

a few years ago, during the hangover regatta, we had winds over 40 mph. I was on a Dart 20 (not in the race). we broke a few battens, but were able to sail upright. The girl in front of me was screaming, i was holding on for dear life, the skipper was grinning from ear to ear and didn't have a worry in the world.


Other boats didn't fare so well in the race. Some were beached on islands in the gulf - Jack lost the boom to his TheMightyHobie18... etc

PS the dart had a Tornado main (cut down) and Tornado (oversized) jib on it.

Second day out on our Hobie-20 , wind was blowing near 25mph
as we were setting it up ; then it picked up to 30 to 35. The
co-owner kept saying : "NO-WAY" we're gonna do this , & i
agreed and said we need practice putting it together anyway!
I Never told him what my plan was ...

We tied the Main to the tramp, and hoisted the jib, then
off we went.

HAD A BLAST ; never even came Close to flipping her !!!
He was Amazed at how far we could point into the wind
with just the jib, but it took a LOT of rudder.

After that, i told him we should buy a H-16 jib for just
that purpose; we could handle a 40 quite Easy with it.

We sold the boat after i exploded the reefed in Main
in a 30 ; something about i'm WAY Too aggressive ?

HA -- Good thing i still own a H-21se !!! Should-a spent
the money fixing That boat, instead of blowing all that
cash on the H-20 ; but it's Mine and i can do what i want
with her !!!

Seriously guys, i would purchase a sea-anchor for your cat
and use it to drop the Main out at sea, if things go
bad ; your jib can handle WAY more than you think. Stow
the main and give it a try some day when the wind is up
more than your comfortable with.

Bille

????????????????

A Lot of wind is coming at you and it
can be seen on both the water AND in the clouds ; tossing a
sea-anchor is a way to safely drop your Main, then pull
the anchor and sail away with the jib.

Look at the shot below, just above the front-X-beam on
the port side ; that gust-front could be seen in the clouds
at-Least 10 miles away, before it ever got to Ya. If the
Main sail had bin dropped, there is a Very GOOD chance that
cat never would have flipped .

OK , i'm a mono-hull sailor NOT a cat guru, but Years on
a hang glider, sailboats, and a decade with kite-boards
have taught me that "WEATHER" can NOT just sneak-Up on
Ya , there are signs available to the aware person !!!

Mmmm, I've been snuck up on by the weather multiple times:

1) Dark, full moon, we're becalmed, we had very little/no warning of the approaching storm.

2) Cold front hit, no leading edge frontal clouds (very rare). Gusts to 30kts. Major capsize event.

In the above case, it appears they still had the spinnaker up and were attempting to out-run the storm...certainly dropping the main would have been a smart choice if you can get it to release on the water.

The beauty of some of these fast moving storms in more protected waters is they often approach with no fetch and the water remains flat. I've only experienced that once but 25-30 kts in dead flat water is extremely fast, and I quickly realized how the speed trenches work.

It's a sort of machismo, plus the top sailors would have gotten through that and stayed on their feet.

That's kind of a bold statement to make given the sailor involved. I've sailed with Other Karl and had the opportunity to pass through a rather "sporty" squall line with him. The list of people that I would be comfortable sailing in those conditions with is very short and Other Karl definately makes the cut.