[GeorgeB]

Forgive me, but I do not have the ISAF book here at work so I can’t quote, but I think the intent is to measure the total volume of water in the cockpit before draining. So it should be the lowest coaming except for the bridge deck before the companionway. What boat do you have? My Catalina passed ISAF Ocean 2, but I have a sugar scoop stern. My bridge deck/companionway threshold had to be at least as high as my cockpit seats which I achieved by fixed mounting my lower hatch board in place. In the for what it’s worth department, I’ve been pooped twice (once severely) and in retrospect, it wasn’t so bad as none of us got flushed out. I was surprised how quickly we drained once the stern got out of the wave. We did have the hatch boards in place and the slider closed so we had the minimal amount of downflooding.

 

[GeorgeB]

The point of the ISAR regulations is to keep everybody alive. 95 cubic feet equates to some three tons of water holding the boat down. That is almost half of my boats total displacement! And all that water has to drain down two one inch drain lines before the next wave hits. I am curious on what race jgsteven is entered? On the west coast the only Cat 1 races I know of are Vic-Maui, Pacific Cup, Transpac and Los Angles-Tahiti. With the loss of Daisy and Pterodactyl last year, our local Coast Guard is forcing our OYRA and SSS to adapt Cat 2 as a requirement. Fortunately they have waived some of the more onerous requirements. To put things into perspective the Vendee Globe boats are all Cat 0.

 

[GeorgeB]

Pac Cup is a great race. I did it this last year on Music, a Nordic 44. At just about the half way point we passed Le Flying Fish, a Moore 24 doing it double handed. Kind of bizarre passing such a little boat 1,200 NM from land. We’re over on Alameda, what is the name and make of your boat? I was involved on Music’s campaign from the ground up and it took quite some work to bring her from Cat 2 to 1 (she is a veteran of the Van Isle 360 and several Swiftsure races). Rework your cockpit measurements – has any boats of your model done the race before? My advice is start early – We didn’t have any deal breakers, but man, there was a thousand and one items on our punch list, all of them time consuming. The inspections process is quite thorough and no grey areas so, you need to have any waivers in hand before the inspections. We did have to go the extra mile to prove the emergency rudder from Scanmar was effective with the Nordic’s skeg hung rudder. (Apparently it failed on a Passport 40). Insurance was also tough and we had to have the boat inspected by a surveyor with an additional set of requirements. Keep this dialog going.