Weather to go? and the herd instinct...

Pondering the weather?

I think we have all been there, in that anchorage or port - pouring over forecasts , grib files and weather maps, trying to decide whether to go or not. Somehow the perfect weather window always seems to have just gone or to be another week away. Our options seem to contain many uncertainties, despite (or maybe because) of the much more accurate long range forecasts available these days. The decision to go is often complicated by other boats all thinking about heading of as well.

The Herd Instinct

It always slightly amuses me how much sheep thinking is coded into our DNA's (or is it human thinking by the sheep?) and I realise I'm not immune to this either. You get 2 or three boats in an anchorage waiting to depart, and everybody starts in subtle ways to find out what the other boats are thinking, and when they are going, there is much at stake in these discussions, ego, fear and respect... This doesn't only apply to other vessels, a similar dynamic can happen between individual crew on a boat.

Ego, comes into it because people don't like to be thought of as wimps, so (typically) the blokes like to make light of the forecast... 25-35 knots, no problems, been in much worse than that many times, we'll be right.. Another factor with the whole ego thing is that it can trap you, if you have stated loudly that you plan to go tomorrow- to other people who thought the following day might be better, it can be hard to then change your mind to agree with them when they are right...

Fear, it’s funny how travelling in groups somehow makes us feel less fearful, watch a group of penguins about to jump into water that may contain a hidden leopard seal to see the same type of reactions... Be careful that you are not leaving against your better judgement because you are afraid of being left behind... Or not leaving on a good forecast because no one else is...

Respect, saying we are going to do something different from others is like saying you think they are wrong... once we are locked into group discussions this becomes a powerful factor, it can be hard to say no.

The factors to consider between different boats

Factors to be brutally honest about are our boat, our crew and our rush factor.

Our boat- Is it bigger, smaller, faster, slower, well found or dodgy

Our crew - it is the hardest one to be objective about; we all like others to think we have heaps of experience, it's that ego thing. And they may be playing the same game, the blind leading the blind…

The rush factor - How much of a rush are we in, have we got pressing deadlines, have we been waiting for weeks already. How much do we motor vs. slop around in light air? Are we ready to go yet or do we actually want to spent a few more days in this place....

Ultimately the decision to leave should be an individual one, and one that you are comfortable with. Don't let that Gung-Ho delivery crew make you feel like you are cowards. Or that boat that has been waiting for 4 weeks for a perfect patch of weather make you feel worried about the conditions as long as you are confident the weather is OK for the boat and for you. Also try not to put pressure on other boats to follow your lead; they need to make up their own mind...

Advantages

In saying all this there can often be advantages to discussing things with others, such as

•          local knowledge
•          A bit of a reality check
•          other boats may have better or different weather information
•          It is social and you get to know the crew from other boats.

You may even end up sailing at the same time and this can be fun (or a nuisance as they call you up every half hour to give you a position report and then expect you to slow down and wait!) If you are lucky you can get some good photos of each boat sailing…

Getting it wrong

I stuffed it up badly once (actually more than once but this one sticks most in my mind). I knew I was making a mistake at the time (Stupid hey...) I had a deadline, impatient crew and a bad forecast. Another boat was going, they reckoned it would be fine, and they had no engine - my ego didn't like that... My crew were starting to think I was a wimp and were really keen to go. I knew I could handle the conditions ok and I had faith in the boat, but I really thought the next day was a much better idea... It looked very unpleasant out there and the clouds were racing overhead. With a sense of foreboding we sailed. The crew got greener and greener as we left the lee of the land but their insistence on sailing meant they couldn't really bottle out, I should have taken the initiative and pulled the pin - it’s the skipper’s job, but I didn't want to be the one to bottle first. 

To windward the sky got darker and then without warning (actually there was good warning, I just ignored it) a solid squall came through flattening the boat. The seas rapidly built, steep and nasty, one throwing us well over and making me think the windows should have popped out. It didn't ease up any, so after a good struggle I clawed down the spitfire jib (we already had the third reef in) and we slogged our way back to the anchorage, motorsailing, arriving very wet and tired at midnight with our tails between our legs. The other boat ended up being towed in...

The next day the wind had eased somewhat and it looked much healthier but the crew were now very wary, they took some convincing before we headed out… We ended up having a great crossing, why I had headed out the day before with that forecast I don't know (actually I do, It was my ego, and I should stop listening to it.)  Now I must say that despite this incident they were a fantastic crew, and I enjoyed sailing with them. It was my error and ego that led to a miserable night.

Doesn't look so bad? Don't take the red arrows lightly...

Getting it right

I remember sitting at the Melchior Islands in Antarctica. We had a shocking system coming though the Drake Passage; the Grib files had it intensifying rapidly into 50 knots or so of southerly. It is about a 3-4 day passage and the trick is to try to time it to avoid a nasty westerly at Cape Horn, it's not normally too hard but in this case the timing would have to be perfect. Too early and the southerly could be dangerous, too late and the next westerly could make it difficult to lay the shelter under the lee of the horn... To make matters more complex five crew had flights from Ushuaia in the next week - And the new crew were to join shortly after...

I was pretty happy with when I had to leave, but I wanted to talk to Eric from Vaihere, he was heading off soon and had much more experience in the area than me. Vaihere is a bigger and faster boat than us and he was planning to leave 6 hours after me. 

It was good to talk to him, because it showed me that he didn't much like the situation either (very bad...) so there was some justification for my nerves... But we were both pretty confident that we could time it right for our respective vessels, and cope with the situation if it didn't pan out how we thought. He waited and I left. He arrived at the horn 2 hours after me, and I was probably an hour or so later than I should have been (because it was starting to get very nasty); it blew like stink that night. Vaihere kept going and looked magnificent sailing past in 50 or so knots of westerly. But I was glad we were tucked up in a safe anchorage.

What worked well about talking to Eric is that we had both dropped our ego's, he admitted that it looked nasty, and he was worried about it, as was I, we weren't trying to impress each other. We both had a pressing need to get away, but we were prepared to wait if needed. And we were aware of the different speeds and capabilities of our boats. My plan was to head out, and assess the situation in 12-24 hours, if I thought I couldn't reach the horn before the westerly’s started to crank up I would head back to Antarctica and cancel the flights... I had not used Eric to prop up my decision, but I wanted the benefit of his local knowledge of the Gribs and their relationship to the local weather systems near the horn.

Anchor Ratios for the bored

Warning, This post contains maths, and other boring concepts, it some of the information has been superseded by better formulas and more information. another post on this will soon follow.

I have been playing around with Excel, you can do interesting things on it if you are bored enough (I was on a plane, planes are boring). Anyway I had been pondering a thread on Cruisers Forum regarding is a big anchor better than a smaller one?

I was keen to see how the law of Mechanical Similitude  applies to anchors and boat sizes.

I found it very interesting, much more interesting than the plane, although Karen, sitting next to me did not share my excitement...

Anyway, for me the discovery's were interesting, if you take the view that holding power is proportional to the anchors blade area (edit: I have since found that it needs to include depth of set as well, so it is normally proportional to the weight, or area times depth of set) then the benefits of going larger are not as great as you might at first think. In my case going from a 20 kg anchor to a 30 kg anchor then the weight increases by 1.5 but the anchors area only increases by 1.3. Useful, but not as big a benefit as at first you might think.

Now to get a bit controversial and way out of my depth, but thinking about what actually holds anchors into the seabed in some bottoms it occurred to me that the shear strength of the seabed might well play a part. and if that's the case then the circumference of the anchor would play a part in it's holding by defining the shearing boundary. Now the little bit I read on soil dynamics on Wikipedia confused the crap out of me so don't go thinking I am any sort of expert...  But the bad news for big anchors is that up-sizing the weight to 1.5 only gives you 1.09 more shear strength. Interesting, not sure how relevant it is, in soft mud area is critical, in clay or firm mud maybe shear strength comes into it? Any soil technicians out there? (edit:still havent found out anything about this, but probably not a big factor)

Thinking more about it the shear strength would also include the thickness of the substrate it needs to pull through, so it may increase as an area rather than a length, the same as the surface area of the anchor...(edit: now I am getting closer... see the next anchor post, comming soon)

I was also curious to see how the colossal anchors carried by some bigger cruising boats like Morgans Cloud and the Dashews stack up against the boat weights and windage. Now boats don't scale properly, no smart designer is going to directly scale up directly. What normally happens is boats get relatively narrower, lower and lighter as they get bigger, so my scaling is rather crude, but it is interesting to see what happens if I scale Sunburst up to 60 foot (18m) by a factor of 1.50. the displacement goes up to a whooping 33 tonnes, 3.37 times more to about 34 tonnes. The windage only goes up by a factor of 2.25. This would require a 70kg anchor to keep the ratios about right. (edit: I think I have this sorted out now, anchors scale in proportion to their weight. so not quite such a big anchor would be needed)

The biggest winner with a big anchor is the tip loadings which scale with the surface area, double the weight gives you 1.59 times the tip load, provided your dip is as sharp as the smaller anchor. This will help your setting in some bottom types since the extra weight of the anchor helps drive this sharp tip into seabed.

Now it also occurred to me in a light bulb moment during a restless nights sleep pondering exciting things like anchors that we compare yachts ratios with numbers such as the Sail Area/displacement ratio, and Displacement/Length ratio. So why not compare anchors to boat size the same way, this would stop half the internet arguments about if your anchor is to big or to small, we could exchange our numbers and we would know exactly where we stand on the continuum of permanent mooring to toy anchor.

So here are a few ratios to play with, they might make sense number wise or just be weird, maths isn't my strong point, I would be interested to hear your Ratios.(edit: I now have a better ratio Length squared/Anchor Wt, should be about 35 or less, 7 or less for metric)

Displacement to Anchor weight ratio = Disp (kg)/Anchor weight (kg)

Displacement to Anchor Area = Displacement (tonnes)/(Anchor fluke area (cm^2)/1000)^(3/2)

These are the easy ones, windage is another critical factor, probably much more important than vessel displacement, depending on the situation. I got a crude idea of my windage in m^2, took side windage and head on windage and averaged them to reflect the normal anchor ripping out angle of 45 degrees. made a bunch of crude assumptions about rigging drag and then even I got bored... So I have a crude guess really. keen for any input on better ways. I need to refer to a few yacht design books to see if I am ballpark but hey a guess done with maths is much better than a guess done by.. well just guessing, isn't it?

So the ratios for windage are

Windage to anchor area ratio = windage (m^2) / (Anchor fluke area (cm^2)/1000)

Windage to anchor circumference = windage (m^2)/(circumference (m))^2

Anyway, even I am getting bored now, My guess is the first few people with a real maths and engineering background will die laughing and probably make spot a heap of mistakes in my logic or my math, but if by some chance the laughter isn't fatal, please make comment so it can be improved or deleted.

Here are my results after some tweaking of the original formula to get the brackets in the right place.. DUH

Cheers

Ben

PS can't work out how to add the spreadsheet to this blog. Any ideas?

Damage Control

Once upon a time I used to occasionally teach damage control at the Australian Maritime College, it was a fun course (except in winter, when it was cold...). We had an old ship set up with a series of rooms that could be slowly or quickly flooded through various cracks, splits and dodgy pipework, all under the control of a sadistic instructor such as myself... Like I said it was great fun, but I also learnt some bits and pieces from this, most of which I hope I will never have to use for real.

Picture this, a dark night, shall we add stormy? no that would be too dramatic... So a dark night, somewhere maybe a couple of hundred miles offshore, nice sailing, wind vane doing its thing, boat trucking along on a tight reach, and a cuppa hot chocolate keeping the hands toasty warm. You carefully scan the horizon, looking under the headsail, trying to use the edges of your vision, and to be methodical, nothing seen so back under the dodger to get warm again, before the next lookout in a few minutes... Suddenly without warning a loud bang and a shudder as the the vessel rides up something unseen, you curse.... !@#$%^ due to spilt hot chocolate scalding your hand...

Well I guess you know whats going to happen next don't you.. Yep, Sure enough water can be heard trickling from somewhere forward, on the leeward side  Quickly... the boat is sinking!!

Is everyone ok? well then wake up and put something warm on. This could be a long night...Turn on all the bilge pumps, and make sure they are working. Attend to any injury's - put burnt hand in cold water, at least you have a plentiful supply in the bilges. Now start hunting for the leak and grab your damage control kit, we have one of these handy don't we?

Snow Petrel's DC kit (with $1 tipshop bag)

Fortunately we do, our DC kit is conveniently stowed up forward and for our metal boat it includes :

• Instruction sheet with layout of seacocks and reminders and prompts to suit our boat
• Torches- A head torch is good, and a floating torch... well floats.
• Small axe to smash out joinery, and shape wedges then hammer wedges home.
• Softwood wedges and plugs of various shapes and sizes
• A block of soft closed cell foam to initially stem the flow
• Underwater epoxy putty, in small and big sizes, and other suitable goop's
• Quicksetting underwater cement, Ideally in a bag (can be stuffed unto whole to stem water)
• Hoseclamps and screw driver.
• Bicycle Innertube to wrap around leaky pipe
• If hull is foamed, a way to remove foam, like an old chisel.
• A pair of gloves (winter grip gloves are ideal)
• Mask and snorkel 

All these handy items are in a bag that can be carried to where it is needed.

After you have narrowed the leak down to the locker under the forward double berth you quickly clear all the crap out from it - it's amazing how fast you can clear out a locker (but you try to keep it out of the water). You ask for a check on the bilge level... we're losing ! Maybe you should think about a Mayday or Pan Pan - and get those buckets working faster...

The leak is a split on a weld line near a frame, the plating dented, but the frame didn't, tearing the plate in this area, it's not big, but boy the water is spraying in, it's a good job you have that diving mask to put on... Maybe we can heave to on the other tack to lift it abit higher and reduce the outside water pressure, the slower speed will also help and it will be more comfortable...

Quickly you grab a wedge and split it into three smaller wedges with the axe to better fit the curved split. The first two wedges go in quickly and the last is slightly trimmed down to better fit the remaining part of the crack. With the last wedge tapped in the leak is considerably slowed. Phew.... But this no time to rest easy, while that adrenaline is still pumping lets check the rest of the boat, there may be another leak. We notice the pumps start gaining on the water..

It is now under the floorboards and after unlocking them you inspect the bilge and check the strum boxes are clear. We had kept them locked down to stop them floating away, and to reduce the amount of debris reaching the bilge.

After a few minutes you mix some underwater putty and press it around the edges of the swelling wedges, it reduces the flow to a trickle... well done, lets downgrade that mayday and get another cup of hot chocolate and try to calm down those shattered nerves. And a Securitie to alert other vessels of the submerged hazard might be in order..

At no time did the water get near our abandon ship point (with the water somewhere around my knees on Snow Petrel) at this point our efforts would have shifted into getting ready to abandon the vessel.

This situation is hypothetical, and I hope it stays this way. But having a damage control kit gives you plan to deal with a leak, part of it's function is obvious - to put all the gear you might need in a handy place, the other part is not at first so clear. This DC kit and the thought that went into compiling it has given you a plan, and having a plan has prevented panic (or at least controlled it)... Suddenly you know exactly what to do, having the DC kit and a plan gives you a focus that helps to prevent running around in circles shouting and screaming hysterically...

Now I note you can buy some pretty good kits but if you buy one please make sure you have also put the thought into how to use it. Non metal boats need different DC kits to metal boats (you can work out the details), and the old fothering trick with stout tarp has actually worked perfectly for me in flat water, try it on a seacock or when you clean your speed/log paddlewheel if you have one (I don't). I think they are just one more spot to get a leak from.

By the way, The only two times I have had water over the floorboards it turned out to be freshwater from the watertanks. Taste the water before you pump it out.

What do you have in your DC kit, and have you ever needed to use one?

Cheers

Ben

PS - check your memory, what tack was the boat sailing on (on that dark night) before the impact, no cheating by re-reading above... thought about it yet.. well actually I didn't specify a tack but I did have one in my minds eye, I am curious to see if we are port or starboard brained. as part of a world first and highly scientific survey click below on:

(A) for "in my minds eye the boat was on port tack"
(B) for "in my minds eye the boat was on starboard tack"
(C) for "we were running under twin headsails wern't we?"
(D) for "what does port and starboard tack mean?"

And as always you can click on liked to give me a warm fuzzy feeling of accomplishment (and to poke a stick in the eye of all those nasty english teachers who were most unimpressed with my writing)

Fatigue... of the human variety

Watch Bill- 2 on 4 off

I have spent quite a large portion of my life on watch systems of one sort or another, and in general I dislike them all... No matter how clever the watch system is someone still has to be up and alert at 0300, and the human body (at least mine anyway) is just not designed for this kind of abuse... I struggle to keep my eyes open and mind alert, and I know I am along way from my peak efficiency (and it's pretty low even on the rare occasion that it reaches peak..)

I suppose there is one system I do quite like, It's a watch system where someone else always gets the graveyard shift, and I get to sleep. But that's not really very fair is it...

Those graveyard shifts are just bearable if I have had plenty of sleep, and are into the swing of a watchkeeping routine. If I am already sleep deprived and fatigued it is a dangerous combination that I do my best to avoid. I have already talked about Rolf and Deborah's excellent  Sleep bank concept where you make sure you have enough sleep stored up to keep you safe. Go to far into debt and the debt collectors will soon be calling. and then you will pay the price - with interest...

I always remember my father in a sleep deprived state when I was very young. We were sailing up the east coast of NZ and for whatever reason he had been awake to far to long. He couldn't correlate the chart to what he was seeing outside and so took the always reasonable approach and decided the chart was wrong and he had found some new islands... Fortunately Mum still had her marbles, and could navigate us home.

After a decent sleep my old man couldn't believe how stupid he had been (and still denies it..) but the scary thing is, abit like being very drunk, you don't know how impaired you are at the time, and to you your decisions seem rational and smart. Hallucinations are the extreme symptom of sleep deprivation. I have never got to that point, and intend never to (touch wood). But some stories of hallucinations by singlehanded sailors who have mismanaged their sleep are downright scary... Sleep deprivation is probably the root cause of a significant proportion of serious accidents at sea.

If you are alone you need to be particularly careful, to the extent that managing sleep becomes your number one priority. During my singlehanded Tasman crossing in Reiger I was lucky that the cheap alarm clock I had bought from a two dollar store (predictably) died on the second night. So I ended up sleeping at night with no alarms set. and I found that I woke up naturally every time I needed to, if the wind shifted slightly I woke up, If it dropped I woke up, and once I even woke up to see a ship 5 miles away (not on a collision course...) I think the sound of the engine and propeller woke me... It worked for me because I was well rested. If I was sleep deprived my body would not wake up for the slightest sound. I don't think I would recommend this anywhere with more traffic than the Tasman? Around the coast I kept a 20 minute look out with micro sleeps, a punishing routine - that I could only keep up for one night (anybody got any tips on this?). I guess the point here is that I made a decision that mid ocean my biggest risk factor was fatigue due to lack of sleep, rather than being run down...

With crew it is more about making sure everybody is getting enough rest. If crew decide to skip a sleep period because the weather is nice or they are reading a good book it can cause problems latter when they fall asleep on the graveyard shift. This often happens when you first leave port for a big voyage or race, most crew want to be up for the excitement or because they want to be hero's, I normally go for an afternoon nap and they think I am soft. But at 3oclock in the morning I am capable of making sensible decisions and they are struggling to keep awake... Even if I don't actually sleep in my afternoon nap, just lying down and relaxing does alot of good.

I keep away from caffeine when I am on watches. For me It can really effect my sleep patterns, but it is good to have as a backup if I really need to stay awake for 6 hours or so.

I hate the 4 on 8 off watch system, If prefer 2 on 4 off or 3 on 6 off. With only two I quite like 3on three off at night and 6 on 6 off during the day. But it is hard to get much agreement on this... watch systems deserve their own post later.

When sailing through heavy ice getting enough sleep as skipper is a huge problem, on Snow Petrel I should have stepped out of the watch system when we were in the pack ice, and been on call. I got very tired and it could have been dangerous if we had any problems. I drew too heavily from the sleep bank...

As a Skipper you need to look after your own sleep, don't be a hero, It's easy to overwork and overworry and micromanage everything and before you know it you are the one making stupid decisions, or crew take things into their own hands and "let you sleep" for a while, instead of calling you if and when they should. There is alotwatch and give crew a break as a treat... As a skipper it is good to be able to Nana nap, even just for 15 minutes can be refreshing.

On the ships we always write up night orders, with specific instructions for the officer of the watch (OOW), they must be read and signed  (and then followed..). I have used this system on yachts as well. It has many benefits, not in the least being that instructions aren't subject to chinese whispers, and are less likely to be  modified or forgotten at 3am. The night orders apply to that night only and can go in the logbook. The masters standing orders are more generic and can go at the front of the logbook, to be read and signed on joining. Masters standing orders and night orders deserve their own exciting post. But if done properly can help the skipper sleep soundly, knowing his instructions should be understood and that he will be woken when needed.

Finally another Shipping thing from the STCW these are some of the exciting Anti-fatigue rules we must abide by and they are worth considering as a minimum for yachts...

1. All persons who are assigned duty as officer in charge of a watch or as a rating forming part of a watch shall be provided a minimum of 10 hours rest in any 24-hour period.
2. The hours of rest may be divided into no more than two periods, one of which shall be at least 6 hours in length.
3. The requirements for rest periods laid down in paragraph 1 and 2 need not be maintained in the case of an emergency or drill or in other overriding operational conditions.
4. Notwithstanding the provisions of paragraphs 1 and 2, the minimum period of ten hours may be reduced to not less than 6 consecutive hours provided that any such reduction shall not extend beyond two days and not less than 70 (77 under IMO?) hours of rest are provided each seven day period.

If you have any fatigue induced error stories put them below, or any other comments.

Cheers

Ben

Icing and escape hatches

                     Winch starting to ice up, I leave the winch handles in to stop socket icing up - Ideally a hard cover would be good, to enable instant use. Also in extreme conditions tiller may ice up as happened to Totorore.

The other day I was thinking about Berserk, and it got me thinking about hatches and icing and getting stuck inside a boat.... What got me thinking was that Jarle has finally spoken out
and it makes interesting reading...

So what I was thinking (all this thinking was starting to hurt..) was that in a severe icing condition at sea it seems quite possible that the hatches could get badly iced up. I have always been abit claustrophobic, and the thought of being trapped below decks with a stuck hatch is terrifying.. So I guess it would be smart to have some means of forcing them open and also another escape option, hopefully not also iced up badly and frozen shut...

Sprirt of Sydneys main hatch. Note my boots

 Spirit of Sydney had a main companionway door that opened inwards (into the cabin). This is very unusual in my experience. I have never seen one that opens inwards before on any vessel, and it can be abit of a menace. It is heavy and if it gets loose could do damage to fingers and such. From an engineering perspective it is kind of backwards as well, with the major loads from a wave going entirely onto the closing dogs and hinges and trying to open the door, forcing it off the rubber seal rather than pushing it tighter onto the rubber seal with the loads evenly spread into the rim. But the door is strong enough, it has been well proven over many years and in the worst conditions at sea on this vessel.

Thinking about this strange door in relation to severe icing conditions - It would be much easier to open even if heavy snow and ice had filled the cockpit and blocked the doors. It would also be easy to open with a cockpit full of water, or after any event that meant the cockpit was obstructed (ie a dismasting with a broken piece of boom in the cockpit) - Infact I find it hard to imagine a scenario that would trap a person below with this door. I suppose the whole door frame being distorted might jamb it, but this would jamb any door.

Actually for any offshore sailing getting stuck below decks, or maybe even worse stuck on deck would be pretty dangerous. Rolf and Deborah From Northern Light told me about a main hatch securing rope getting caught in it's V cleat inside the boat locking the hatch shut. They were both on deck and quite a few days away from land - stuck outside with no food, water, shelter or tools (all below decks). Eventually (after long enough for the seriousness of the situation to sink in) the boat rolled heavily and the line freed itself.....Whew!!

Snow Petrel has a backup escape/entry hatches - My lazarette hatch only opens and closes from outside and my main-saloon skylight is always free to be opened from inside even when the dingy is ondeck and covering the forward hatch. But both could still be blocked by severe icing.... Maybe I should add an inwards opening hatch somewhere?

Ice melting fast, and wind dropping.

The only moderate icing I have had was whist at anchor and then the main hatch was protected by the dodger. We had to make sure our ventilators remained somewhat free of ice, but that was all, I think we probably had about a ton of ice onboard at it's peak.... Gerry Clark had some very bad icing on the little 32 foot "Totorore", while heading towards Boyvetoya, deep in the south Atlantic (55 south) in late September. It sounded horrible... It's well worth reading his book, probably the most epic small yacht voyage ever, and it was a voyage that did some very useful scientific work, by getting the first accurate data on seabird populations in the southern ocean and it's islands.

I am interested to know if anybody has experienced severe icing at sea on a yacht, what problems it caused, and how best to minimise it's dangers?

Cheers

Ben

A High Latitude Dodger.

The dome needs abit of "De-icing"

I was Lucky when I bought Reiger, Jim Dilly had already put a canvas spray dodger on her. If he hadn't it probably would have taken me a few years to work out how great they are. I am sure I would have maintained that I liked the taste of salt water and by not having a spray dodger it improved my "feel" for the boat or some other utter rubbish along those lines, so Jim did me a big favor...

Reigers dodger had a fantastic canvas flap that zipped onto the back of the dodger and bungeed down to the cockpit completely enclosing the whole area under the dodger. With this fitted I could actually cook standing up in the companionway, inside my little canvas tent, warm and dry, even with driving rain from astern. The steam from cooking would rise and condense inside the dodger and not the cabin. Wet weather gear could be stashed either side of the hatch, out of the cabin, and in cold weather it kept alot of the heat in the boat, like an airlock, but still provided ventilation.  I could even sail with the flap on. and of course the dodger kept me warm and dry at sea, all up it was brilliant...

My only complaints were that I couldn't work out how to fit a perspex dome to the hatch, and when I was sailing across the Tasman on my own I needed to climb right out into the cockpit to have a good lookaround, This required wet weather gear and a harness, and waking up properly - and I usually got at least a face full of salt water..

When it came time to fit a proper dodger to Snow Petrel I thought long and hard whether to put a canvas dodger or a hard dodger on the boat. We had built a series of hard dodgers for a few boats up at Launceston. The designer/artist was my friend Greg, he has a great eye for a nice looking dodger and after 3 builds we had worked out a quick strong method of building a hard dodger, But I was worried about how one might survive a southern ocean breaker landing smack bang ontop of it, at least with a canvas dodger I could just straighten the frame and stitch it back together, If I had been stupid enough not to fold it down...

The answer to building a stronger dodger came when I sailed on 2041, one of Chay Blyth's challenge 67's. The dodger onboard 2041 was maybe abit "practical" looking but had very strong knees at the after end that also doubled as somewhere to lean against. After seeing this I decided to go with a hard dodger, and as a bonus I could just squeeze a dome under the dodger on the main hatch and another on top of the dodger, above the hatch, meaning I would be able to have a look around without leaving the security of the main hatch.

It looks like this.

1 - 18 inch 6mm perspex dome, absolutely amazing view, doesn't steam up and can be used from inside the hatch or inside the cockpit. It is high enough to have a good view forward. It is a feature that I wouldn't be without. For tropical sailing I might fit it onto a hatch so it can be removed.

Little green hatted man is warm, dry and very happy!

2 - Hand rails set inboard to serve as longitudinal stringers, and gives a comfortable seat on the edge of the dodger roof. By setting them inboard the are easy to hold onto when on the lee deck.

3 - The dodger top is 2 layers of 6mm plywood laminated into a curve. It also has glass sheathing and non skid paint. This is more than strong enough to jump on. I intend to put a mainsheet traveller on top of it at some point...

4 - At the aft edge of the top and the sides is an external laminated beam. Inside this is an aluminium boltrope extrusion to take the canvas flap, to close in the dodger. This Beam stiffens and strengthens the top. It also stops water blowing back from the dodger top into the cockpit. And It forms a good handhold, hence burying the aluminium track inside the wood to stop my fingers getting cold.

5 - Big plywood and glass knees strengthen the aft end of the dodger, they also have handholds and make a nice backrest, or place to lean against. They also give the canvas flap something to overlap to stop rain driving in. They are tied with several heavy layers of unidirectional glass onto the top of the dodger, and bolted to stainless tangs on the coamings.

6 - Cabin top is used as a step to get onto the dodger, it also makes the dodger look better to set it slightly inside the cabin edge, and it is easier to build.

7 - Windows are 4 mm perspex, designed to break before the dodger does...

8 - Dodger sides are 9mm ply, doubled in high load areas, with heavy biaxial fibreglass tape in all the corners. They are bolted through welded stainless steel tabs on the cabin top. a Sikaflex fillet seals it to the deck.

From Astern, a bit of food on the wharf to store somewhere...

I spent alot of time looking at the ergonomics, mocking stuff up and trying to balance looks with functionality. I am happy with the results. There is room to sit in the cockpit completely under the dodger totally out of rain, snow or spray, and I can steer from this position, peering out the dome for a good look around. I need to add a few small windows to the top of the dodger so I can see the jib luff from this position.

I shifted the main winches aft 6 inches or so so I had space to sit on the cockpit coaming alongside the dodger steering with the tiller extension. This is very comfortable and gives a great view.

The dodger got its test on the way down to Antarctica, It copped a big southern ocean breaker, landed right on top of it, knocked us down and got some water below. I was sure it must have broken a window in the dodger but they survived. At some point I can imagine a storm bad enough to destroy the dodger, but if I survive I will just build another one, If I built it strong enough to survive anything it would be far two heavy, instead it is designed so that it cannot damage the watertight integrity of the boat.

One big advantage of having a dodger is that you can dress lighter, meaning when deck work needs doing you don't overheat, sweat and then get very cold as can happen if you are dressed very warmly for a windy cockpit watch with no shelter.

I think the dome/dodger combination is a big safety factor in cold water, keeping crew dry and warm, but some experienced sailors like Rolf and Deborah off Northern light don't have one, using the dome on the main hatch and an effective windvane instead. And I must say that if I got a bigger boat I would probably have more of a pilothouse setup, but with a sheltered area off the back.

I have sailed on a few boats that have a dodger sheltering the crew at the front of the cockpit but not the helmsman at the back of the cockpit. In my opinion this is stupid, the helmsman should be able to get their body out of the worst of the wind and spray, and ideally duck and get their eyes away from a dollop of spray. I have had my eyes get so much salt water driven into them that I could hardly see, A sensible dodger would have solved that problem.

On Blizzard we really wished we had at least a half dodger over the exposed wheel to keep at least our hands dry (or a good autopilot...), but instead we had numb fingers and could only manage half hour tricks in bad weather. Spirit of Sydney had a big lexan dodger, covering most of the cockpit and giving the wheel some shelter, this worked well, and I could hand steer for hours in the worst weather. A big safety plus.

Now thats a dodger! All Polycarbonate on alloy frames, it goes right back to the helm, ideally the helm needs raising slightly for better visibility, but you can stand to the side and steer with you foot for excellant vis. Note the clutter on deck...

 My father got home from the trip on snowpetrel and quickly fitted a spray dodger and roller furling to their 45 foot gaff ketch, after the 30 years that we had to put up with being wet and cold, so at least he was convinced of the benefits. But he couldn't quite bring himself to add a dome. Saying it just wouldn't look right...

The original dodger that spawned provided the pattern for mine, Looks much sleeker on a 38 footer, Nice work Wayne, Greg and Grant. 

Gosh Dad a spray dodger sure would be nice.... Note the Reefed Staysail on a boom.

Note the slightly raked angle of the dodger, this helps remove the illusion of the dodger being droopy, very important as a level dodger top will often result in the side panels looking slightly droopy due to the camber and fact that the sides are narrower at the forward edge. 

Here you can see the lip at the aft end and the radius of the top. The inboard handrails are very good, providing a comfortable seat on the dodger. 

 Under construction, note the annex track buried all around the aft edge.

Another Sister dodger. 

Plenty of room under the dodger, just enough headroom, and your whole body is out of spray and rain.

The dome was fantastic, here I am still inside the hatch with the door closed, perfect 360 view and safely wedged in place. 

The only shot with the canvas closure flap at over the back of the dodger, Two bungees held it down so it was easy to lift and get out.It really kept in the heat, and kept out snow ,rain and spray.