Have we spawned a new human subspecies, Homo sapiens elumbus?

[facthunter]

Going into wind you have to tack back and forth. With a good sail and boat you can tack within 30 degrees of the wind the boat's motion  and the  SAIL AERODYNAMIC it's a whole new ball game. The sideload on the keel comes into it as well as a centreboard sometimes to stop the hull being pushed sideways through the water. With a downwind component chuck out the Spinnaker sail. I've found most pilots easily adapt to sailing. I often hired a catamaran to sail on fanny Bay at Darwin on a stopover. Fast but a bit trickier that a monohull. Things like "Trailer Sailers' are less efficient and take  more effort to get upwind.  There's simple things like a Sabot to learn in and 15 foot skiffs that do 27 knots to compete with. I learned in a thing called a VJ.  on Lake Macquarie, long ago.  Nev

[spacesailor]

IT IS EASY 

10 k wind + 10 k hull speed = 20 apparent wind

20 apparent w gets the hull out of waters ' induced drag ' 

Then you get 15 k ' boat speed .

Which get you w25 k Apparent wind speed .ect ect .

Sailing directly into the wind ,! 

See ' one ' above , 10 k from N sail ' NNE  to gain maximum Sailing speed  then tack to NNW ,which has moved the ' apparent ' wind , so now Sailing to a different wind to which you started

As the new boats are travelling at true w speed 10,  & apparent wind is25 k 

Someone had better take over as I'm ' sinking ' in maths ! LoL .

ps the easy way to ' sail ' into wind is a " rotary sail  " looks like a ' fat mast ' .

spacesailor

[nomadpete]

The easy way to sail to windward is to use the iron Genoa.

[nomadpete]

Nev, I sailed a lot on Lake Macquarie in the 70's. Were you aren't there back then?

[willedoo]

I found the tricky bit with getting used to a catamaran was going about. If you try to do it like a mono hull, the twin hulls stall out like a big handbrake. Sailing around in an arc works. I had a Caper Cat once and tried it out in the local river, but it wasn't much fun as the river just wasn't wide enough. More suited to dinghy sailing.

[willedoo]

A book I once read about Clipper ships described the dangers for Clippers when pointing high into the wind combined with high winds and swell. A normal ship could fall back off the wind safely, but if a Clipper did that in bad conditions, the length and lack of draught could knock them over and drive them under. The book said many an inexperienced skipper had come to grief in that situation. Apparently the done thing for a Clipper in that case was to point even higher into the wind until the sails stalled. Then they could reduce sail and recover.

 

The book listed a lot of the legs sailed by Clipper ships from Cape Town to Australia and the speeds were amazing. 22 knots was the speed record set by the Sovereign of the Seas. They were very slick in the water. It was said of the Thermopylae that it could make way with such a light wind that a man could walk around the deck with a lighted candle while the ship was moving.

[spacesailor]

But  , if you travel at the same speed as the wind,  ( down-wind ) , then you would feel No wind at all. Then your sails Will run out of puff.

22 k ship travelling in 45 k wind speed , down to 33 knots of wind speed .

spacesailor

 

[facthunter]

Nomad I was there late 50's till 65, right opposite the Rathmines ramp. Saw a lot of flying boats go in and out and PJTayors Plane being prepared for the run to Chile.   Nev

[nomadpete]

Looks like I missed you by a decade. I discovered Rathmines just after it was demolished. Lived down the other end of the lake at Gwandalan. Used to be good fishing and crabbing but I wouldn't  eat anything out of the lake now.

[spacesailor]

But 

It is SO hard to get into when ' sailing the coast .

If the ' bridge ' mooring bouy doesn't entangle you , then your guaranteed to run aground..

spacesailor

[Litespeed]

Ah, the wonders to surprise a sailor on the East coast- the ship wreck coast.

 

Here at Port Stephens, the heads look tame and suitable but when the massive volume of water from the huge system for tidal movement and wind disagree, it gets exciting. ☠️🥳🫡🤮.

 

Having cruised out to discover calm turning to cavernous 20ft drops over the swell, much swearing was heard. The carefully secured crockery, and hot coffee became missiles inside the cabin.   

 

I love the fun, but in hindsight my brother didn't appreciate my hysterical laughter.

 

All the good and bad pilots look for in the sky, its all there waiting. 

Unlike flying, catching local wildlife on water is a bonus, it's called fishing.

Catching crabs is always exciting at first. But fishers get to eat them with a partner. Pilots get to report to the medical clinic and ring the hostesses.

 

When I fish  🎏 seeing wildlife, gives me a warm inner glow.

And the potential fresh meal.

When I fly and see wildlife Infront of me, my chest tightens, my balls freeze solid and remember I forgot the parachute.

You eat them, rather than  explain the huge whole in the windscreen and mayday call.

 Much easier to clean blood from filleting on the deck than the cockpit.

 

But the sea whilst a sexy siren, will fuck you up if you turn your back and ignore her.

 

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

6 hours ago, Litespeed said:

Unlike flying, catching local wildlife on water is a bonus, it's called fishing.

And, I can't wait to get back to Australia to do some fishing. Last week, I tried fresh local fish direct from the trawler and by jeepers was it much better than the supermarket stuff (we don't seem to get the Asian stuff here). 

 

Problem here is I can't see myself bobbing around on a tinny in the feeding cold to get a couple of mackerel.. 

[facthunter]

  Fishing is an excuse to do very little. The best way to use your bait money is buy fresh fish at the Local Fish co-op where you are guaranteed to get something. I love boats, but my wife can get seasick in a bathtub.   Swansea channel is sandy and the heads at Port Stephens can be challenging it there's been a low offshore which will cause a large swell from a long distance. They reckoned during the second World war that the entire US Navy Fleet could  fit into Port Stephens. There were Great Plans for the area at one time. There's a museum on south Head well worth a morning to visit. Lot of History there.  Nev

[onetrack]

When I lived in the wheatbelt, the W.A. Water Supply had a depot in town, with about 25 employees. A group of the employees were keen boating blokes and they had friend in Geraldton with a 55 foot (16.75M) crayboat.

One year, they took their annual holidays together in Geraldton and they all wanted to go out on the crayboat to pull craypots. So, this particular afternoon, they all piled on and the Skipper set off to go about 50kms out to where he'd set his pots.

The Water Supply blokes were scattered around the boat and two of them decided to stand right up front, hanging over the prow. It was about 4:00PM when they took off - and they took off into worsening weather. The forecast said it was going to be a bit rough, but it would be O.K., said the Skipper.

The swell was heavy as they got further out, and the waves got bigger as they ran into a strengthening WSW wind, from a cold front that was just slipping past the SW corner of W.A.

 

All of a sudden, the blokes told me later, the crayboat "fell into a huge trough" - and then went directly up against a massive wave that appeared out of nowhere.

The blokes reckoned that as the crayboat nearly stood on end, they estimated there was nearly as much water height above them, as the boat was long!!

 

The massive wave broke over the crayboat, nearly washed the blokes off the prow (who were hanging on for grim death), it smashed a couple of wheelhouse windows and swept some gear off the deck.

The experience frightened all the Water Supply blokes badly, and they all recognised they'd had a narrow escape from a capsized boat after being hit by a king wave - purely because they'd hit it, directly head on.

 

The open ocean is not for sissies. I can recall the Antarctic expeditioners in the Aurora Australis icebreaker measuring waves in the lower Southern Ocean, that reached 20M in height.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_wave

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rogue_waves

 

Edited December 4, 2023 by onetrack

[facthunter]

BASS Strait can be unpredictable it averages only 200 feet depth and the swells come from several directions and large distances, sometimes producing giant freak waves.  OFF SW of WA there's strong wind s south of there  and not much landmass to soften them.. Nev

[Litespeed]

Sometimes I buy fish but prefer to catch it.

 

Catching a large Dhu fish is a wild time.

[facthunter]

My Uncle caught a 76 Pounder near Dudley Beach. With it's head over his shoulder it's tail dragged on the ground. Nev

[spacesailor]

I didn't know your uncle was So Short . LoL

spacesailor

[facthunter]

He wasn't by the standards  of the day. Fish are a bit thinner than people.  Nev