RAINMAKER DISMASTED OFF HATTERAS IN GALE

[Rasputin22]

Never underestimate the effects of being horribly seasick... all the more so when dealing with the mast coming down.

Proa makes a great point here. Somehow the old song and parable about walking a mile in another man's shoes comes to mind.

I delivered this Givens 56 catamaran from the VI to Newport a bit early in the season.

It was originally an open bridgedeck racing design with a very large and tall rotating carbon rig. She had the deckhouse added to make her into a very spirited fast cruiser to say the least. Bad weather caught up with us as we neared Bermuda and it was one of the most harrowing nights I've ever spent offshore. We found that we could steer by the autopilot sitting in the house watching the radar and sail between the worst of the squalls. All four of us on board had major offshore multihull experience but one crew was down with a medical condition and hadn't stood watch for a couple of days. We had conditions that were probably very similar to what the RM were experiencing but we didn't have the Gulfstream to contend with. Squalls were bringing 55kts but we were close reaching heavily reefed and could feather up in the gusts. The luffing and flogging that the rig took when pinching up to keep the windward hull in the water was astounding. Add to that the rotating wing and now spreaders and I was definitely worried about shaking the rig out of the boat. There was no 'panic button' for the mainsheet and we were really very amiss in having the main cleated off on a winch in the cockpit. We would have never had time to throw off the sheet if we had skyed the hull. Hard to get any rest off watch and I'm sure that if we had lost the rig we would all have attempted to get on a ship or even for for a chopper ride. The biggest challenge was to keep the boat slowed down yet not get stopped by a wave like the Alpha incident and damage rudders. It was a very fine tightrope we walked that night and I thought of the other old saying that God looks after drunks and fools (and sailors?) When we got into Bermuda the next day as the barometer continued to fall, we learned of the loss of Hans Horrevoets, the crewman of ABN during the Volvo race in the same weather system that we were dodging. Watching the cruise ships snap big hawsers at the dock and the full brunt of that system moved in made me think that we would have had to lay ahull or deploy drogues had we not made safe harbor. We got another pretty good thumping crossing the Stream as we approached New England on the second leg of the trip and it was much colder. We would have liked to get the current lift of the stream but could handle the short confused seas and had to get on across as quickly as possible and fight the counter currents on either side.

On the other hand, I've skippered a Catana 58 from the Canaries to St Martin and it was the proverbial 'magic carpet' ride.

 

[TwoLegged]

Having taken a walk around Rainmaker in Wanachee, in her defense I will say that at rest there is quite a bit of bridge deck clearance - more than the typical charter cats certainly. I think in the picture heel, combined with stern waves and perhaps an incident wind wave make it look like less than it actually is.

And (as it was headed for the islands) it no doubt had a dinghy on the davits protecting the cockpit :blink: .

You're right! More than it looks, according to the specs:

Bridge Deck Clearance: .855 meter, 2.8 feet

And only ~17 tons max. load displacement. Much lighter and sixteen feet longer than the Leopard 39 (though ~five times the cost).

So the Gunboat has 0.855m bridgedeck clearance. That's 33.7 inches
Chris White's Atlantic 57 design has 41 inches of bridgedeck clearance.

The extra 7.6 inches could be quite significant as seas get nasty.

 

[RKoch]

My former boss bought a Lagoon 42 that had been wrecked in a hurricane in the Bahamas. He rebuilt it right on the beach, replacing about 25% of the port hull, about 10% of the starboard hull. Both keels were broken off, and he replaced them with daggerboards. He did a nice job, and was pretty proud of the boat, especially the bridge deck clearance-it never pounded. Then he decided to enter the St Pete to Isla Mujeres Race. I built him a carbon fiber main and jib, a technora jib top, and Dacron heavy weather jib. Rating penalty too high for spin. During the race, they had 25-30 on the beam, doing 18+ knots under dingle-reefed main and jib. Bridge deck slamming waves, ex-boss was having 'nam flashbacks cause it sounded like grenades. 7/16" Kevlar reef line exploded, they put in 2nd reef and changed to heavy air jib to keep the speed down below 15. At some point (he doesn't know when) they broke one of the daggerboards off.

I kind of think that no matter what the bridge clearance, at some point and speed it will pound.

 

[phillysailor]

So the Gunboat has 0.855m bridgedeck clearance. That's 33.7 inches
Chris White's Atlantic 57 design has 41 inches of bridgedeck clearance.

The extra 7.6 inches could be quite significant as seas get nasty.

...that's 41 inches to the bridge deck, but the stern porch is set off from the salon with a bulkhead and a solid door with a knee-knocker sill. The GB, OTOH, is described as having a "semi-rigid" enclosure.

 

[captpiratedog]

Let's see ...

• Rich guy makes questionable investment in something he doesn't understand
• Obtains insurance policies at unrealistic premiums due to large portfolio coverage and special relationships
• Drags family members into situation without regard for possible effects on their well being
• Compounds risks through further uninformed, questionable decisions and meets calamity while claiming what transpired was impossible
• Plea distributed to masses by investment agents asking for prayers and encouraging emotional involvement in rich guy's personal tragedy to deflect inquiry into agent's role
• Bailed out by government agencies and taxpayers money with no consideration on behalf of either party for reimbursement for costs
• Media kowtows to rich guy because of advertising tie-ins, emphasizes the human element while ignoring the blatant stupidity and failing to follow the money
• Bloggers fan flames, but no one notices because the 10 minutes of notoriety afforded the incident have passed

Meanwhile, single unemployed mother enrolled in university leaves child alone in locked car for five minutes while buying milk at a corner store. Receives 5 year sentence for reckless child endangerment.
Nothing new to see here, move along.

Now that's Dead Kennedy's song for corporate aquatics

 

[Bryanjb]

So are you the guy on the video? In the Pacific, getting off Anna?

 

[joneisberg]

[SIZE=11.9999990463257px]"Going back to the start of the discussion, I have a hard time figuring it what would cause them to try to get onto a freighter in the first place."[/SIZE]

[SIZE=11.9999990463257px]I will guess for you. Owner and Kid on the boat. All of a sudden nothing feels or looks like the brochure and promotional smooth as glass sailing videos. The boat is basically out of control bobbing and lurching in every imaginable direction. MAybe like being inside of a washing machine without the water to cushion the blows from each new wave and fall across the cabin space. To many that would look and feel like godzilla had them. [/SIZE]

Yes, the openness of that living room might quickly lose much of it's appeal in those conditions, and body feeling unwell or impaired by seasickness could gain a lot of momentum before it met up with something to arrest its motion. Hope they had some padding around the edges of that table ;-) No handrails overhead necessary on a multihull, of course...

Would be interesting to know whether they carried, or ever considered deploying, a sea anchor... Something along the lines of an 18' parachute and 600' feet or thereabouts of rode might have come in pretty handy in such a situation, but of course that's gonna be a lot of additional weight on a carbon fiber 55-footer already 240 kgs over its lightship designed weight... ;-)

 

[fastyacht]

Fuck it. They should have just bought this instead:

http://www.sy-hemisphere.com/

 

[Rasputin22]

Hemisphere! I got to do some design work on her tender sling and retrieval system that was pretty wild. The gull wing doors under the bridgedeck you can see in this image hinged outward much like bomb bay doors and a 23' waterjet RIB was slung tucked up into that space. Lots of challenges to make it work.

Beast of a boat.

 

[terrafirma]

A Gunboat abandoned in the middle of the Ocean..! Think about that...

 

[Ishmael]

Hemisphere! I got to do some design work on her tender sling and retrieval system that was pretty wild. The gull wing doors under the bridgedeck you can see in this image hinged outward much like bomb bay doors and a 23' waterjet RIB was slung tucked up into that space. Lots of challenges to make it work.

Beast of a boat.

Ooooo. I want one.

 

[jhiller]

Has Rainmaker been recovered yet ? A fishing boat was said to be on its way a few days back but everyone who might know has gone radio silent

Has Rainmaker been recovered yet ? A fishing boat was said to be on its way a few days back but everyone who might know has gone radio silent

 

[ProaSailor]

So the Gunboat has 0.855m bridgedeck clearance. That's 33.7 inches

Chris White's Atlantic 57 design has 41 inches of bridgedeck clearance.

The extra 7.6 inches could be quite significant as seas get nasty.

Nice. Displacement of the CW Atlantic 57 is 13+ tons.

 

[Edith Bicknell]

 

[Raked Aft\\]

^ That dude was either on crack or needs his anemometer calibrated...

if that was 50mph or 15' waves i'll eat my hat.

get real.

 

[Beer Can]

^ That dude was either on crack or needs his anemometer calibrated...

if that was 50mph or 15' waves i'll eat my hat.

get real.

Whether or not his numbers are correct (and they do seem more than a bit high) he is doing a vast disservice to consumers by suggesting that the boat is capable of handling those types of conditions. Think of the target audience for those boats. They might just believe him.

 

[Edith Bicknell]

^ That dude was either on crack or needs his anemometer calibrated...

if that was 50mph or 15' waves i'll eat my hat.

get real.

I believe he said 18 feet.

 

[mad]

My former boss bought a Lagoon 42 that had been wrecked in a hurricane in the Bahamas. He rebuilt it right on the beach, replacing about 25% of the port hull, about 10% of the starboard hull. Both keels were broken off, and he replaced them with daggerboards. He did a nice job, and was pretty proud of the boat, especially the bridge deck clearance-it never pounded. Then he decided to enter the St Pete to Isla Mujeres Race. I built him a carbon fiber main and jib, a technora jib top, and Dacron heavy weather jib. Rating penalty too high for spin. During the race, they had 25-30 on the beam, doing 18+ knots under dingle-reefed main and jib. Bridge deck slamming waves, ex-boss was having 'nam flashbacks cause it sounded like grenades. 7/16" Kevlar reef line exploded, they put in 2nd reef and changed to heavy air jib to keep the speed down below 15. At some point (he doesn't know when) they broke one of the daggerboards off.

I kind of think that no matter what the bridge clearance, at some point and speed it will pound.

Any fool can break a boat!

'There are times when you just sail the boat to the sea conditions' were the words of advice from some very successful Jules Verne and Orma sailors I've met over the years. (Not to say they haven't had some issues) Just my opinion.

 

[mad]

Why, just why? did you have to dig that awful image back up from the sewer of sailing/motorboating?

 

[Shu]

^ That dude was either on crack or needs his anemometer calibrated...

if that was 50mph or 15' waves i'll eat my hat.

get real.

Whether or not his numbers are correct (and they do seem more than a bit high) he is doing a vast disservice to consumers by suggesting that the boat is capable of handling those types of conditions. Think of the target audience for those boats. They might just believe him.

Yes, there was a gale warning up. The seas were fairly high/steep, but they were quite close to the Newport Harbor entrance. What's surprising is with waves of that steepness, how few of them actually broke into small whitecaps. I think it was mostly 15 to 18 kts.