Rough Condition Boating

Double the mooring lines and hit the pub.

Catamarans:

Bow, stern, and springlines well secured, oh, and some fenders

50' submarine

Catamarans, are you talking about at the dock, underway coastal, or at sea?? Boat intended for cruising the Bahamas and Caribbean or high latitudes or do you already have the boat?

Dave

You might want to leave your boat at home and take your board...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ol7XJJlz9E&feature=Favorites&page=2&t=t&f=b

Carl, I saw that surf thing on TV sometime ago. They were on the north coast of Hawaii, the beach was closed due to a storm, and these, purportedly, were the largest waves ever surfed.

Catamarans, I have some very good news for you. Go to your local purveyor of books and dig up "Heavy Weather Sailing" by Adler Coles. Like me, it's sort of old and was written just after WWII. A classic! You can vicariously experience the many ordeals of some real yachtsmen who raced in places like the Irish Sea and the Bay of Biscay and get all kinds of good advice as to what sort of "set-ups" work.

BTW, you'll be pleased to know that the worst of the seas were a lot less than the 30 ft. you mention.

Catamarans,
Open ocean with 15 to 30 foot seas in a 40 - 50 foot boat...
Full keel, double ended ketch, something along the lines of Atkins designs. Most likely steel if you are heading to ice areas. In that size range, no power boat, no multihulls for high latitude cruising.

Been there, done that, got the puke stained T-shirt. No need to do it again!

Good luck
Dave


PS Better idea, get a good weather service, Ocean Marine Navigation and avoid the 30 footers

Dave's advice should be heeded, Catamarans, so you might want to know the Three Stages of Seasickness:

1) You think you're gonna die
2) You know you're gonna die
3) You're afraid... that you won't die!

what I say

What I always tell my guests and crew about sea sick is that there are two types of people. Those who get sea sick and those who haven't been sea sick........ yet.

But that doesn't seem to help the owners wife. She is very intimate with the day head.
BTW: We hadn't even made it out of government cut and she was sick!!! She gets it bad!!!!

Speaking of sea heaves, I wonder if there is a double edged sword here? In that the favorite choice for heavy seas is often a trawler, right? But they roll more than the other types, so expect more sea sickness?

Ok, the mind wandered,
green Kelly

Green Kelly:

Yes, you'd think that those slack-bilged trawlers would roll like nobody's business, so that's why you'll find virtually all of them are actively stabilized.
And, if they don't run in a beam sea like they're on rails, probably the fins aren't big enough.
Properly set up, the complaints then seem to come more from the pitching motion and that, I believe, is why you see more and more bulbous bows even on smaller trawlers-- to dampen pitching, not for any gains in hull efficiency.

agree

agree entirely

I've never had anyone sick on a beam sea before, only a heading sea. All except one lazy engineer but thats another story!!

Trawlers are the power boating choice for rough weather because of the full displacement design. Many of the newer designed trawlers have firm bilges and of course all are stabilized (either active or passive).
A full displacement yacht doesn't need to look like a trawler to have good sea-keeping qualities.

Dave