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series drogue or para anchor?

11K views 48 replies 16 participants last post by  Melrna 
#1 ·
I plan on a first time crossing the Atlantic from East to West, northern Florida to Bermuda to Azores to Europe starting in late May, early June. I have a Hallberg Rassy 352 and would like advice on good sails to have for the trip as well as recommendations on a series drogue or a para anchor. Any other "must haves" would be welcome too.
 
#2 ·
I have a parachute sea anchor but wish I had series drogues since you are much more likely to be in the conditions where you might use them (say 40 to 50 knots). The parachute system seems more helpful in conditions above 50 knots sustained which you are highly unlikely to get on your trip.

Do you have an inner stay on your boat that you can use for a small staysail or storm jib? Also backup for your self-steering makes a great deal of sense. Hand steering for days with a small crew really sucks. Don't ask how I know.
 
#5 ·
The drogues and sea anchors are used differently. The drogue goes off the stern to slow you down, the sea anchor goes off the bow to keep your bow into the seas / winds. The HR could use either.

I would not use a drogue on a boat that was easily pooped.
 
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#6 ·
I have a sea anchor which I hope remains right where it is underneath a lot of stuff in a locker. I guess the best option is to have both. There was a study, I believe by the USN (could be wrong) that weighed in on the side of drogues but to me putting the stern of a boat to the sea is WAY counter intuitive. A good book is The Pardy's Storm Tactics has lots of good information on using a sea anchor.
 
#7 · (Edited)
It took me a LONG time to become a believer in the JSD for that very reason (stern-to waves seems wrong). I'd read the Pardy book as well and saw the "common sense" in the bow-to approach.

However, after lots of research, and especially after reading Hal Roth's "Handling Storms at Sea", a more recent heavy weather book than the Pardy's, with its very meticulous comparison of the various tactics...I became a believer.

I also agree with Jack above on the issue of how your boat is set up to handle a boarding wave. Ours is pretty well set up to deal with such an occurrence (relatively small and shallow cockpit, top-down companionway entry - not vertical with large hatchboards, pretty good drains, etc.) - to a degree of course.

Anyway, all this is certainly hypothetical for me. And I hope it stays that way. But I definitely trust Hal Roth's take. So the JSD for me.
 
#8 ·
Any parachute or drogue works better from the stern. It eliminates rudder damage, by the boat backing down on the rudder. Be careful when you buy a parachute. Mine looked shiny, like nylon ,so I assumed it was. Turned out to be cotton, and lasted an hour and a half before it shredded.
Now I use a galerider type , which I made out of car seat belts, using a big mooring ball as a mold. Friends had good results in the Queens Birthday storm off New Zealand with one. They found it worked best 80 feet behind their boat, which eliminates the need for a huge amount of rode.
You can eliminate chafe by using chain for the first few feet of rode , til it clears your transom. Running it off one quarter eliminates the roll when the wind lightens , but the swell remains. It is a lot easier to set and recover that way as well.
 
#9 ·
Brent - would you run a stern mounted drogue on Derek Hatfield's boat?



I will admit the potential rudder damage is a huge downside to sea anchors.
 
#14 ·
Having used both in weather that actually requires it, over 60 knots in most cases, I would never use a sea anchor again. I was constantly worried about damaging my rudder as mentioned above.
Towing a drogue also has it's own problems. Though I have not had this happen to me, I have met people who have had their drogues end up in their rigging, which must be a real pain in the a**.
Alternately, I have had a drogue slow me to the point that I was constantly being pooped, filling the cockpit frequently. In the end, the only solution was to cut the thing free and allow the boat to sail unrestricted under bare poles. It is a tremendous amount of work to steer in those conditions, at times surfing across the face of the waves at ridiculous speeds, then pointing the bow directly down wind to allow the white water to pass underneath as it overtakes you.
But if I can keep the boat under control, I feel I am much safer than hampering her with a drogue, so I no longer keep either aboard. Should I ever (Neptune forbid) get into a situation where I feel I should drag something to slow me down, I can see no reason why one or two of my 6 anchors with 30 or so feet of chain, on a long anchor rode, would not do the trick.
 
#16 ·
In the end, the only solution was to cut the thing free and allow the boat to sail unrestricted under bare poles. It is a tremendous amount of work to steer in those conditions, at times surfing across the face of the waves at ridiculous speeds, then pointing the bow directly down wind to allow the white water to pass underneath as it overtakes you.

But if I can keep the boat under control, I feel I am much safer than hampering her with a drogue, so I no longer keep either aboard. Should I ever (Neptune forbid) get into a situation where I feel I should drag something to slow me down, I can see no reason why one or two of my 6 anchors with 30 or so feet of chain, on a long anchor rode, would not do the trick.
The problem with controlling the situation you describe is that you have to be able to see what you're doing. Mostly when the weather is such that you need a drogue, it is heavily clouded too and then the inevitable happens - the sun sets and it gets real dark.

We had this and in the dead of night we saw huge areas of white water overtaking us on both sides - we were sailing downwind under bare poles and doing 7 to 9 knots. When the boat surfed for the first time in pitch black conditions down what felt like a huge wave with a 10 ft wall of white water chasing us from behind, I knew that whatever else I do in my life, I never want to do that again. When it got light the next morning it was confirmed that the waves around us were 35 to 40 feet and randomly breaking. Nobody chooses to surf that in a 40ft cruising boat - unless you're stark raving mad.

And I don't get the fear of being pooped. So a flood of white water washes over the boat. As long as the boat doesn't accelerate down the rest of the wave and your wash boards are in place and strong, I don't have a huge problem with that. Having said that, I don't really ever want those big patio doors commonly found on ocean going cats these days.
 
#19 ·
smackdaddy; I've sailed several boats through some pretty extreme storms;
a 46' British built timber yawl, a 65' Wm. Hand gaff ketch (1909), both aft cockpit boats. The gaffer had a much larger stern than the British boat which had a very fine stern and bow, but neither handled well with the drogue out. After releasing the drogue both rose much more quickly to the seas and shipped less water, though the steering of both vessels was still very hard work and extremely tiring. A third boat in an Atlantic storm was a Brown, 37' Searunner tri, and on that, the drogue specifically recommended by Brown, would not allow the boat to go fast enough to safely keep her on the face of the waves when needed. That was a wild ride for 22 hours, but we had no problems after we cast off the drogue.
Omatako,
"The problem with controlling the situation you describe is that you have to be able to see what you're doing. Mostly when the weather is such that you need a drogue, it is heavily clouded too and then the inevitable happens - the sun sets and it gets real dark."
I found that even in the dark, the white water was quite visible, though, quite honestly, 90% of the steering was done by feel, after the first few hours. The stern would lift as the waves approached and I would set her to race across the face, much as a surfer would, then as the whitewater caught up with us it was necessary to put her stern directly into the approaching water (which I could certainly hear, if not see) and slow the boat and let the wave pass under us. Though the noise was terrible, I welcomed the dark, because seeing those waves was a truly terrifying site at times.
I don't know if you've ever had a huge wave mount a boat in heavy weather, but for me the boat became completely unmanageable with several (hundred?) tons of water washing over the stern and filling the cockpit. It doesn't matter how big your cockpit drains are, they are never large enough to rid the boat of the extra weight quickly enough to allow her to rise for the next wave. But if the stern did rise, with all that water rushing forward, I was sincerely worried that she would pitch pole, one experience I dread. Read "Once is Enough" by Miles Smeeton, a book that saved our lives when we were capsized three times in a hurricane (cyclone, if you insist) in the SoPac.
I guess it's different with every boat. I shudder when I see these boats with no transoms or the ones with the huge scoops and stairs on the stern, which in my estimation are an invite for the waves to mount the boat.
I hope never to go through that sort of experience again, because it was very frightening and exhausting. But at least I know that the boats I chose to sail in the past and the boat we are sailing now can take whatever Neptune chooses throw at us and we did and will survive, without asking others to risk their lives to save us. Perhaps that sounds a bit cocky, but at a certain point I have to have that confidence or I'd better stop voyaging.
 
#25 ·
I found that even in the dark, the white water was quite visible, though, quite honestly, 90% of the steering was done by feel, after the first few hours. The stern would lift as the waves approached and I would set her to race across the face, much as a surfer would, then as the whitewater caught up with us it was necessary to put her stern directly into the approaching water (which I could certainly hear, if not see) and slow the boat and let the wave pass under us. Though the noise was terrible, I welcomed the dark, because seeing those waves was a truly terrifying site at times.
With respect, you're either very brave, have really low survival instinct or have a real slow boat. At between 7 and 9 knots downwind with a 30ft following sea, I don't need white water to get my boat surfing - the boat takes off. And when there is no white water, you don't have any idea when that is going to happen. Until you're doing 15 knots into the trough. No thanks, not for me.

I don't know if you've ever had a huge wave mount a boat in heavy weather, but for me the boat became completely unmanageable with several (hundred?) tons of water washing over the stern and filling the cockpit. It doesn't matter how big your cockpit drains are, they are never large enough to rid the boat of the extra weight quickly enough to allow her to rise for the next wave.
Score 1 for centre cockpit. Oh and a cockpit is generally not more than about 4 cubic metres in volume which is less than 4 tons. And if my cockpit drains can't cope with that then in New Zealand I would not get a Cat 1 cruising clearance - they wouldn't let me leave.

I agree with some others - going to sea without some form of slowing the boat is very risky - storms can last for days and unless you have another very clever/good helmsman aboard, you can't take that sort of punishment for days on your own. If I asked my wife to "surf the boat along the wave and then turn it down just before the white water hits", I'd get a huge middle finger - nothing more.
 
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#20 ·
The biggest issue with a sea anchor would seem to be the many variables in getting it set and working as it should. Getting it positioned in the right wave set, getting a snatch block to sit in the right place to keep the boat quartered, just getting it over the side without fouling in heavy weather would be a challenge. The deployment of a sea anchor presents many more potential problems than a drogue. Also, being that this is not a routine procedure means that you will not practice using a sea anchor to the extent whereby you really feel confident in the procedure. I have a laminated sheet of deployment procedure right in the bag with it :
Deploy Sea Anchor

Check weather, ready all below decks before storm.
Link lines, sea anchor.
Buoy on trip line.
Put snatch block on pennant line.
Chafe gear ready.
All up to cockpit.
Up on deck clipped in.
Heave-to.
Wrap pennant on winch to length, cleat.
To bow on windward side, bring :
Bitter end- cleat on 2 cleats (outside lifelines).
Tie off at approx. half the line (150')
Back to Cockpit
Ready main rig to go over.
Rode ready to uncoil freely.
Trip line/float unclipped and free to pull chute.
Launch over rail to windward. Wait for chute.
To bow with snatch block and pennant chafe gear.
Snatch block on anchor line
Set chute in 2nd wave crest.
Chafe gear on rode.
Adjust pennant, sails, and rudder to stay in slick.
Check hourly, adjust periodically to avoid chafe.

Probably the most important part of this is in doing it well before conditions get too bad.

I have also sewn up a seat belt drogue which I have yet to try.
 

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#24 ·
Singlehanders don't have the option of steering thru a gale. A drogue is our only option.
With my airtight aluminium door , steel shell, stern drogue and small cockpit, I have no worries about being pooped, however many times it takes to get thru a gale. With my foam earplugs in ( a very handy tool for getting thru the stress of a gale) I will sleep comfortably thru it. My bunk has a canvas safety blanket, which makes it impossible for me to get thrown from it , even in a rollover.
 
#27 ·
The issue with a large number of square feet being exposed on a stern is not so much that it may have more buoyancy than a double-ender or a traditional overhung boat. It's that when a BREAKING wave crest smashes into all that surface area, it will displace it somewhere. Either the boat will move sideways and broach or move forward down the face of the wave and possibly cause a pitchpole as the bow, with less buoyancy, digs in and buries. There's a good reason double-enders have long been the choice of offshore sailors.
 
#31 ·
The issue with a large number of square feet being exposed on a stern is not so much that it may have more buoyancy than a double-ender or a traditional overhung boat. It's that when a BREAKING wave crest smashes into all that surface area, it will displace it somewhere. Either the boat will move sideways and broach or move forward down the face of the wave and possibly cause a pitchpole as the bow, with less buoyancy, digs in and buries. There's a good reason double-enders have long been the choice of offshore sailors.
There's good reason double-enders USED TO BE the choice of SOME offshore sailors...

Amended, to reflect contemporary reality :)

Evans Starzinger, Webb Chiles, Jimmy Cornell, and John Neal have about a dozen circumnavigations, and probably close to a million bluewater miles, between them.... And, as best as I can tell, not so much as a single one of them in double-ended boats...







 
#33 ·
True canoe stern hulls are an older idea but there are still plenty of them around. They used to be and still are the choice of many long distance sailors regardless of what a few "name brand" sailors may use. They have advantages and disadvantages. Actually, the boats in your pictures are very close to being double-ended as are boats with overhangs. The main advantage is to allow a following sea to slip by in the same manner the bow lets water slip by with minimum alteration in direction. The stern buoyancy theory is probably true to a point but once breaking waves get high enough to hit all that glass, the stern will get pushed around more than in a boat with less exposed surface area. That doesn't seem like rocket science.
 
#34 ·
Actually, the boats in your pictures are very close to being double-ended as are boats with overhangs.
Not trying to be argumentative, but I'm not sure many people would consider Cornell's Ovni, or Beth & Evans' Samoa, as "close to being double-ended"... :)





True canoe stern hulls are an older idea but there are still plenty of them around. They used to be and still are the choice of many long distance sailors regardless of what a few "name brand" sailors may use. They have advantages and disadvantages. Actually, the boats in your pictures are very close to being double-ended as are boats with overhangs. The main advantage is to allow a following sea to slip by in the same manner the bow lets water slip by with minimum alteration in direction. The stern buoyancy theory is probably true to a point but once breaking waves get high enough to hit all that glass, the stern will get pushed around more than in a boat with less exposed surface area. That doesn't seem like rocket science.
You're right, of course, there are still some voyagers out there sailing double-ended boats (Eric Forsyth is among the most prominent that comes to my mind), but I think their numbers continue to diminish... With the demise of Valiant, I can't think of a production builder that continues to produce double-enders. (Pacific Seacraft technically might qualify, if they were actually still building boats in any numbers)...

I have a bit of experience with double-ended/canoe stern boats, one of my all-time favorites was the Alden 38 SEAFLOWER which I ran between Maine and Florida numerous times:



But much of my time offshore has been with the Valiant 42, an absolutely wonderful all-around boat...However, when confronted with a breaking sea of a height sufficient to break against a transom, those boats are just as vulnerable to being pooped as any comparably sized yacht with a reverse transom... And, one of the primary purposes of a drogue, in addition to limiting speed, is to inhibit the stern from being "pushed around" by a potential wave strike...

 
#35 ·
I guess what I'm trying to get at is that if a hull is viewed from the bottom, it seems like most of the boats that have proven records of long distance voyaging have a pointed entry both bow and stern even though not identified as double-enders. Even the narrow CCA era overhung boats like my old A35 "split" the water dissipating the wave energy on both ends. It's definitely true that there are fewer and fewer true double-enders around but it's usually apparent that they actually voyage somewhere rather than sitting tied to docks with a canvas tent over the cockpit.
 
#36 ·
One reason that we may not be seeing many double-enders and vessels of a similar ilk is that very few sailors actually go off-shore. I read an interview with a Hunter rep who put the number at 3%. "The demands of the market" would definitely favour lighter, roomier boats with large easily accessible cockpits.
 
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#41 ·
Hello all

A question about using Amstel. It is my understanding that 3 strand or braid is used for the JSD because it stretches, adding to the dampening effect. Amstel doesn't stretch, is this a negative? I have zero experience with the JSD and like the idea of using amstel, just curious about it's effect on the JSD functionality.

John
 
#42 ·
That's the beauty of the series drogue, not being a single-point drogue, it doesn't rely on stretch in the rode to achieve its 'bungee effect'...

The extreme cyclic loads on the rode of a drogue could present problems for nylon, as well. As Evans Starzinger explains:

The primary reason such a high percentage of para-anchor rodes break in actual use (perhaps 80% of para-anchors deployed in extreme conditions have broken their rodes) is nylon's extreme vulnerability to chafe and internal heat damage. The US Coast Guard and New England Ropes both have extensive experience with nylon failure due to internal heat generated by cyclic loading and recommend Dacron as a better alternative for a para-anchor application. Dacron, while not as stretchy as nylon, is an excellent shock absorber in these 100-600' lengths. However, from a practical standpoint, most people do not have a dedicated rode for their para-anchor and use a spare anchor rode, which is typically nylon. But we must all be aware that nylon has proven to be very vulnerable to failure in this application.

Seamanship FAQ.
Many voyagers are using Spectra for their series drogues. Steve Dashew uses Amsteel for his on WINDHORSE:

http://www.para-anchor.com/reports/dashew.smith.pdf



In addition to Amsteel being so much lighter and more easily stowed, and being FAR easier to splice than a double braid, is the utility of such a drogue being pressed into service as a shore line. As such, the fact that Amsteel floats is highly beneficial for such a purpose...
 
#46 ·
On many modern boats with a fin keel and spade rudder, heaving-to will tend to result in being beam on to waves. That is a invitation to a slam. Full keel boats tend to heave-to with the bow up at an angle into the waves.
 
#49 ·
This is a great video about storm tactics, how to deploy a sea anchor in real situation and why you should use one.

You all want evidence, well here it is and the references. I have read, seen and own most of the references.
 
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