by littlebear » Fri Jun 14, 2013 10:32 pm
All,
As I mentioned in another post, I can offer some first hand experience here that may prove useful to others as to what happens when you push a Falcon just a little too far. Yes, unfortunately, I am "that guy"...
I've owned my boat, Beetle # 176 since the spring of 1983 when I was a junior in college. (Those of you doing the mental math, please be kind) In those days, my sister, my (now) brother in law and I would sail under just about any conditions that Lake Winnipesaukee would offer. I can remember sitting on the side of the gunnel holding the tiller hiking stick many times. We'd just storm along and have a blast. Fast forward a number of years, a wife, homeownership, a couple of (great) kids, a few pounds, well you get the picture. I restored the boat in 2005 after too many years of sitting, pictures of that effort can be seen under the roll call section. I really enjoyed getting back into sailing after so many years off, however the biggest change was I was almost always out by myself. I made some changes to the jib rigging (fairleads and some cam cleats) to make it a little easier to handle by myself but the mainsail rigging was unchanged.
As we all know, the Falcon has a pretty big main for a 16 foot boat and mine doesn't have any provisions for reefing when it gets gusty. As Dave pointed out, it's pretty easy to just let the main out and that along with the end of the boom rising up usually keeps things from getting too sporty. Failing this, the rudder will tend to lose grip and the boat will luff up on it's own. Well, almost always.
At the time (2008), I still had the original main rigging where the sheet runs along the boom, down through two blocks on the rear deck and then back up to the boom. (I was told this is called a"Crosby" rig by a gentleman at Cape Cod Shipbuilding) This allows the the end of the boom to rise if a puff hits, however there is one potentially nasty side effect. Occasionally when coming about, some of the slack sheet lying on the rear deck will get fouled on the rudder and prevent you from being able to let the main out. I'd always been able to just reach back and flip it up over the rudder and prevent anything more from happening, until the one time I couldn't.
I was sailing later in the season (for us) probably the second weekend in September. We tend to get strong N /NW winds that time of year and adding to that the passages between the islands can tend to funnel and increase the wind speed. I was about a half mile from our island house and had just tacked through a fairly narrow opening between the island and the mainland. It was breezy but I hadn't felt like the boat was out of control and I was smugly thinking I was just as good as when I was a kid in college. At just about this point and just after I had tacked, I got hit by an absolute hammer of a gust. The boat was heeled 90 degrees in a split second, the rudder was out of the water and water was pouring into the cockpit. As I looked back at the rudder, you guessed it, the sheet was fouled. I decided to not make a bad day worse and jumped into the water and got clear of the rigging, etc. I really didn't know if the boat would stay afloat. Two things in my favor were that the water was still around 72F and I was wearing my life jacket.
As the mast filled with water, the boat turned turtle and eventually settled floating upside down, bow high. My bow air tank is intact and I added foam floatation under the the seats and back deck as part of my restoration work. After a couple of minutes I was somewhat confident that my old friend was not going to the bottom. One of my neighbors had seen me go over and was on scene with help within a few minutes. We got the boat to the beach and got the sails down. Once I could lift the mast up and drain it, righting and bailing the boat was a fairly straight forward job. After this incident, I modified the main so I have a center of the boom block down to a a Harken swivel / cam cleat just aft of the center board. This has worked out quite well and I know it can't foul on the rudder again. I'll post some pictures of my rigging set up soon under the rigging section.
So, some advise to others. First, if your bow air tank is not intact or if you've removed it, you should really consider restoring it. My boat would have gone down like a rock without that reserve of buoyancy. Second, consider adding additional flotation where you can, it certainly didn't hurt in my case. Finally, wear your life jacket. I'm still in decent shape, a good swimmer and the water was pretty warm. I was in the water for around 45 minutes getting the boat to shore and then working afterwards to bail the boat. I was absolutely exhausted afterwards, a very humbling experience. If I'd been treading water, things would not have been good. I was very lucky that I was close to shore and had help. If I'd been in the open lake, who knows if the boat would have made it. OK, that's enough honesty for now, I'll add some more information as soon as I can.
Falcon # 176 "True Luff" (1960's) "Raptor" (1983- present)