A little choppy today

Beautiful photos. Whenever I see the ocean behaving this way I wonder what kind of shape it would leave the average yacht in.

...thus spoke Zarathustra!

Any predictions about how well my favorite, the Broward 120, might (have) fare (ed) in this?

Sorry carlnisbet, but those pics looked pretty familiar.

Those pics were posted at the link below about a month back, if you look at the last post of the page you'll see that your not the first to post them with suspect details.

http://www.yachtforums.com/forums/general-yachting-discussion/6278-lake-superior-november.html

Still, very impressive pics.

Well I don’t think any normal yacht would survive, regarding a Broward. I was on a 118' Broward going from New Port RI to Stuart Florida when we were hit by a tail end of a hurricane and I thought that we were not going to make it through the night. We couldn’t go into safe harbour as the waves were too big. The next morning we went into St Mary’s just on the border of Georgia and Florida and stayed there until calm weather arrived.

What freeboard.....?! Yikes !

No matter how big we will build it - it serves to remember
- that Mother Nature can make something, much bigger still.

Maybe the biggest inherent safety factor for yachts - is that
they have flexible arrival times and can wait out a storm ?

could reverie or queen m?

surnive the conditions shown in these pictures? would an experienced captain and crew make the difference between survival or not?

I don't want to get into which company builds a better yacht for these conditions. But a well built well maintained vessel could survive these conditions, maybe better than a larger ship, more uncomfortable. I guess you could equate it to the bigger they are the harder they fall.

its not a coal "barge", its a gearless bulk carrier. i would rather be on that than a yacht in those conditions. that i might live to post the pics........

container vessels suffer badly in heavy weather......

I'm by no means suggesting that any vessel, private yacht or commercial carrier should go looking for foul weather. Weather can change and does without warning, every now and then. The best laid plans etcetera, etcetera.
I would think that a yacht would be built so that it can deal with the nasty stuff reasonably well. Not referring to a yacht in the smaller categories that are designed for close to shore, but more to those that are built with transoceanic range in the first place.

its not only whether a yacht would be of good design to survive extreme conditions, it is possible for a master to place the vessel in non optimal position relative to the waves, to make a bad decision. still it is worrying to see some private yachts with just the minimal safety equipment. in the bad situations i would prefer to be on a solas yacht.

and.....the weather reporting can often be incorrect.

I agree with you Codger. If I go out with a yacht, I make sure it can withstand every weather situation we can meet on that specific water. Of course I would try to avoid the worst weather by going the best time and route possible.

And I would ignore all ideas from the owner on ETA:s and routing if the weather makes it dangerous. I have seen several incidents caused by silly owners, who later put the captain to blame...

Just as an example. If I were to take Anemone from Ascension Island to Reykjavik in March and the forecasts were good but we got hit with a quick blast and 21 metre waves at the southern edge of the gulfstream, would the vessel handle it? I've seen the unexpected, not forecasted, happen off the east coast of Canada often enough, to want to be prepared for it in the first place.

AMG
If an owner ignores or overrides the advice of his captain then the owner is an idiot. You don't pay people for their expertise and then ignore it unless you didn't do the due diligence in the first place and hired the wrong person for the job. Either way it's the owner that made the error.

With Anemone, you will probably see the forward sat-dome disappear so it better be the TV than the Satcom. That´s all.

The problem with such owners are that they are used to be on top of all decisions, so as a captain you should have such demands in writing and perhaps also check with the insurance underwriter before accepting....

Then apply for a new job.

Ah Ha! So Anemone has already been tested and lost the forward sat dome.
http://www.yachtforums.com/forums/11825-post14.html

Doesn't look like any other damage.

No, I had it tested on a 54 meter Benetti some years ago...