Quote:
Originally Posted by Giulietta
Please, allow me to show you something...
Photo's deleted by Chuckles 
As for refrences as to this being true or not....just ask ChucklesR, how this boat heaves to in 6 to 8 foot swells, and 25knot winds...he witnessed it...heave to in less than 5 seconds...and he actually posted about that here, but I don't know where... |
I'll confirm that.
For those that don't know Giulietta is a custom DC1200, 12 meter, hull speed about 9.3knts - we were on plane as near as I can figure most of the day, including the 8 times we broached. In the video Alex has posted that has Mary driving the speedo shows 8.3 kts, I think the wind was about 10kts at that time (early morning, just leaving port).
While coming up on the port entry after a day of serious sailing in 25kts or so of whine, I mean wind, with full main and
jib flying we had to do a heave to, and haul around a ocean freighter that had right of way by weight. The freighter was to starboard and about 500 yards away, photo's available somewhere for those that require a visual.
At the time swells were running 6-8 as Alex describes and we were making about 10 knts or better. I was slightly occupied holding on to some bit of boat, Alex was driving.
Basically, he tacked with out releasing the
jib, let out the main a tad and we stopped as if with brakes. We held position for about 5 minutes, he tightened the main up and tacked it back and we were making 10 knts again around the stern of the freighter.
That little heave to and restart made our course a little closer to the wind than it had been going through the sea wall so we went in screaming at 12 plus knts and a serious BFS qualifying 40 or so degrees of heel. I was literally standing behind the twin wheels on the normally vertical side of the walk through to the swim platform as if it was part of the deck.
We cleared the sea wall doing 12kts at which point Alex cranked on the motor told me to take the wheel and to put her into the wind while he dropped sail.
Mind you we were doing 12 knts in typically packed working (fishing and freight) European harbor.
I pointed up, Leadhead (Alex's racing crew -bowman, also named Alex) furled the jib, and Alex dropped the main in about 30 seconds - all told we went 300 yards between passing the helm and doing a 270 degree turn with sails down and motor idling us along at 5 kts in the harbor. Alex spotted an empty slip and nosed us in.
Smart little bit of seamanship to end the day.
Later we found out the regatta planned for that day from that port had been canceled due to high winds.