Our knockdown and dismasting in the Everglades Challenge

[Doug Cameron]

I thought I should let you folks know about our knockdown and dismasting in the 2012 Everglades Challenge.

We were having a fast run. We were leading the monohulls by 14 hours with only three multihulls in front of us. We had sailed fast on a broad reach all night (often planing) in 15-20 kts of wind and small seas (because of the protection of the shore). At dawn I listened to the NOAA weather forecast on the VHF. They called for gale force winds (30-35 kts with gusts over 40). We pulled into the lee of the crescent beach between Northwest Cape and Middle Cape of Cape Sable to reef in anticipation of the coming gale. We hove to and both of us went onto the foredeck to reef.

While we were up there, the first winds of the gale arrived, about 40 kts at about 90 degrees from the old winds. We were immediately over with the broad bottom exposed to the 30 + winds. The winds drove the main mast into the shallow, sandy bottom.

We unsheeted the mizzen, climbed onto the centerboard and righted her. After bailing her out and pulling all of the spars, sails, and rigging aboard, we moved the mizzen into the middle step and sailed back into the beach to sort out stuff and sorted stuff out. The whole story of our race is at http://capt-doug.blogspot.com/

Talking with Graham, we see that the biggest mistake was to move everyone to the front deck, lifting the stern out of the water and making the craft very tippy. The shallow water contributed to the dismasting (when the mast is pushed by wind, the boat heels long before the limits of the strength of the mast is approached).

Both Michael Collins and I feel that we were finally trusting the Core Sound 20 to take care of us in big seas and strong winds, and she did an excellent job. She was sailing fast and tacking through 90 degrees in 3-4 foot seas and 15-20 kt winds the first day and was flying downwind the other days. Our poor performance at draw bridges is the fault of our inexperience.

[ecgossett]

What problems at draw bridges?? The biggest we had was going underneath directly against winds and current.

[Doug Cameron]

Bridges would say they were opening and we would commit, only to have to abort at the last minute. On day one we had trouble with wind and tide on the nose, and the opening bridges tended to focus both.

[ecgossett]

Ok I did hear some heated discussion at the first bridge, mostly when his time to open had an hour added to it, only because he claimed he didn't know the sail boats where still below.